Hello, Hakone – Joel’s Journeys & Jaunts

So, this is new. On my previous, and so far only other trip to Japan, in my Pre-Blog Era, I didn’t visit Hakone. But here I am. In Hakone.

Hakone confuses me a bit. I don’t know if it’s a municipality or a region. My hotel has a Hakone address, but there are at least a few Hakone This and Hakone That scattered about. (Fill in the this and that with the appropriate sub-name.)

Whatever it is, it’s gorgeous. Hakone couldn’t be any more different from Tokyo, where I arrived from. Its small towns nestled in forested mountains.

My hotel runs a shuttle bus from the nearest Shinkansen (high-speed rail) station to the hotel. That station, Odawara, is a little more than half an hour away from Tokyo by Shinkansen.

The shuttle from the station to the hotel takes about 40 minutes. I suspect that if the road were not windy and wide enough, the minibus wouldn’t have to pull over to let another vehicle going the other way go by; it probably would have taken ten or fifteen minutes.

But it was worth the drive, particularly because I wasn’t doing the driving. The balcony of my hotel room looks out on a river, with mountains in the background. It’s resplendent. I included a couple of pictures I took from my balcony.

Oh, the balcony has a private onsen (hot spring) bath. I question whether the water is actually from a hot spring. There are both hot and cold faucets. But hot springs and the bathing therein are a major part of the culture here. I haven’t tried my personal one as of this writing, but I might before I go to bed tonight.

The hotel runs a car service to the nearby town of Gora. I asked if it’s walkable. The person at the front desk said, “Yes, but you’d have to walk up a very steep hill all the way. But you could walk back. It’s downhill.”

I bought a pass that’s good for the whole time I’m in Hakone. The pass gets me on five modes of transportation in the area, with the ones I want to use all originating at Gora Station. I was on two of those today.

There’s a local train that I didn’t use and probably won’t ride on while I’m here because I don’t think it will be helpful during my stay.

Some buses are also available on the pass. I might use them in a pinch. The three lines (two modes) I was on today stop service at 4:45, 5:00, and 6:00 p.m. I think buses are an alternative when those lines stop. So that might be a fallback option if I’m out too late.

The two modes of transportation that I took today were the Hakone Tozan Cable Car and the Hakone Ropeway.

If you’ve been counting, you might have noticed that I mentioned only four modes of transportation, but I said that the pass is good on five. I’ll probably take that fifth one while I’m in Hakone. I’ll maintain a little suspense and save any mention of it until I do. I’m here for another two full days. Be patient. I’ll likely get to it tomorrow.

Hakone Tozan Cable Car

The Hakone Tozan Cable Car climbs up a mountain from Gora Station to Sounzan Station. They call it a cable car. I call it a funicular.

It’s a short train that runs on a track, but is pulled by a cable. The seats step up rather than being flat throughout the car because the train is always at an angle as it hugs the slope of the mountain.

The funicular line has six stops, including the terminal ones. My guidebooks say there are some sights to see at some of the stops, but I didn’t get out at any of the stops because time was short. I wanted to ride the whole route today to get a feel for the whole route.

For most of its route up the mountain, the Hakone Tozan Cable Car has a single track. It splits into two at the halfway point. This is necessary because there are two trains on the track. One goes up while the other goes down.

The two trains are connected by a long cable that runs the entire length of the line from one train to the other, with the cable looping at the top of the line. When one train is at the top, the other is at the bottom. They move in synchrony. Because of the cable connecting them, when gravity acts to pull one train down, it helps to pull the other one up.

The mountain views from Sounzan Station of the mountain landscapes are beautiful.

Sounzan Station is also one of the terminus stations for the Hakone Ropeway.

Hakone Ropeway

Ironically, what they call a ropeway, I’ve seen called a cable car elsewhere. I’ve also seen it called a gondola. It’s basically a ski lift, but with padded benches inside the gondola cars.

And, despite being called a ropeway, it uses cables, not ropes.

From Gora Station, one segment of the Hakone Ropeway goes up to Owakudani Station. Owakudani is a steaming, literally steaming, volcanic valley. It was created in the last eruption of Mount Hakone, about 3,000 years ago*. Yes, Mount Hakone is an active volcano. Sulphurous steam pours out of vents at Owakudani. Yikes.

*UPDATE: Please see a correction to this in my post from tomorrow afternoon. The eruption happened much more recently than that, just ten years ago.

I briefly looked around Owakudani. There is a great view of Mount Fuji, but only through the windows of the ropeway station or the windows of the ropeway gondola. Both were either dirty or had some glare. So my picture of it is far from breathtaking.

I might spend more time at Owakudani over the next couple of days. There are other attractions there, if the volcano doesn’t explode and destroy them before I get a chance to see them.

Beside Owakudani Station, there’s a viewing platform that juts out a piece from the side of the mountain. It has a glass floor. I stood on it. Yay, me! There were a lot of reflections of the glass, so, despite it not being very far down, you can’t make out much of the ground beneath my feet, but those are my shoes in the picture.

At Owakudani, there’s a second Hakone Ropeway that goes back down the other side of the mountain to Togendai Station at the side of a lake. I took that one as well, but that reduced the time I had available in the afternoon because the line to get on it was long. I didn’t time it, but it probably took me close to half an hour to get on one of the continuously running condolas.

The ropeway between Owakundani and Togendai stations makes a stop along the way, where there’s supposed to be a great view of Mount Fuji. I’ll probably take in the view another day.

Togendai Station is a piece up the hill from the lake. I didn’t go down to the lake because the ropeway was closing soon, and I didn’t want to get stuck there. So, I found a vantage point where I could snap a picture of the lake. I took the picture, turned around, and went back to Gora the way I came.

On the way back, just after leaving Owakudani Station, I took a short video from inside the Hakone Ropeway gondola of the steaming valley and then I panned over to Mount Fuji. The windows in the gondola I was in on that part of the journey weren’t terribly dirty. And the light was such that there wasn’t a lot of glare. So, I think it’s worth posting. Here it is:

Aside

Warning

On the outbound journey, at Owakudani Station, I saw the sign pictured here. I don’t know if I missed it, but I didn’t see the same sign at Sounzan Station. There were, however, multiple copies of it at Togendai Station.

What good does it do me to learn that if I have breathing problems, I shouldn’t be where I already was, and I wasn’t supposed to take the ropeway I just took?

I could smell the sulphur as I read the sign. Thank you very much.

Walking Back to My Hotel

I took the front desk clerk’s word for the walkability of the route from Gora to my hotel. I used Apple Maps to provide the directions. I think it provided the best course, but it was something of an adventure.

The route started on a not particularly wide road that didn’t have sidewalks. But the road wasn’t especially busy, so it wasn’t too scary. Nevertheless, I was uncomfortable about continuing on it as it twisted its way down the hill with nothing between me and the cars traversing it. That’s neither here nor there because I’m uncomfortable about most things.

After a bit, the road took a turn. The route Apple Maps gave me didn’t. It went straight.

I looked, but couldn’t see a road or a path that went straight ahead. I looked closer. And there it was, a narrow, barely-lit path.

I trepidly, to coin an antonym of intrepidly, entered the path. For some of the way, the path was a downward slope. For much of the way, it consisted of stairs that were in a variety of conditions, including some that were somewhat treacherous.

It’s November. It was dark when I walked back to my hotel a little after 5:00 p.m. Most of the route, except for one set of particularly precipitous stairs, was not lit. My iPhone flashlight got something of a workout on the way.

Despite my fears, the Apple Maps route was a fairly direct, if twisty and steep, one. I made it to my hotel in less than 15 minutes. And, most importantly, I lived to journalize another day.