Hakone 箱根: Sightseeing in Hakone Day 2

Day 2 started with onsen! Anyway, after checking out we took a bus back to Togendai Station and try the balance of transportation that we have not yet - ropeway, cable car and train. Link to Hakone Ropeway. Our intended stop is Owakudani Station, one second stop after Togendai. This is covered under Hakone Free Pass.

Hakone Ropeway
As three's a crowd and there were five of us, we get the whole carriage to ourselves also because it was rather quite at that time. The view from the ropeway was stunning and we went a little trigger happy.

Owakudani (大涌谷, Ōwakudani)
Station: Owakudani Ropeway Station

After coming out of the Owakudani Ropeway Station, you'll be greeted with a big black egg and a wood mosaic Hello Kitty.

Peek-a-boo!

Boo!

Owakudani (大涌谷, Ōwakudani) was an area around a crater created during the last eruption of Mount Hakone. This was some 3000 years ago. From afar, one can see the sulfurous fume and smell them when you get nearer.

This area is now an active volcanic zone, which explains the sulfurous fumes. Also, many thanks to this active volcanic zone, we get to enjoy and experience hot springs. ^^

When you already have great view, the next thing in mind would be eat and enjoy the view. So here comes black eggs. These eggs are cooked in naturally hot water and shells blackened by the sulfur. It is said that the eggs can prolong one's life by seven years. The catch was they don't sell the egg individually. but five eggs at one. So if you are traveling alone and wants to get it and eat them all, your life would be prolonged by 35 years! @_@

They take the black eggs seriously, they even has their own 'ropeway transport'.

If you want to get the freshest egg, they also sell it next to where the eggs boiling area is and many just eat them there.

If you buy it from the souvenir shop, they would show you the colour condition of the eggs the day you visit.

But it is the usual hard boiled egg after removing the black shell

If you don't like eggs, there are also onsen manju but these does not prolong your life. This is red bean manju, luckily they sell this one individually though cos Little P doesn't like red bean (what kind of Asian is this?) LOL, though to be honest, I didn't like it when I was small but have grown to like it much, not a good thing when most wagashi are made of red bean...

After leaving Owakudani, we hopped back on the ropeway and got off at Sounzan. The ropeway only has 4 stops - Togendai 桃源, Ubako 姥子, Owakudani 大涌谷 and Sounzan 早雲. At Sounzan, we transferred to a cable car.

Hakone Tozan Cable Car
We had intention to go to the Open Air Museum but everybody was tired and R, T and Y needs to head on to Osaka after this whereas Little P and I to Nikko. We decided to give the rest a miss, enjoyed our ride and view. We boarded the cable car at Sounzan station to the end, getting off at Gora 強羅.

Hakone Tozan Train
At Gora station, we transferred to a train. This brought us back down to Hakone-Yumato station. I remembered this train was a very slow moving one as many people seem to have dozed off.

Cute wild boar notice

Once we reached Hakone-Yumato, we went for lunch. There seem to have a lot of eating, somehow. LOL


Side note: This famous blogger also wrote about yummy sushi place in Gotemba, we didn't go as far as Gotemba though...