Monday, March 03, 2003
(New pictures of Hakone are now on-line)
Just briefly, Hakone is a large area about 60 miles west of Tokyo. It's situated around the crater of a volcano which erupted 400,000 years ago, and there's still volcanic activity going on there. Being Japan, this means that lots of hotels and resorts have sprung up aorund the area, all with their own natural hot springs. We stayed at the Fujiya Hotel, the first hotel to be built for foreigners in Japan, 120 years ago. It's a really atmospheric place - old fashioned Western and Japanese styles mixed together, just a little faded round the edges. A lot of famous people have stayed there over the years including Helen Keller, Frank Lloyd Wright, John Lennon, Margaret Thatcher and Twiggy. All the rooms are supplied with natural hot spring water, and they even use it for the central heating!
We bought a special free-pass from Tokyo which meant that once we were in the area we could use all the public transport - this included a very steep, old fashioned train, a funicular, ecablecars, a tacky reproduction galleon and buses. On Monday we went to the Open Air art gallery where you can see many sculptures by famous artists outside (it was very cold and snowing that day) and travelled around a bit before going to the hotel. The next day was sunny but still a little cold, and we started the day by walking around the hotel gardens (they have greenhouses heated by hot spring water) and then going up to Owakudani - a mountainside where sulphurous steam spouts from the ground (it smells very bad and there are warning signs about not staying in one place for too long!) and you can buy eggs boiled in hot sulphurous pools. After that we travelled on, riding on the tacky boat and then walking to some beautiful gardens overlooking the lake. Then we found some remnants of the old Tokaido way (which went between Tokyo and Osaka a few hundred years ago) which is lined with huge cedar trees, and visited Hakone shrine, which has a very large, red, torii gateway standing in the lake waters nearby.
Just briefly, Hakone is a large area about 60 miles west of Tokyo. It's situated around the crater of a volcano which erupted 400,000 years ago, and there's still volcanic activity going on there. Being Japan, this means that lots of hotels and resorts have sprung up aorund the area, all with their own natural hot springs. We stayed at the Fujiya Hotel, the first hotel to be built for foreigners in Japan, 120 years ago. It's a really atmospheric place - old fashioned Western and Japanese styles mixed together, just a little faded round the edges. A lot of famous people have stayed there over the years including Helen Keller, Frank Lloyd Wright, John Lennon, Margaret Thatcher and Twiggy. All the rooms are supplied with natural hot spring water, and they even use it for the central heating!
We bought a special free-pass from Tokyo which meant that once we were in the area we could use all the public transport - this included a very steep, old fashioned train, a funicular, ecablecars, a tacky reproduction galleon and buses. On Monday we went to the Open Air art gallery where you can see many sculptures by famous artists outside (it was very cold and snowing that day) and travelled around a bit before going to the hotel. The next day was sunny but still a little cold, and we started the day by walking around the hotel gardens (they have greenhouses heated by hot spring water) and then going up to Owakudani - a mountainside where sulphurous steam spouts from the ground (it smells very bad and there are warning signs about not staying in one place for too long!) and you can buy eggs boiled in hot sulphurous pools. After that we travelled on, riding on the tacky boat and then walking to some beautiful gardens overlooking the lake. Then we found some remnants of the old Tokaido way (which went between Tokyo and Osaka a few hundred years ago) which is lined with huge cedar trees, and visited Hakone shrine, which has a very large, red, torii gateway standing in the lake waters nearby.
# posted by Phil T : 2:59 am
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]