After speaking to Erez, realizing we are going to meet for dinner quite late, I decided to change my bullet train from 1:14pm to 3:14pm. This would give me more time to explore Hakone before I left – there was no need to rush.
I started the day off at the same terminal as I did yesterday, but this time I got on the gondola ropeway. I was in the car with a Chinese School group. As we were admiring the surroundings, I suddenly realized that I could see Mt Fuji just barely peeking out of the clouds. I alerted everyone, as no one else was really looking in that direction, and then we all oohed and awwed and took photos.
In the next section of the ropeway, we travelled to Owakudani where there are many active volcanic air vents. The overhead loudspeaker informed us that one of the vents was new, and had opened up during a small volcanic eruption in 2015. This, along with all the hot springs is a reminder that Japan is siting on the top of a lot of volcanic activity. You could smell the sulphur in the air, and see the yellow buildup around the vents. I purchased some black smokey eggs from the gift shop to share with Erez when I met up with him later.
We ended the gondola ride at Sounzan station and then transferred to a funicular cable car. The car was an interesting slanted shape and basically went down the mountain at an incredibly steep angle.
While on the cable car, I ended up chatting with a group of 4 older women who were very impressed by my meager Japanese. We chatted a bit and they got off the stop before me – the lady sitting next to me felt compelled to give me two cute candies from her purse – I am assuming one is for Erez when I see him later tonight.
I arrived at Gora station only to realize that my train from Gora to Hakone-Yumoto station was only going to take 40 minutes, and I couldn’t pick up my luggage until 1:30, so that meant I had lots of time. I looked around for things to do near the station and saw that there was a Park nearby. On the way there I stopped at an ice cream place to check another thing off my list: Black charcoal and sesame soft serve ice cream. I think in retrospect that this was not a great representation, but was still tasty. They also get points for extremely cute presentation – that pink heart was an edible spoon 
Gora Park was in the middle of a residential area and was originally only for the upper class. Now it is enjoyed by all. It is a fusion of far eastern and Western influences. There is a fairly large rose garden and also a traditional Japanese teahouse. There is a craft house that not only sells beautiful handmade items, but is also a working studio where they offer workshops you can sign up for. They offer glass blowing and pottery among other things.
When I was in the rose garden I bumped into the 4 ladies from the train. We chatted a bit more and took a couple of photos. They were very sweet. The last area of the park I visited was a series of greenhouses. They housed a mixture of tropical plants and some bourgenvillia.
The next mode of transportation was a special type of train designed to climb up and down the steep mountainside. This involved a complicated set of three switches where the train takes a zigzag track. At each of the switches the conductor and the driver actually switch places in the train. Now I understood why the bus was 15 minutes faster than the train. The bus drivers drive quite quickly and expertly around those hairpin turns, but a train is a whole different engineering challenge. It was cool to see how everything worked, including the network of tunnels we had to go through.
I got off the train in Hakone-Yumoto with an hour to spare before I could hopefully pick up my luggage from the courier pick up area. I set out to explore the area around the station. There is a beautiful bridge right outside the station that spans a river where you can see the mineral content in the water. I noticed that some people were going down to sit by the water – a perfect way to spend some time. I headed down to the water and settled down in a shady place, set an alarm and meditated for awhile while listening to the rush of the rapids as the water rushed down the mountain. It was very peaceful.
Next I headed back to the station and retrieved my luggage. that was $8.72 well spent. Not having to lug my 33lb bag around all day on all of those modes of transportation was a gift.
I headed to Odawara without any problems, and then getting my ticket from the machine with my prepaid QR code for the Shinkansen (bullet train) was a bit trickier but I managed to do it – then I spent 45 minutes hanging around the station. I got on the first Shinkansen without issue, but I missed my connecting train by one minute. I went to ask for help and the train personal assured me I could just take the next one. Phew! I thought I was in trouble. I only had to wait about 20 minutes for the next train.
Photos of some of the Shinkansen I saw while at the stations – this is the type I took:
This one I saw waiting to leave
I eventually arrived at my hotel which is literally part of the station building complex. It is surprisingly nice – the front desk is on the 9th floor and my room is on the 12th floor. I was thrilled to find out the there is laundry on my floor – one machine washes and dries and dispenses soap too. I didn’t realize what time I had put it in so now I have to stay up till 1am 
Meeting Erez was a whole adventure in itself. I checked google maps and saw that is was only a 30 minutes trip to meet him at the restaurant. Unfortunately that train would leave in 2 min and I was still in my room The bad news was that there wasn’t another train for an hour. So, I took a taxi – it cost approx $38. I figured I could take the train back – nope. I ended up having to take a taxi back as well, and at first it seemed like there were no taxis on the app. We asked the cook at the Izakaya and he called a taxi for us for which I was very grateful. What a mother wouldn’t do to see her kid…The funny thing was that I forgot that you could only use cash – lately I was able to use my credit card quite often. and I had used up most of my cash for the taxi. Erez has cash, so he ended up paying for dinner and giving extra money towards my cab fare just in case. I will head to the bank tomorrow and pay him back, but the irony of the role reversal was not lost on me, especially after we had already joked that if I couldn’t sort out the laundry at my hotel, he offered to take my laundry and do it for me because they have free laundry facilities in his work dormitory.
It was SOOOO great to see Erez, we had an assortment of food and caught up a bit. I stuck to my normal veg options plus fish – Erez tried an order of fried stingray fin.
It is a bit surreal seeing him here in Japan – I was so happy to finally connect with him. We will have many more adventure over the next few days I am sure – especially this weekend when he is off work.
