Holiday in Japan (3): Hakone
On our final morning in Tokyo (Tuesday), at breakfast I was excited to see a bowl of fruit with a banana waiting for me, only to find that the whole display was plastic.
Greater success occurred when Jenny & I decided to use the hour between the conclusion of our breakfast and the departure of our group to walk round to the next door Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) Building. We were in the queue for when it opened for the day and we were transported to the 45th floor in 55 seconds. From a height of 663 feet (202 metres), we had spectacular views of the city.
This building is so new and so iconic that it has already appeared in two Godzilla movies only to be destroyed by the giant monster.
This morning, we left Tokyo to travel by train to Odawara on the way to Hakone. A feature of all trains in Japan is that all seats face the direction of travel so, on the platform, we watched with amazement as section by section the seats swivelled from facing one way to facing the other.
The train journey was only just over an hour and presented splendid views of snow-capped Mount Fuji. At Odawara station, Jenny and I bought some food from a cafe to eat as lunch on the coach journey to an embarkation point at Lake Ashinoko.
Here a vessel designed as replica pirate boat took us on the choppy waters up the crater lake to Togenda-ko. The plan had been that we would then take the Hakone Ropeway, a cable car up to the Owakudani hot springs with views of Mount Fuji.
However, it was so windy and so cold that the cable car was closed. Instead we took the coach up to the springs where there are plumes of steam and a smell of sulphur, but the howling bitter wind meant that nobody wanted to stay long.
It was something of a relief to arrive at our accommodation for the night, the modern Hakone hotel where we had a Western dinner.