en route to Hakone: Gora, Lake Ashi

 Published on: Mar 28, 2008 

One of the fun things about this part of the trip was all the different modes of transportation that we used on our journey to and around Hakone.

 First we took several kinds of trains. I had bought a Japan Rail Pass before leaving home that would allow cheaper train travel, but only on certain trains and buses operated by Japan Railway. This was the first day I was able to use my railpass on the JR line. On the first train through Tokyo, it was rush hour, and we were squeezed in like sardines for a good part of the 40-minute ride, which involved several transfers.

 Once on the JR line outside Tokyo, train travel was much more pleasant, with chatter and the happy faces of people traveling instead of commuting to work. An elderly Japanese woman sat across from us, obviously eager to practice her English skills.

After the JR line, we arrived in Hakone and took a bus to our inn, dropped off our luggage, and headed back to town. Next, we boarded a mountain trolley that operates in the same way that many Swiss trains do, with switchbacks every so often as we climbed higher. Here's a postcard photo of what the route might look like in the summer, when the hydrangeas are in bloom.

There were several delightful aspects of this ride. One, I spied an Italian family in our car, the only time I encountered Italians in Japan. I was hoping to get a chance to speak to them, as they looked rather harried and I wondered if they were having difficulties finding their way around. It's hard enough at times to find information in English, but if you don't know Japanese or English, getting around can be quite a problem. But Jesse and I got off at the transfer terminal halfway up the mountain, and I never saw them again. We also met an 89-year-old man who was traveling with the daughter of one of his employees, and they also attempted to speak to us in English.

Jesse started speaking Japanese with them, and the conversation got more lively, though I didn't understand a word! By the end of the ride, a connection had been made, and Jesse and the man exchanged their addresses and phone numbers in Tokyo, with the hope of a future meeting. I was very proud of Jesse's ability to converse with the people that we met, and the connections made possible by that ability. This is the picture the woman took of me and Jesse.

We stopped at the town of Gora and found our way to a small park to eat lunch.

There was a fountain, several greenhouses and a teahouse in the park. The next part of our journey involved riding on a Ropeway, a ski-lift like cable car traversing an inactive volcano.

Ropeway

Here's the view as we rode across the volcano.  (Notice the steam rising from vents in the volcano).

Arriving at Lake Ashi.

From here, we boarded a ferry disguised as a pirate boat and cruised across Lake Ashi back to Hakone, where we took another bus ride to reach the ryokan, or inn where we were staying for the night. I'll be devoting the next entry to our experiences at the ryokan.

What a way to travel!

Cruising across Lake Ashi.