It was time to leave Tokyo. If you told me the first day when I arrived, I’d be sad when I was leaving, I would definitely not believe you. So now it’d be time for a big “told you so”. 😀

We packed and left in the morning, from Tokyo Station this time. Destination: Hakone. If you’re traveling with shinkansen trains, you have to make a reservation in advance, or it is at least smart that you do. Going from Tokyo Station the train takes you to Odawara Station where you have to switch to a local train for one stop to get to Hakone Yumoto. There you switch again to Hakone Tozan Railway which takes you to Gora station and is a cute little red train, just like from a movie. Now would probably be a good time to mention that getting there is part of the experience when it comes to Hakone.

But seriously, Hakone Tozan Railway is the only and the oldest mountain railway in Japan and the second steepest train track in the world.

Halfway up the line, there are three switchbacks, where the driver and the conductor change shifts and the train switches to the reversed travel direction. The hydrangeas are blooming along the line and it really looks lovely, aside from being totally awesome if you like train travel. There are of course tons of other options of getting to Hakone.

Hakone sights are situated on two sides of the mountain – Lake Ashinoko side and Gora station side, which is full of hotels and onsen. If you are staying on Gora side you’re done with traveling and you can go see the Open – air museum, Gora Park or relax in an onsen. Your journey is finished.

But, if you’re heading to Lake Ashinoko side, the adventure really begins once you are at Gora station. You have to board the Hakone Tozan cable car which links Gora station to Sounzan station, and once you get there your journey is not nearly finished yet.

At Sounzan station you have to board the Hakone Ropeway – which is definitely not the same as the cable car if you were wondering maybe. And every step of the trip is awesome btw. Hakone Ropeway takes you to Togendai Station at the shore of the beautiful Lake Ashinoko. It also stops at Owakudani station on the way. You can see active, sulfuric and smelly hot springs from the ropeway and if you get lucky as we did, Mount Fuji in the distance.

Owakundani is an experience in itself. Kind of a top of the world situation going on. Misty, clouds everywhere, a bit smelly but with awesome views of Fuji (if you’re lucky), cool snacks and of course souvenirs if you want them.

And when you finally arrive at the beautiful, mysterious Lake Ashikono you have been traveling for a while, you are probably hungry (again) and all of the restaurants are probably already or still closed. Well, that happened to us, as it usually does – luckily we had some rice snacks to survive for a bit. Restaurants run on a bit of a different schedule here. Some open at 5 pm for dinner, but it is better if you don’t count on that. Also, Hakone is much colder than Tokyo. We had around 22°C and it was lovely – reminded me of June in Slovenia. 😀

We checked into our awesome and very Japanese style hotel and got into our yukatas (they had to switch the one they had prepared for Žiga to 2L) and it was time to try out our first onsen.

We received a whole list of do’s and don’ts prepared for the first-time onsen users but in the end, it is pretty simple. You cannot get into an onsen with your shoes and clothes on, towels are allowed but only small ones and you really don’t need them where you’re headed. Female and male onsen are of course separated. And female ones are equipped with all sorts of goodies – shampoos, hair ties, razors, combs, body lotions, hair lotions, shower gels, hair caps and who knows what else. It is pretty awesome but really hot inside. Body tingling hot, but very worth it. Kind of an intimate experience even though you’re not alone, like yoga or meditation if you ask me.

If I was not really sure about Nikko, I am definitely loving Hakone.