Monday, May 19, 2008
kinda lost my momentum to continue the stories in japan, but i don't want to do things half way.. so..day 5 & 6 - hakone
i was there specially for the onsen (hotspring) as for some others perhaps for the torii gate on the sea. i like the small town even though there's nothing much there and it turns to a dead place after 6 pm.
we took the shinkansen back from kyoto to hakone on thu morning. it was raining heavily again when we reached.
after finished checking in, we decided to go for ropeway which was a pretty stupid decision haha. the train conductor had this strange look on his face and we understood why once we reached sounzan station (the ropeway station), the place was closed and there's no one up there. it was empty.
-_-
we should have checked on the timing first.
anyway, the weather was unbelievably freezing and sent us all to the toilet.
so..
the long journey from train to cable car..
went all the way up to sounzan..
all just for the toilet. HAHA.
it's just hilarious at that moment.
well, we had no choice but to go down to the town again after that. not even a single shop or restaurant was opened (except for 7-11), so we had to eat in hotel.
and to make things more interesting (or worse), merv had a fall. obviously he didn't die but ended up with some bruises >_<
to end the fateful day, susi and i decided to go for late night onsen. so we wore the traditional bathrobe, braced the freezing weather and went to the hotel's open hotspring. it was a very funny experience, though there was only 2 of us, we had a hard time going in. lol. it felt like going into a cooking pot.
we spent some time inside, imagining if there's 'sake' to accompany us. i told susi that my mission in japan was accomplished, sakura picnic + onsen.
after a while, the headache came and that's the sign to get out of the pool. to faint there is the last scenario that we wanted to happen.
that night must be the most relaxed time for all of us. the room was really good. the guys woke up really early the next day, it's their turn to use the onsen. i decided to take a short walk around the hotel, there's a small river just outside =)
once we're ready, we took the same train again and visited begonia garden first (by susi's request), the place was totally full of flowers..
continued the journey to cable car and ropeway. stopped by at owakudani station and had our lunch there. everyone was really quiet, i guess the place made us think and move like a pentium one.. extremely sloow and peaceful.
we took the sightseeing boat along lake ashi from togendai, sadly we couldn't see mt fuji as it was a cloudy day.. and it was really freezing, but nevertheless the place was beautiful and i did enjoy the ride.
reached the end of our cycle, we decided to catch a bus to hakone glass museum. that's how we ended our hakone journey.
i think this was the day that i discovered how good i am in time scheduling. haha.
well, the next moment, we're back to tokyo.
dinner was omu rice at shibuya (i'm amazed that i still remember this) and yes i remember the flashy information center that they have there. with loud music and all.. no tourist would find it hard to find.
smart =P
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