Fuji-san, where are you? – the Hakone Circuit

Today we took another excursion outside of Tokyo – this time to Hakone, a town on a lake near Mount Fuji. The weather forecast was good, and I had booked a rather expensive “Hakone pass” allowing free travel all around the area and made a reservation in the special “Romancecar”, an express train service that leaves from Shinjuku station. We arrived in good time, only to hear an announcement that our train had been cancelled – something that is not supposed to happen in Japan. We spent a stressful few minutes trying to figure out what to do. As we left the platform in search of information, the turnstile swallowed Aki’s Hakone Pass. In alarm we asked the staff for help, and to our surprise they spoke good English. One of them helpfully held back the masses of commuters trying to use the turnstile so that he could open the machine and retrieve our ticket, and then told us that regular, slower trains were still running to Hakone and would take about 30 minutes longer. We would also now need to change trains at the end of the line or take a bus to cover the last stretch to Hakone.

We boarded one of the slower trains and again experienced an hour of watching Tokyo’s bland suburbs, followed by an hour of progressively more interesting scenery. At the terminus of Odawara we took a very crowded local train on to Hakone Yumoto, which left from a platform number 11, confusingly located next to platform 7. On arrival, we found that we had lost an hour compared to our original plan, and that it was cloudy.

The enterprising Hakone Tourist Association has set up a fun system of travel around the area including trains, a cable car, a ropeway and even pirate ships. They all accept the Hakone pass and form a big loop connecting the area’s many attractions. This circuit is hugely popular with foreign and Japanese tourists alike, and even though it was not the weekend, it was very busy. We boarded a small train to do the first part of the route. On a different day this ride could have been fun, as the railway line makes a steep ascent of a mountain, squeezing through narrow valleys and tunnels. But the train was very crowded and although we got seats, they faced inwards into the mass of standing passengers.

At the end of the train line, we took a very slow cable car for another slow, cramped climb up a mountain. I was beginning to feel decidedly grumpy and rather regretted my whole Hakone plan. Next, came a ropeway, where at least we have more space and the possibility of some views. Over a Tannoy system it was announced that Mount Fuji was to our right….as indeed it might have been. We could see something big looming up behind dark clouds but were not sure that this was the iconic volcano.

Then things got more interesting, as our cabin flew over a valley filled with jets of steam emerging from vents in the ground. There was a strong smell of sulphur and in places the ground was bright yellow.

We arrived at an intermediary ropeway station called Owakudani from where we could admire this spectacle from closer up.

A local tradition is to boil eggs in the sulphur springs, which makes them go black. They claim that eating one extends your life by seven years….but I wonder if that is not another invention of the Hakone Tourist Board. There were several shops selling them, so I tried a couple – they tasted exactly like normal eggs.

Enterprising locals have extended the “black food” idea further and also offer black ice cream and black curry buns. We tried both – the ice cream was simply vanilla with bamboo charcoal added, and made our teeth go back. I am not sure how they make the black curry bun, but it was really delicious, and began to restore our mood, which had been a bit down. The emergence of the sun also helped cheer us up, as we could better appreciate the scenery. It also gave us hope that on the last section of our trip – the boat ride – we would finally see Mount Fuji.

We continued the rope way back down to Lake Ashi,  where we queued up for the last part of the Hakone circuit – a boat ride across the lake on a pirate ship. Why a pirate ship? We have no idea, please ask the Hakone Tourist Board. The cruise was corny but fun, and we were now enjoying bright sunshine – but Mount Fuji remained stubbornly hidden behind clouds. We arrived at a small town called Motohakone with Fuji-san still refusing to appear and decided to visit one last thing in the area – the Hakone-Jinja Shrine. We headed back from there to join the long queue for the bus back to the train station; I had calculated that, queuing time included, we had just enough time to catch the “Romancecar” we had reserved for 17.00.

However, once we had regained the town, we had a pleasant surprise. The clouds had lifted and at the far end of the lake, there stood Fuji-san in all its glory.

We stayed for ten minutes, and decided that seeing Fuji at sunset was as once-in-a-lifetime experience that was well worth missing our train for. Instead of taking the bus, we walked along the shore of the lake to a pretty park, for yet more stunning views of Japan’s iconic volcano.

We watched as the shadow of one mountain slowly crept up to the summit of a higher mountain on the lake’s east shore, and when the sun finally dipped below the horizon, we started thinking about how to get home. Our return proved to be quite an odyssey. We walked to another small town from where there was supposed to be an express bus back to the main train station, and had been waiting ten minutes when a bus company employee arrived to tell us that the express would be full and advise us to take a local stopping service – which we did. This bus weaved its way around mountain roads for about half an hour, slowly working its way towards the main train station. Then there was an announcement – in Japanese and English – that there was a big traffic jam ahead, and that people in a hurry would be better off taking the small local train that we had used to climb into the mountains at the start of our Hakone circuit. We got off the bus just in time to catch a train to take us to the main station. On the way, I managed to use my phone to make a new online Romancecar booking and after a short stop at Hakone Yumato we were speeding back to Shinjuku in a fast and comfortable (but maybe not romantic) express. We reached Tokyo late – twelve hours after we set off – tired but happy. We had finally seen Fuji-san, and our earlier problems may have been a blessing in disguise – if we had arrived at Hakone on time, we would probably have left earlier and missed one of Japan’s iconic sights.

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