Black Eggs and Pirate Ships.....Hakone Continued

Saturday, April 25th--After relaxing the night before in either the public onsen or private bathtub, everyone had a restful night sleep.  We woke up to this lovely view out our hotel room window.  As much as we enjoy living in Tokyo, it does our souls some good to be up in the mountains.

We have a jam-packed day today, so we got an early start on breakfast.  The hotel puts on a HUGE buffet style breakfast, with just about anything you could imagine to choose from.

There were the usual Western type breakfast items of sausage, bacon, eggs, muffins, French toast, yogurt, and fruit.  But, there were many other items available as well.  Things like gyoza, rice, ramen, udon, miso soup, fish (cooked in many different ways), seaweed, a salad bar, and a lot of steamed veggies such as broccoli.  They had eggs being boiled in the hot spring water.  Tayla got one.  When she peeled off the shell and squished the egg, it exploded.  She was grossed out by how raw it was and couldn't eat it. 
We all ate way too much and then were ready to begin our exciting adventures for the day!

Just about everyone we have come in contact with while in Japan has been so courteous and helpful.  Often, we will be on a street corner looking at a map to get our bearings, only to have a helpful stranger come up to us and offer to help.  Up to this point, we could only think of one--just one!--person (who happened to be at a metro in Kyoto) who was rude to us.  Literally, everyone has been so kind and respectful.  Sadly, the bus driver who drove us down the mountain to our first stop did not fit the Japanese mold.  We didn't know if he just didn't get his coffee this morning or what, but he was so rude.  He dumped us off at our stop and we were grateful to be done with him.

The town of Hakone is built near a still active volcano and is part of the Fuji Hakone Izu National Park.  There is a famous sightseeing loop around the volcano, and this is what we were going to spend our morning doing.  People will often take a day to complete this loop, but we were going to try and do it in 1/2 a day.

We were dropped/dumped off by the rude bus driver at Gora Station.  At this point, we got on a cable car that climbs the mountain.  The attendants that worked here were rude, also.  I guess it was a little bit of a shock to us because it's not normal in Japan for people to be that rude.

We got seats in the front, so we could easily see the view as we went up.

The cable car ended at a station called Odawara.  We then got on a ropeway that would take us the rest of the way up the volcano.  The attendants were kind at this station.

The town of Hakone below us and we glided up the volcano.....

Some of us are afraid of heights, so as we began to climb it was a little scary.....the views were nice, though.  We quickly got comfortable in the ropeway and could enjoy ourselves.

After a while, we came upon a sulfur mine. 

As we continued along the ropeway, the mine was below us and we could get a bird's eye view of it all.  It was pretty awesome.

Ahead, we could see some steam rising from the volcano.  The steam was coming from vents.  The smell of sulfur dioxide was in the air.

I didn't take this picture, I got it from the internet.  (Isn't it gorgeous?  My camera isn't good enough for pictures like this.)  We had more cloud cover on the day that we went.  But, I just had to add it, because it is so beautiful and shows the steam vents and the beautiful shape of the mountain so well.

After we passed over the mine, we landed at a stop called Owakudani, which means Great Boiling Valley, and got off the ropeway.  This was looking back at where we had been.

It was time to make our way up to the steam vents.  We would be walking in a crater that was created during the last eruption of Mount Hakone some 3000 years ago.

As we walked along the path, we noticed this little stream with milky blue water.  It reminded us of Yellowstone National Park.

We saw some other people touching it, which never happens in Yellowstone.  If the natives are doing it.....

....then we will, too!  It was warm, about the temperature of bath water.

We made it to the end of the pathway, as far up the volcano as they would let us go.  All around us were steam vents as well as a few bubbling pools and the smell of sulfur was very strong.  Poor Kirstin was sacked out, so we can't see her sweet face.

The view of the surrounding mountains was beautiful.

After we had explored a bit, we watched this man work around this bubbling pool.  There was so much steam coming off from it, that we could hardly see the water.

This is how hot this pool of water is!

He had rubber boots, rubber gloves, and this long pole that he was using to stir the water.

Then, he pulled out crates full of chicken eggs and set them gently into the pool.

He then went to a different part of the pool and pulled out a crate that had been in there for awhile.  To our delight, the eggs were black!  As they cook in the hot spring water, the sulfur in the water turns the shells black.  It's science!

There is a legend that says that if you eat an egg cooked in this pool, it will prolong your life by seven years. 

The people who work here cook many eggs everyday and load them onto this special ropeway.  The eggs travel down the mountain to Owakudani Station where visitors buy them in groups of five.  You could also buy them in a booth next to the bubbling pool, which we did!  We paid 500 yen for 5 of them--that's about $1 an egg. 

This is a sign explaining how the eggs become black.

On the rock wall above the egg pool, we could barely see this splattered egg through the heavy steam.  Ha!

The eggs were super hot, so we put them in the stroller and went back down the path toward the ropeway station, thinking that they would be cooled off by the time we got there.  When we finally pulled them out of the bag, they were still almost too hot to touch.

Peeling the eggs.....

....it was kind of hard to peel them because of how hot they were! 

Because we only bought 5, we had to share them.  Everyone took a bite.  I wonder if that means that we all will get our life prolonged by only 3.5 years now?  They tasted different than the hard-boiled eggs that we are used to eating.

Some of us liked them, some of us didn't!

There were black egg "monuments" around Owakudani Station, so we took our picture next to this one....

....and this Hello Kitty one--of course--before getting back on the ropeway to make our way down the mountain.

The kids REALLY loved traveling around the volcano via a ropeway.  It was a peaceful, quiet ride and we could enjoy the mountains view and the forest below as we glided along.  It was very different from anything they have done before.  At this part of the Hakone Loop, we are supposed to be able to see Mt. Fuji, but it was too overcast for that.

We had traveled halfway around the circumference of the Hakone volcano on the ropeway.  It was time to travel around the other half--via ship.  A pirate ship, that is!

This is the scene of Lake Ashi and Mt. Fuji that we were hoping for as we traveled on the pirate ship, but unfortunately, it was too cloudy and dreary and we could not see Mt. Fuji at all.  Darn it!!  Lake Ashinoko is a crater lake that was formed in the caldera of Mount Hakone after the volcano's last eruption 3000 years ago.

We stood in a long line to buy our tickets for the ship, but it went fast and soon we were boarding the Hakone sightseeing cruise ship.

The kids were excited to board a "real" pirate ship!

From the deck of the ship, if you looked close, you could see the ropeway towers on the very top of the mountain in the distance. 

Soon, we cast off and were headed back to the town of Hakone at the other end of Lake Ashi.

The family on the deck of the ship.

Along the shoreline, there were still a few sakura trees in bloom.  The air on the lake was misty, and there was a small wind.  It was really chilly, but it was still a nice ride.  It took a little over 30 minutes to cross Lake Ashi.

We passed a few red torii gates in the water, too.  Reminded us of Miyajima Island.

Can you spot the red torii gate?

We arrived at the pier in Hakone and disembarked from the pirate ship.  We then got on a bus that took us back to the very same hotel where we had begun our day.  We weren't going back to the hotel, though.  We were going across the street--to YUNESSUN!!!!!