First views of Fuji-san, and eating Black-Eggs in Hakone

One of the must do things when traveling in Japan has got to be: Go and see Mount Fuji.

Its a no brainer really.

So in this post, eventually, you will get my AMAZING pictures of Fuji-San (Japanese for Mount Fuji for all you dense people) because we were SO lucky to visit Hakone national park on one of the clearest days so far.

We have a pass to travel around Hakone for three days, Which gives us an evening/night, one full day and then a morning to clear out again.

We stay at Kappa Tengoku (Water sprite Heaven) Hostel which has its own Onsen (hot spring bath).

When we arive it is raining for the first time since we got to Japan and I mean it is PISSING IT DOWN! We are NOT looking forward to the next day, trudging about up and down wind swept mountains with a view that extands a few feet in front of our faces, but we decide to make the most of today and enjoy the sound of the rain from the hotel. I head straight for the hotels Onsen.

This is my first time in a real onsen, I have been in a shared bath before so Im used to the whole bathing with other guys in the room, but Im not sure whatto expect from the water. Clear or cloudy, Piping hot or bareable.

The adverts for this hostel said "Our onsen is a little further down the mountains than the others in the area, so our water is a little cooler, but you can still warm up nicely if you have a long soak" so I`m expecting a little on the cool side.
Its freaking BOILING! I have to jump under a cold shower pretty regularly to keep from passing out! But it is still lovely once you get used to the temperature and can bare it for a little longer.
It`s amazing after the madness of Tokyo to be able to just lie back in the hot water, watching steam rising from the pool, and listening to the rain on the plastic roof.

The next day the rain has gone and so have the clouds, leaving the sky a beautiful clear blue, perfect weather for seeing Fuji-San. We head into Hakone proper armed with our free passes which entitle us to all transport inside the national park, which is extensive and well worth it!

Fist a juddery old train up the side of a mountain, then a cable car a bit further up the mountain (you may think we`re lazy but you really don`t want to be walking this unless you are hard core!) then a sky car up to the top of one of the mountains.
From the sky car we get a sight of some new construction for a little spa town with Boiling water spewing from cracks in the ground and staining the rocks a sulpherous yellow.
At the top we leave the sky car (cable car, whatever) and get our first view of Fuji-San. We could not have asked for a better day or a better view, it was amazing!

After a bit of walking further up the mountain we find a spring with a sign that reads "Danger, the water from this spring is 80 oC"! In one there is a man dropping baskets of Eggs into the water to boil them, when they come out they are stained black.

These are apparently famous and are called Kuro-Tamago (simply Black-Eggs) and if you eat one you are said to have 7 years good health.

The ground is covered in egg shells because everybody is eating the black eggs. I ask some Japanese who are eating some if they are good (Language Skills! Mandy-sensei would be proud!) and they say they are delicious and then give one to me and Lauren(through out this whole trip the Japanese people have all been very kind!). They are very nice, but since we shared one egg between us do we only get 3 and a half years of good health?

After taking LOADS of pictures of Fuji-San from this brilliant vantage point we carry on on the sky car back down the mountain to the next type of transport, Boat. across to the other side of the lake. The boat is made for tourists. Made to look like a pirate ship (compleate with a map of the british isles pinned to the wall inside!) it even comes with a guy walking around dressed as a pirate that you can buy a photograph with. LOL

We disembark at the next port and look for the small walking paths that are dotted about.

We found some beautiful gardens which had more views of Fuji but with the sun behind the mountain he was getting hard to see in the distance.

After a bit of trial and error walking about we found an old highway that was built and used hundreds of years ago and got lost on that for a while.
I wanted to find some ancient stone buddas that line one of the old highways in the mountains around Hakone but by this time it was getting late and we were tired and the paths were so hidden that by the time we found the path leading to them we had to head back to town to get the bus back to our hostel.

At the hostel we watched Spongebob Squarepants in Japanese, went in the Onsen, had a bit of munch and the next morning hopped on the train back to Tokyo centre.