Japan, day 5 and 6 - black eggs and Fuji-san
Day 5
After a luxurious morning onsen and buffet, we headed out to see the local Hakone sights... but...
This is Owakudani, a volcanic crater we passed on the way to our ryokan which is still venting steam and gas into the sky... except you can't see a damn thing.
Alas, the clouds had rolled in and completely impeded our view of, well, everything. We made the best of it and visited the local geological museum (surprising amount of stuff in English at this one) and grabbed some omiyage and lunch.
The famous black curry bun of Owakudani. They also have black eggs from the sulphur... they're just normal hard boiled eggs but the shells are black... this is relatively representative of the Japanese tourism industry, imho.
After that we headed down to Lake Ashi to catch a ferry around for sightseeing. The ferrys are pretty fun; they're done up to look like big old Pirate-esque galleons (I was told they had a One Piece crossover a few years back, but I can't find any evidence of that). Best of all, they're on the Hakone Free Pass, so you can ride in cattle class for free or pay an extra few bucks for first class privileges.
Ship approaching the pier.
On the other side was... the bus stop for the ride back to the entrance to Hakone, and a bunch of cafes, omiyage shops, the usual. We had a short lunch/afternoon tea. More importantly, we saw a cat.
ねこ！
On the way back we were in a better position to spot the local floating tori gate. It's not a patch on Miyajima, but what can you do.
At least at this elevation the clouds make for some pretty spectacular god rays/lighting.
I was feeling a bit woozy from the buffet + some world events that were occurring that day (I really wish I had deleted social media off my phone for this), so we went back to the ryokan and called it a day. Onsen dipping, buffet dinner (I had less), etc.
Day 6
When we woke up, the sky had cleared, meaning we could finally head out into the garden and see further than five feet in front of us.
What can we see from there?
Ja-jaaannnn
Yes, that's right! Hakone is famous for Fuji views, and we were lucky enough on our final day to get a pretty clear shot. It's odd, I've climbed Fuji before, but I don't think it felt quite as impactful as gazing at it from afar. It really is one of those natural wonders of the world which has impact; you look at it and go 'ah, I completely understand now why there's this intense cultural fascination with it'.
Surprisingly, it was visible from our room, even though we didn't pay the extra few 万 for a Fuji-side room. If we had been two rooms to our right, I think it would have been blocked by the annex.
After breakfast and one last onsen dip, we packed up and headed back to the train, stopping by Owakudani to actually get a shot of the craters this time. Very 地獄ぽい。
Mind you, a smoking crater is kind of just a smoking crater, in the end.
Back in Shinjuku, we nabbed lunch at this delightful venue on the far left before checking into our accommodation.
The name is kinda lol, but legitimately the egg burgers were pretty incredible.
We were meeting a cadre of my wife's friends for dinner, which I can wholeheartedly recommend at Tonkatsu Tsukiuma Shibuya, about a 10 minute walk from the station.
Legitimately maybe the best tonkatsu I've had in my life - perfectly delicately fried on the outside, perfectly roasted on the inside.
It was very nice to sit through pretty much an entire meal in Japanese and be able to mostly keep up, especially with one of my wife's friend who is apparently a huge nerd almost precisely on my wavelength. Afterwards we went to a maid cafe to wind down the night (not the Akihabara 業主人様 otaku kind - more an extremely classy Taisho-roman style, with very prim and proper tea service with exceptionally fine china).
When that wrapped up we made the long trek to our new digs. This second leg in Tokyo was in what was essentially an AirBnB, meaning it was cheaper and we had a whole apartment to ourselves - much more spacious than the first hotel - but also that it was way more out of the way than our previous digs.