Hakone

Day 6: On the 6th day of my travels, I was able to get together with one of my dad's Japanese collegue's, Ayumi. After messaging each other in the months before the trip, we decided to get together! Since the weather was so good, Ayumi and her husband, Makoto, took me to Hakone National Park.
The day started off early, first alarm went off at 6:45. After I had gotten ready I headed off for Shinjuku station. And because I'm a dork, I got there half an hour early. Ayumi and Makoto found me pretty easily, even though our meetingpoint was a bit crowded.. Once we found each other we took the Super Hakone Romancecar to the Hakone area. Once we were there, we had to take a zigzag train to about halfway up the mountain. It was actually a bit scary; we would pass a riggity bridge with a huge gorge and everything would start squeeking.. Oh well. Once we made it past all these riggity bridges, we made it to a Swiss-like station with a cable car. This took us up to the top of the mountain, 1000 something metres high! From here we took a real 'cable' shuttle thing (yeah, sorry) which took us over the mountaintops and gorges, whilst telling how high we were at that moment. Since it was mostly Japanese it didn't really matter, but once they started the English translations, well they didn't have to get all specific about how high we were. At the first stop we went over a sulpher mine (you could smell it..), and we were gliding over it at 135metres high!! When I read about it later, I found out the gorge was actually due to an explosion (due to all the gasses in the ground). A funny thing they do here, is let eggs in the area get affected by the environment, which turns the eggs (the shell and the eggwhite) black! It's one of their main attractions. And yes I had one, and yes it tasted quite normal. After hanging around here for a white, we grabbed the cable car thingy (again, sorry) for the next stop. This stop was at ground level again, and we had lunch with a view of the lake. After lunch, we took a small walk to kill time till boarding the boat. Since almost no one did that, we had a quote, serene little woods just to ourselves. Once we could, we got onto the boat and went straight to the top deck for the best view. And it was breathtaking! Unfortunately, we weren't able to see Mt. Fuji, but what we were able to see was just as beautiful! We stopped near a shrine and decided to pay a visit. To get to the actual shrine, you had to walk up quite some stairs, but there was enough to see to make it worth it. On our way up we saw a group of people practicing Japanese archery, and it was one of the most peaceful things I had experienced this whole vacation. Once we made it all the way up to the shrine, we washed our hands in the traditional way, we made a wish and all bought a fortune. Ayumi had the best possible fortune, and I had a lesser, but still ok fortune. After reading it, Ayumi and Makoto gifted me a good luck charm for travels, since my fortune said I would need it. After visiting the shrine, we walked down to the lakeside (this was all in one straight line, which is easier for the spirits). Once we got back to the village I had bought all of us a Japanese ice cream float of some sort (after getting 10% off after winning the rock-paper-scissors duel with the vendor). We then got to sit down and soak our feet in a naturally heated footbath. After being able to relax our feet, we took the bus to the first station, so we could take the fast train back to Tokyo. I would love to tell you how beautiful the way down was, but I had fallen asleep once we had gotten on, so we'll both have to imagine that. After arriving, we found a souvenirshop that sold specialty Japanese food and we sampled almost everything! It was all quite good :) After this, we took the train back to Tokyo and I had promised Ayumi and Makoto that the next time we meet, I will be able to speak with Makoto without Ayumi having to translate everything...