Hakone Half-Day

Our one-year anniversary happened to fall on a Sunday...we were scheduled to take a tour through the Base - peach-picking and wine-tasting. While we both were hankering after sweet, seasonal Japanese peaches - the base tours involve 3-6 hours of sitting on a bus (each direction)...and only about 2-3 hours of "tour". We decided to buy peaches at the grocery store, and go on an adventure. Hakone is well known for its hot springs, lake, and eggs hard-boiled in volcanic steam vents.

The excellent Japanese train system takes you most of the way there...an old-style track train (charming, but roasting) takes you up past the small towns on the mountain.  

Instead of taking the track train up the mountain, we decided to hike up the hill, past the mausoleum, small restaurants, and traditional Japanese homes. The mausoleum was beautiful - showcasing trees, hills, and mountains.

We reached the top of the town, where most folks transfer from the track train to a gondola. We paused at the mid-way point -

 - then hopped on the gondola:

The gondola travels over the "explosion crater" - it was created by a large-scale explosion about 3,000 years ago. The crater still discharges hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide, leading to unstable geology. TO prevent landslide disasters, the government does corrosion control work, lining the mountain-side with stones, boring, and anchoring work.

At the top, the thing to do is eat eggs that have been hard-boiled in the steam vents...the sulfur turn the shells black. 

We weren't the only ones eating hard-boiled eggs...they're supposed to add seven years to your life.

There's a small temple at the top, too -

 The trail to the Mt. Owakudani was closed...we were tempted to hike back to the bottom of the gondola - but it was starting to get late in the day.

So we hiked another time around the steam vents - 

Us - Mt. Fuji is (we think) in the background -

Up toward the mountain -

The eggs show up in the parking lot too - with some Japanese flair - 

We couldn't see the entire area in a half-day - it takes at least one full day to do the loop up the mountain by train, down by gondola, and across the lake by boat. But we saw part of it - and plan to go back.