Japan Day 20 - Hakone

 06/04/2023

Hakone

It's not just cloudy, it was very windy and it rained non-stop.

We started off positive and believed it would get better but it didn't.  We headed out at 8am just to realise that no bus till 10am.

We went to check with the Tourist Center, confirmed the ropeway was closed.  We changed plans to go for the Pirate ship cruise first.  As in ship so big, unless it's tsunami, it shouldn't be closed right?

We had an amazing bus ride, it was insane, so similar to Initial D.  The driver's made every corner every turn so smoothly, wow..... in the rain.

The bus stopped in front of this cafe.  The cruise terminal was opposite the road.  We thought it would be better to eat breakfast while waiting for the rain to subside.

Here we meet the cashier cum serving lady from Shanghai.  At first, she greeted us in Japanese, then when she realised that we were chinese.... that's it!

She was a chatty elderly a few years my senior.  Loud, cheerful, kinda naggy, her voice filled the entire cafe lolxx...  I hope to see her again the next trip.

Taiwanese bubble tea in Japan.

We had 小笼包，烧卖 and 生煎包.

And these were from heaven!  Inside was juicy and the bottom was charred with fragrance of soya sauce, omg......  Don't know how to describe how delicious these were....

Rain didn't stop after breakfast.

We braved through the heavy rain to the cruise terminal, ended it wasn't the Pirate ship port we were looking for but we were told it's next to it.  The Pirate ship was closed, anyway...

It's likely that the lakefront torri was closed too, so Mt Fuji was right in front of us, but couldn't be seen #@$%&

We came to Hakone mainly for Owakudani (active volcano and Pirate ship cruise to see Mt Fuji), whatever museums and all were not interesting to us.  We could only pin our hopes for the next day...

Luis and I hide in a residential garage along the main road while Darren went to look for the bus which would bring us to Gotemba Outlet. That's our only option already. Finally he found the bus stop which was about 200m away.

Here we were, it continued to rain but was smaller at times.  Weirdly we were not drenched, perhaps dried by the wind lolxx...

KNN.

Early dinner at Gotemba Food Hall.

Damage for 3 of us, taste was average, as in steak very burnt on the outside but very raw in the middle.

Uni not the best, one or 2 piece was bitter, but was still good.

I bought 2 t-shirts for myself and 2 for old man, each less than S$27.

The last free shuttle was leaving at 5pm, we decided to take some other bus to enjoy some milk shakes.

It was a big mistake lolxx...

We alight at the wrong bus stop and had to walk in the rain over 1km to Gotemba station.  We were not allowed to wait and board the next bus, only alighting was allowed.

The good thing was the train ride back to Hakone was only about 30mins.

We took a taxi for about S$3 back to our hostel.

Took illegal photos of the onsen as I had the whole place all by myself!

They rotate outdoor and indoor onsens, ie. yesterday female had indoor, today was outdoor.

Bad weather continued the next day, outdoor activities were not possible with facilities shut down, we decided to ditch Hakone and Kawaguchi together and head back to Tokyo.  Haiz...

Thank you for reading and be back for our 可怜 story on the next post.