it was one saturday morning when a gang of 9 went out of the city of tokyo to travel around two hours to the vacation spot of hakone. from 7am, that two hours of train time was worthily spent on chit chats and catch ups, some of us haven't seen each other for some time. a few of us spent that train time catching up on sleep, yet some had some time to explore the train route, i happened to catch housemate c doing exactly that.
we reached hakone yumoto station from where we transferred to this quite old train line, hakone tozan railway, to our first stop for this trip.
i had quite the energy at first, i even took pictures of people waiting for the train at one of the stations along the way. but that train ride started to become dreadful. as mentioned earlier, this train line was old, and old trains usually have little horse power to carry trains up the slopes of a mountain. to carry us up the mountains of hakone, we traversed in this zig-zag railway making us all dizzy.
before we continue, as a vacation hotspot, hakone enjoys many visitors all throughout the year. and to make it even more appealing, they offer a hakone pass for 7100 yen (44.97 usd) usable for 2 days. the pass includes a single round trip from shinjuku station in tokyo to hakone, free train / cable car / ropeway tickets within hakone, a pirate ship cruise, bus fees on selected buses, and discounted tickets for parks, museums, and establishments. it is really convenient for visitors (i shouldn't have spoken too early).
gora
we eventually reached gora station, i was just happy to finally breathe fresh air again. this was the first slap of the cold winter breeze of hakone.
a few minutes of walk from the station, we arrived at gora park exactly on time for their opening at 9:30. the park usually has an entrance fee of 650 yen (around 4.12 usd) but since we availed of the hakone pass, this park was also free.
this park was just a refresher really, and we were just to pass through this briefly to continue on to the main events of this trip.
the central fountain had one icy portion which created this weird wave pattern at one part. it is not clearly seen in this photo, but it was on the left side.
this cedar tree was a prominent feature of this park for sure, and i think they are proud of it. it looks to grand even from afar. the sight of this tree alone made me happy.
toward the upper part was a rose garden, pretty empty in winter though. this gazebo was there to give us some shade in this barrenness.
now just imagine the roses blooming in this garden when in the right season, it would have been a great sight with that cedar tree right at the helm. i guess we will just have to come back at the right time.
we exited the park at the west gate. i just had to take a picture of this straight road with a view of the mountains. we were already up in the slopes but we were still going up for the next leg of the trip. we were headed to owakudani, the main observation point of the whole vacation spot.
a short meters away from the park gate, we reached this cable car station. this cable car will have a last stop at sounzan station, and we were to take a ropeway ride to the observatory from from there. it was at this point where the itinerary got jumbled.
the ropeway ride was stopped due to strong winds. we had to bid goodbye to one of the highpoints of this trip, the scenic ropeway ride to owakudani observation point. we still had some hope, buses can take us to the top. but this also fell flat, the bus only takes you to a stop where you had to walk another 25 minutes to the top.
hakone-en
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here was plan c, we still took the bus but proceeded down to the lake side to hakone-en. we planned to go back to owakudani in the afternoon once the ropeway reopens. so here we were in the lakeside area, having early lunch.
this side trip led us to a less touristy view of lake ashinoko.
i will end the entry at this point. the next one will be a major photo heavy entry so look out for that.
as always, AMPING KANUNAY!
bonus
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here were the train station stamps collected in this part of the trip. the first one is the initial train station we reached in the hakone area; our welcoming station, hakone yumoto station. the second was leading to our destination.
all content is by yours truly unless otherwise specified
all photos are taken with a galaxy s23 ultra
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Height168 cm |  | Weight75.2 kg |  | Body Fat% |  |
Waistcm |  | Thighscm |  | Chestcm |  |
