On our next day in Japan we decided to make the very long trip out to Hakone. Hakone is an area outside of Tokyo that many tourist or locals of Tokyo go to just to escape the busyness of the city. It's a very beautiful place and on a clear day you can actually see Mt. Fuji, but it was not clear the day that we went but we still had so much fun!
First we had to take a bus into Tokyo. Normally we would take the train but we wanted to get an early start and the hotel that we stayed at had shuttle buses into town where the train station was but none of them were early enough. So the bus was the better option for us. It took a little over an hour to get to Tokyo Station and then we hopped on the train there for the next hour and a half and made our way to a place called Odawara. Getting to Hakone is not easy, it's way up the mountains and it's kind of like a national park so there were lots of changing modes of transportation. Hakone is also very famous for their natural hot springs and there are many places that you can go to enjoy those. We didn't think that was a very good idea with a baby though so we enjoyed everything else Hakone had to offer.
Gabriel thought he would be helpful and show Josh where to go on the map!
At one point we had to hop on this very old fashion subway line that went up the mountain. I'm not kidding when I say old fashion either. This thing had a hard time getting up parts of the mountain and we always had to stop and switch tracks because the track kind of went zig zag up the hill.
We totally did not mind the old fashion subway ride or how long it took. It was amazing to be honest with you. Josh and I love nature and we just watched out the window us getting higher and higher and Gabriel loved it too!
The track was also 'old fashion' you could say, meaning it looked like this...
... most of the time and some very beautiful old bridges and old tunnels that looked like this...
...sorry about the quality of the pictures. Though we were at the front of the train the majority of the time, I had to take pictures through the window which always created a glare.
We hopped on yet another train line and literally seemed to go straight up the mountain. It was very steep at times! But when we got to the top it was so beautiful!
Then we got to hop on one of these, a rope-line car... Josh and I both agreed that we think our moms would have been freaking out when we were on this...
... and then when we got to this point I started to freak out a little...
... and then when we started going down hill I was done freaking out but it made Josh nervous to be going down hill.
Gabe was cool with it though!
When we finally got down to the bottom the rope-line dropped us right off at Lake Ashi. We were then able to hop on one of these...
... old Japanese pirate tour ships!
Ahar matey!!!
And we actually got a family picture from a nice Japanese lady when we were on the deck!
Cruising across the lake...
... and we saw another pirate ship going the other way...
... and then my camera died:( But after that we just took many modes of transportation again and went back to the hotel! It was a fun day!
3 comments:
Oh wow, very very cool. Everything looks awesome- the train ride looked fun, I think I would've freaked out on the shuttle rope thing too, and way cool to go on an old pirate ship! Looks like a fun day!
Haha!! I was just looking at some pictures that my friend took in Europe where she went on a rope shuttle thing like this too, way up to the top of a mountain, and I was like, "Oh, gosh! I can't imagine being on one of those with my kids!"
Looked like ALOT of FUN. : ) The countryside looks beautiful. Loved the picture of Josh and Gabe, very cute : )
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