Furu Anime Panikku

Ah, Hakone. The place with a lovely nature park, as well as lovely hot springs.

The first night’s dinner was here, and the food was awesome

We spent less than 2 days here. When we arrived, it was already night, so we checked into our hotel, went for a quick bite and rested in preparation of the next day’s tour around Hakone.

The photos above depict roughly our lodging for the brief 2 day stay. The design has quite a nice bit of Japanese field, with a Japanese garden within the compounds. The bathtub’s water comes direct from a nearby hot spring, or so we were told. Soaking in hot natural water within the confines of your room never felt so great.

宮ノ下 (Miyanoshita) station. I can’t really remember why we came here. One thing interesting about Hakone’s trains is the changing of moving directions every few stations. The train can be moving forward now, and move backwards the station. This is to facilitate going up the gradient, since Hakone’s a rather mountainous area.

We then proceeded to take a cable car up the mountains to savor some scenic views. Maybe I should have rung the bell, since it’s stated to bring good luck.

Hakone is barely modernized, with nature engulfing most of the area. That’s why there’s a nature park there, and it’s a good place to unwind. However, more and more people are gradually visiting it, and that often means an increase in the degrading of the natural beauty.

This is how I looked like 2 years ago, taken in the cable car. I haven’t really changed much since then, although I’m taller now, and my hair’s longer. Don’t mind my weird hair. I probably forgot to take a bath that morning.

When the cable car arrived at the top and exited the centre, here’s the view we saw. Ahoy, Mt. Fuji in sight!

After which, we took a bus down to Lake Ashi. That’s the place where the part of the first Detective Conan Live Action was filmed. Evangelion featured certain places in Hakone too, with Lake Ashi being one of them. If my memory serves me right, in Girlfriend of Steel, there was a scene of Shinji and Mana going on a date in a boat in the lake. It was a pity though, as I hadn’t played the game back then.

We boarded one of the few pirate themed boats for a trip across the river. I stood for almost more than half the entire journey, enjoying the lake’s scenery while getting blown by chilling winds right in the face. The whole experience would have been better, if I was there in Spring or Autumn.

And yet again, more Mt. Fuji. One thing I realised was how people would say “Hey, look it’s Mt. Fuji. Hurry, take a photo”, be it Japanese or foreign tourists. I never really saw the big deal with it. Climbing Mt. Fuji would beat taking a mere photograph of it, any day.

It was lunch after the ride, and we came across this hot spring bath while making our way to a resturant. It looked interesting, since I have never gone to a public hot spring before. All of my experiences were in the hotel’s hot spring.

After our meal, we proceeded up yet another mountain via cable car. This time, the photos taken are, in my opinion, the best photos I’ve taken in the entire trip.

It was a pity that we only stayed at Hakone for a mere day. I’m sure there were a few more places that we could visit, but we just lacked the time.

We left for Nagoya via Shinkansen the next day.

Overall, I think Hakone is one the place that everyone must visit if they visit Japan. Accesing it is quite convinient since it’s not too far off from Tokyo. I wonder when will be my next visit will be.

Hakone aside, here’s the one and only picture I took of my first trip to Akihabara. Pathetic, I know. But hey, I was too engrossed with rushing out of the train station and into paradise for the very first time in my life.

Alright, this post marks the end of the 2006 Japan Photos posts. Working on the 3 posts was really fun, and I hoped you enjoyed reading them too. Looking through the various images brought back different memories of the trip, and all that made me want to go back to some of the places again. Hopefully, I’ll be able to return to the places I’ve been to someday, this time armed with a better camera and improved photography skills.