Today's a long day and we were out at 9am in the morning armed with our lunch for the day. Today's a long long long journey day. We aim to go to the Little Prince Museum at Hakone today. We took the Ginza Line from Tawaramachi to Asakasa- Mitsuke and changed to the Marunouchi Line to Shinjuku Station.

As we were out slightly earlier than usual, we were able to see the men in their blacks rushing for their work. No, rush is not the word to use in Japan considering the fact that they actually queued up behind the line for their turn to board the trains.

We reached Shinjuku Station in around an hour's time and rushed into another amazing race of ticket hunting. What we're hunting now is the Hakone Free Pass that costs 4500yen a person (S$60) Sounds a lot or the useless pass but nope, this pass entitles you to take two way train line, unlimited rides to buses, cable car, rope way and tram within Hakone. Quite worth it as I wanted to take all the transport !! Poor dAr DaR have to accompany me since she has been there before. After a whole load of trouble, asking (dAr doing the asking), map hunting and taking photos of it, we finally found the ticket shop at the other side of the gigantic station. Victory !! Took some victorious photos and we're off.

The enthu-ness soon died down as our Odakyu Train from Shinjuku to Hakone- Yumoto end station took 2 hours. So we slept on the train until Hakone- Yumoto where we got down to cross over to the other side of the road. Again its asking time again for dAr DaR and i stood back to admire about the Japanese Ability of her. She's so zai !! My Idol !!

So we're on the bus heading to Moto-Hakone. At first we plan to go to Hakonemachi but its the same as the ship cruise stops at both the harbour. On the bus, we had our lunch of bread and cake for dAr DaR. So poor thing, coming here to Japan to eat bread... Taking bus in Japan is another interesting experience. For people who are spoilt by the Ez-link card system, the Japan Bus system is an eye-opener. When the commuter gets on the bus he gets a ticket showing the stage which he is from. There's a screen at the driver's seat which updates the fares every stage and when you alight, just look at the fare where you board and viola! it will show your fare amount. Interesting right?

We reached Moto-Hakone-Ko at around 1.30pm. And sincethe ship is not here yet (I thought it's the one at the jetty but dAr says not) we decided to take photos but guess what ?!?! dAr DaR saw her friend Ameila going on exchange. It's a small world after all !! I saw my friend Cheryl with them too. Wow!!! Thats really amazing !! So happy to see them. My darling also saw her Sensei who brought them around last december when she came for her Homestay.

After we parted we boarded the pirate ship and its really cold up there with the strong wind. I thought I'm going to become an ice cube. Don't care, I tried taking more photographs even when my fingers get more and more numb. The view at Lake Ashii is great, got to see the super famous shrine and a surprisingly, a lot of the scenery there looks European. For a moment I thought I went to the wrong place.

We crept into the first class cabin (actually there is no difference, anyone can go in) and sat down to eat lunch Part II. Me and my bun which looks like Hong Kong's Po Luo Bao and dAr busying herself with her chips. All the time we were quite worried that we couldn't make it to the Little Prince Museum. By the time we reached Togendai Harbour its already 2.10pm, the museum closes at 6pm and we still have the cable car and the rope way.

Our mood changes to become those of an Amazing Race as the time ticks. We took the free (Hakone FREE pass mah) ropeway from Togendai Station all the way up the mountains to Sounzan Station. Along the way we enjoyed the scenic Mt. Fuji and the many sulphur extraction plants in the mountains range. Not to forget more photos !! But weird...dAr DaR is not that scared as when she's at Hong Kong haha.

We reached Sounzan Station at 2.45pm and we rushed for the cable car only to see it leave the station. Too bad, we walked around the place and found a thermometer that indicates 5 Degree Celsius. 5 !!! We are almost freezing to death while waiting for the ropeway. Luckily they came quickly and the two 'icecubes' scrambled into the ropeway heading for Gora Station where we would take a bus to our destination - Little Prince Museum.