Hakone

Fuji-san "looking fit"
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After Chris left on Saturday morning, myself and the other trainees headed down to Hakone, a volcanic area close to the base of Mount Fuji. The journey down was a little traumatic with a 2 hour bus journey turning into a 3 1/2 hour disaster. A real shame given that the weather was unbelievable and with bright blue skies – Fuji-san looked amazing (Pete seconded our thoughts by professing that Fuji was "fit"!?) – but stupidly I managed to leave my camera in the hold of the bus - so the only photos I've got are from when the sun was going down :-(

Sulphur escaping from the "breaking earth"
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When we had finally dropped off our baggage we took the train, funicular and ropeway across the region and tried to take in as much of the surroundings as possible. As I mentioned, this is a volcanic region and throughout the region you can see areas of the earth which are literally breaking apart and allow the sulphurous gases to escape. It gives the area a distinct eggy smell, but looks pretty cool from the top of the ropeway.

needless to say we all smelt of eggs

Chilling at the ryokan in our yakutan (I think that is what the kimono things are called)
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Dressed in our traditional Japanese dressing gowns (yakuta?) the evening was spent chilling out in the onsen at our ryokan (and listening to Pete and Taqvi hammer out some Simon & Garfunkel tunes on the piano). The onsen was a private one which we had managed to book out for an hour. To make the experience even more authentic we nailed a couple of bottles of sake and relaxed in the hot, cloudy waters. The onsen was filled with water piped directly from the ground, so needless to say we all smelt of eggs (mmm…delightful!). But my skin does still feel very softo! The only problem was the lingering smell and the taste of sulphur the following morning, but I think I’ve managed to wash most of it away now!

Eating "black eggs" cooked in the natural heated springs
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The following day, I left the others to hike up a ridiculous mountain. I’m glad I did because it sounds like they hit a large wall of bamboo and trees and literally had to climb up and over the tree to get as high as they wanted to. Not my idea of fun on a cold, wet day. Instead I headed back to the volcanic pools and watched as the locals boiled eggs in the hot waters. The sulphur & other gases turns the shell of the egg completely black, but the inside tastes like a normal hard boiled egg. The locals were going crazy for these things, buying up eggs by the half dozen!

I jumped aboard a pirate ship and the captain said to me....
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We finished the day by taking a "pirate ship" across Lake Asahi. I'm not entirely sure why they decided to build pirate ships, but the journey was very scenic and took us over to the other side of Hakone ready for our trip back to the Big Smoke.