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Today we had a huge day in the picturesque town of Hakone. I have read that it is very beautiful. The ropeway that we went on, which is the 2nd longest ropeway in the world, apparently gives breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains, and spectacular views of Mount Fuji. Then the Lake Ashi cruise which we went on apparently gives fabulous views of the surrounding mountains from inside the volcano crater in which the lake is situated. I say "apparently" because we couldn't see any of it. Never before have I seen fog as thick as I did today. Exactly what we *didn't* want on the day we travel to one of the most picturesque areas on our trip. Basically, we spent our entire day looking at (and taking photos of) the inside of a giant cloud. But, lets start from the beginning. Woke up. On the floor. Last night, because of our last minute change of plans a few days ago, we were forced to stay in a double room for the night, which means one Queen sized bed. Being a gentleman, and not wanting to be kicked all night, I offered to sacrifice myself and sleep on the floor. Best sleep I've had in ages. Sure beats Charlotte kicking me and forcing me to the edge of the bed all night. I'm really looking forward to Takayama where everyone has their own bed again. Onto the Shinkansen to Odawara, and then we changed trains to get the local service to Hakone Yamoto station, which appears to be like a gateway to Hakone. The local train was a hot, crowded and unpleasant way to spend 20 minutes, standing up the whole way because the train was packed. We had purchased a couple of 2 day "Hakone Free Pass" tickets at Odawara, which were anything but "free" at $39 per ticket. These small pink pieces of paper give unlimited access to all trains, cable-cars, ropeways, ships and busses within the Hakone region. We figured we would be riding a couple of those modes of transport over the next 2 days, so we bought the passes. Turns out we used all of the above modes of transport today. After getting off the train at Hakone Yamoto station, we casually got off the train and walked, whereas everyone else on the train pushed their way off, and ran like idiots to the next train, like a bomb was on the carriage they just got out of. We found out why everyone, including the grandmothers who didn't look like they could walk, let alone pick up their skirts and sprint, were doing so when we reached the next train platform. We elbowed our way onto the least crowded carriage of the train. Fantastic, 2nd train I had to stand up on today, and the 2nd train where the interior temperature was as hot as hell, give or take a few degrees. So we started what was to become the train trip from hell. Imagine winding your way up the side of a cliff standing up in a small oven set to moderate-high heat, shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of Japanese people, and you should have some idea what our trip was like. Add to this the fact that every 10 minutes or so the train would stop, and wait for the other train which was coming down the hill to pass, as there were only small sections of side-by-side track, and the rest was a single length of track which was used by trains going up and down the mountain. So we got to the last train station on the line, and disembarked, and everybody pushed, shoved and ran like idiots up the hill again. This time I had some idea what to expect, but it still wasn't pleasant when I got there. The cable car. Basically the cable car was just a multiple carriage train which instead of having an engine, was simply towed up a steep hill by a cable. And, as was standard practice for the day, we had to ride the steep incline standing up and sandwiched in with 40 other people who also looked to be as happy as I was to be there. Every time the cable car would stop at a station on its way up the hill, it was a little bit concerning, because it would stop suddenly, and the cable dragging us up the hill must have had some elasticity, because the car would "bounce". Basically we would come to a sudden stop, and then begin to roll down the hill again for half a metre or so, before bouncing back up again, bungee style, and then bouncing to a standstill. It is a weird thing to have happen in a train. When we reached the top of the cable car track, we let everyone push, shove and run like idiots to the ropeway station, while we stepped out of their way and took our time. This actually worked out better for us, as we got a relatively empty cable car, whereas they were packed in fairly tightly. While the girls had toilet breaks, I went outside to shoot some of the magical scenery that one would expect to see from 1km above sea level. Looking out from the observatory was like staring at an A4 sheet of white paper from 5 cm away. We had reached the inside of the damn cloud that would follow us for the day. Never before have I taken so many photos of the same cloud in my life. We boarded the ropeway car with a bunch of people who wouldnt leave Angela alone. There was one guy on there who was expecially annoying, clapping and making stupid noises. I could have happily opened the door for and pushed him out into the clouds, never to be seen again, but Veronica told me I wasn't allowed. Charlotte agreed with me that it was a good idea though. We began our ascent up the ropeway, and as we climbed, we lost all visibility. Basically we knew the scenery was pretty outside, and we knew we were high up, but we could not see any of it. We might as well had taken the trip at night. With buckets on our heads. My only consolation was that Veronica reminded me that we almost payed $420 per night to stay here, had we not changed our plans a few days ago. That made me feel a little better, so I just sat back and enjoyed my float through the fog. It did make for some interesting photos though. It was a little disconcerting to see the ropes that are keeping you alive disappear into absolutely nothing in front of you. After I was done complaining about the Japanese people who wouldn't leave Angela alone, a British voice spoke up from directly behind me. Great. Someone else was on the car who could understand me the whole time. I had spent the last 10 minutes bagging the group of annoying passengers behind me, and discussing how much trouble I would get in for throwing someone from the cable car, and there was someone on there who could understand me. Super. He could have spoke up sooner! Next time I am going to sit in a cable car and insult the other occupants I will do a quick scan to make sure nobody within an earshot looks like they can understand what I'm saying. So we rode the ropeway up over the lip of the volcano, and into the crater, which now contains a large lake, Lake Ashi. Even through the fog, we could see enough to see that it was spectacularly beautiful. On a clear day, with Mt Fuji as a backdrop it would be spectacular. We got off the cable car, and worked our way downstairs, to where the Lake Ashi cruise ships were boarding. We snaked our way through the line, and politely fended off a few other people who wanted to stare at Angela. Had I known what I know now, I would have had 500 Angela business card size photos made up, and simply handed them out to people who would come up to bug us, which would have saved time for all concerned. We are well and truly sick of it. It is a lovely and innocent gesture, and it is flattering to hear "kawaii des ne" everywhere we go, but when we have to acknowledge them, talk to them and quite often pose for photos, several times a day for 5 weeks it is starting to get a bit on the annoying side. Ok. Got that out of my system. So we boarded the boat. A large green galleon style boat, complete with big fake plastic pirates taking up valuable real estate on the upper deck. We got on last, so space was at a premium when we got there. I managed to find myself a reasonably good spot though near the front of the boat. I was standing under a netting rope which was attached to a mast, and which Charlotte was using to balance. I was therefore a little bit surprised when a Japanese woman pushed her way in front of me with her 3 children, and stood between me and the railing, completing obstructing any view I had, and her children had successfully crowded Charlotte so much that she had to move away from the spot she had staked out. The half a metre gap between me and the railing was there to I didn't strangle myself on the rope netting, not so that a family could come and stand between me and the view. So I did exactly what the woman didn't want me to do. I stayed exactly where I was. Actually I moved a little closer. If she wanted to spend the entire 30 minute boat ride with me pressed up against her it was her decision. Needless to say, less than 2 minutes later and she turned to me, said something angrily in Japanese, huffed and left, taking her 3 noisy kids with her, leaving Charlotte and myself with our nice little viewing position to ourselves once more. Veronica and Angela chose to stay inside in the warmth, but Charlotte and I wanted to be where the action was. And the cruise really was pretty. The cloud obscured the tops of the mountains, but there was enough visibility to be able to see each side of the lake, even though we couldn't see what was ahead, and thus had no idea where we were going. Also, we were cold. For the first time on this trip, standing on the upper deck in the wind, we were genuinely cold. After the boat ride, we had a short walk around the port of Hakone Machi, which, in an attempt to look traditional, had obviously become far to tourism focused. It did not feel like we were walking through a traditional ye-olde Japanese village as the tourism brochures would like you to believe, but rather it felt like we were walking through a holiday resort which the whole setting had been artificially sculpted to look traditional. It was pretty, but it was also a little disappointing. Go back in time a hundred years or so and it would have been spectacular. Also the main street of Hakonemachi also appears to be the place where anyone with an expensive car brings it to show off. Basically in less than an hour, I saw one Ferrari 430, one Maserati, four or five Evo Lancers, including one Evo X, a few Brabus tuned Mercs, an R34 Nissan GTR, and the highlight for me, which was a blood red R35 Nissan GTR, which I was actually quick enough to get a photo of. I waited in vain for him to do another lap of the street so I could get a better shot, but he never returned. There were many food vendors, but all of them overpriced, and nothing that we found on our short walk which would keep Charlotte and Angela happy. We would have had ice cream if it was warm enough, but the weather was actually cold enough to justify avoiding the ice cream. We found an ice cream shop with some very interesting flavours of soft serve on the menu. Along with the slightly exotic flavours of custard, cherry and blueberry, were the downright weird flavours of curry, wasabe and black sesame. We actually witnessed a guy purchasing a black sesame ice cream so people do actually buy them, much to my surprise. After a short walk, we decided to get a bus back to Odawara station, which is the train station at which we could board the Shinkansen. We thought that since it was about 2pm, we would head home. Our logic was that since we had a 2 day pass, we would have to leave something left to do for tomorrow. This bus trip was also relatively unpleasant. According to the info, the bus trip should have taken 20 minutes to half an hour. We got into our seats, which were designed with Japanese legs in mind. We had to sit side-saddle behind the seats in front of us because there was not enough to get our legs in straight behind the seat in front of us. Then we hit traffic. Our 20 minute bus ride snaked its way through the clouds for an hour and a half in the stop-start traffic. We then realised that we were not yet halfway down the mountain. At the next stop which was near a train station, we decided to get off the bus, and we got onto the same multi-carriage train shaped oven which we were on to climb up the side of the mountain this morning. And again we were standing up, and again the cabin temperature was at about 40 degrees. At least it was a faster trip on the way down, even if each kink in the track was nearly causing everyone unfortunate enough to be standing up to topple over like dominoes. On the next train between Hakone Yamoto and Odawara, we got onto a crowded train, and were forced to stand up. No surprise. Then switched to the Shinkansen. Good old faithful Shinkansen. We didn't worry about booking seats as a train was due through the station in a few minutes, but surely we wouldn't have to stand up on the bullet train right? Wrong. We were stuck, forced to stand up, like cattle, in the room which joins the carriages, with about 20 other people. We caught the only full bullet train in Japan. We have only seen one other Shinkansen where some people were forced to stand up, and that was only for a short time between 2 stations. On this train a concerned young conductor came through our crowded little car-thing and did a head count. Twice. Completely tired, we had curry from our faithful Coco Curry house near the Shin-Yokohama station. We're pretty much regulars there now. They don't even bother bringing the english menu's out now. Following the once again superb, filling and inexpensive meal, we returned to the room. Tomorrow will be a similar entry to today. We have a 2 day pass to Hakone, so we will probably do today all over again. Probably looking at the inside of the same cloud.
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