Sunday, October 17, 2010
Today we headed out of Tokyo on a motor coach heading south to the Hakone resort area. On the way we stopped at the 1st Station - Mt. Fuji Visitor Center before heading up to the final 5th Station (7,562 ft.) of Mt. Fuji. From there on, you are hiking but that is only allowed in July and August. This mountain is very much revered in Japan.
Back on the bus we headed on down to Hakone. It is hilly, hot-spring resort town. Our lodging here is a ryokan which is a traditional Japanese inn. The rooms have the tatami mats on the floor – no shoes allowed and no beds just a large low table with floor chairs. The futons are put out while you are at dinner. The big thing at such an inn is the communal bath – only half of us did this – there were separate bathing rooms for men and women. (It reminded us of high school locker room days and we both said no thanks!)
We dined in kimonos and had an ELABORATE meal – just beautiful – of food that was mostly not eaten by me (Mary.) I am sorry, but I can’t eat raw fish etc. Dessert was good though. It was a fun dinner – we have an extremely interesting group of people who have traveled all over and quite a few have lived all over – 2 couples had been with the State Department and were posted everywhere from Moscow, Kiev, Turkey etc!
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