Hakone

Monday, October 18, 2010

Today was spent touring this Hakone area. From Mt. Soun Station we took an aerial cable car to the Owakudani Valley which had a great view of Mt. Fuji. This area is known as “valley of great boiling” – filled with sulfurous steam vents. In other words, this place stinks!! The big thing here is to walk up the hillside to a specific area and then boil an egg in a mud/sulfur steam vent – this turns the egg black and eating one is suppose to add 7 years to your life. Well, we did not do this, but instead bought 5 black hard boiled eggs so this should guarantee each of us 17 ½ extra years!

Leaving here we took a boat cruise across Lake Ashi where we had a buffet luncheon at a hotel. In the afternoon, we continued our tour of Hakone by visiting a wooden handicraft workshop – it looks like inlaid mosaic. It is actually called Yosegi-Zailu Woodwork. “Strips are cut from planks of up to 40 varieties of undyed woods and glued together to form blocks of pattern, which are in turn glued into larger blocks. They are then either shaped with a lathe into bowls and boxes, or shaved into cross-sectioned sheets, used to coat items such as boxes and purses.” It was quite amazing.

Then back to the hotel and free time – I (Mary) got a shiatsu massage which I loved!

We had another ELABORATE dinner – the food is prepared in such a beautiful way – sure wish that I liked more of it!

We are packing and tomorrow is the “Bullet Train!”