Continued from Hakone Day 1 Part 2.

Slept ok last night. Was a little warm even with the AC since the AC is in the kids’ room. We opened the door between us after they fell asleep in order to get more airflow, and with the fan assist was able to get the temperature to a pretty comfortable level.

Having a slow start to the day, we all need it as well as some alone time. We will get served breakfast at around 8:30am today and then we’ll go sightseeing a little bit in Hakone.

A good time to check out our little private garden.

That room with the light on is our private onsen.

Onsens means plumbing to pipe all the hot water around. I wonder where the main source comes from? Is there a spring that just wells up or do they need to pump it up from underground?

Is the river spring fed and that’s why it’s got that blue hue?

Lovely moss garden. Wish those AC units weren’t there to ruin this view, but…I’ll take having AC to no AC.

Everyday they need to set up and take down our futons and convert our room into a dining area.

Thought about making an onsen private bath reservation, but they still haven’t updated the sign up sheet from yesterday yet.

No problem. Gonna take advantage of our own private onsen in our room before they serve breakfast. I wish I had a always ready, always self-refilling hot tub at home.

Breakfast.

Breakfast is basically just like dinner. Yum.

Yeah?

Nom nom nom.

I look around Japan and see all sort of stuff that’s not compliant in America. Then I also think about how safe this country is and then I’m confused.

Such a cool ryokan.

The kids are determined to feed the fish later today. They provide food to feed the koi here.

Old hotel means there’s a room for making phone calls that’s still here.

Alright, got our breakfast in, time to go do some sightseeing in Hakone. We did a lot of walking yesterday, so we are going to try to do less walking today. Our legs and feet are tired.

Our Ryokan, it’s old, and could also use a little bit of restoration. Part of the charm I guess?

Let’s see, where to go. I guess partially up the mountain to the train station.

Reached the same station we were dropped off at yesterday. It’s such a cool walking trail through the mountain to get here.

The plan is to do the Hakone loop today. Train, to funicular, to gondolas, then same way back.

I don’t have the correct touchless card to pay in and out of the station.

Please take this to heart, my child who touches and messes with everything doubtful. We asked him to point at this so we could take a picture of him with it, he doesn’t know what it says or why mom and dad are laughing.

What a beautiful train station.

It says to buy train tickets on the train…we’ll see about that. My plan is to just buy a fare adjusted ticket at the terminal station of this train.

Boundless energy.

Here comes our train.

And it’s a very crowded train, so we had to stand. I guess everyone’s got the same idea of going up the mountain in the morning to sightsee. It’s a 40 min ride to our first stop, I’m just tired of standing.

Well, apparently our train ride in Taiwan isn’t the only train we’ll be taking on this trip with switchbacks. There are also two switchbacks on this train route.

Just completed our first switchback. The trains that go up the mountain and that come down actually use the switchbacks to pass other going opposite directions. They’d both pull into the same station and at the switchbacks have parallel tracks to park at while one train goes first. And the train announcement told us that because of the constant climbing grade and tight turns, these trains are specially made to be smaller for the tighter turns and also spray water on the tracks to prevent rail wear.

Now at second switchback.

Not sakura blooms, but still pretty cool to see.

And we’ve reached St. Moritz Switzerland….Not really, this is Gora station. But they’ve got this big advertising here for St. Moritz station. I guess for all the mountain train connoisseurs?

Little KL’s “whole trip difficulty level” summed up here and in the next 3 photos.

This child is high maintenance…Not a still moment.

At the Gora station, we’ll need to buy tickets to take the funicular to get us to the gondola station. It was a busy train ride, and I didn’t want to bother the conductor to buy tickets, so I came into Gora station, went to the ticket adjustment booth and bought tickets retroactively for this leg we just rode on.

What sucks is that you need to buy tickets at every stop instead of just buying one that gets you all the way to the end…but now that I’m reading this, I guess I could get the 1 Day cable ticket. Oops. It’s always hard to process so much information at stations while dealing with kids.

Kids said they were hungry, even though we just had breakfast at the ryokan not long ago. I guess this croissant shop at the train station will do for now.

PL in 3 photos. Hey baba, look at me holding the croissant with my mouth.

Oh…I’m dropping it…let me try to catch it…

Right before it fell on the ground, and then she didn’t want to eat it, so I ended up eating it and giving her mine. Sigh…I guess this is what love is all about, eating a croissant dusted with train station floor dirt.

As we were done eating our croissants, the next train arrives and it’s bringing a giant tour group. Shit…we better line up to the funicular. Blah.

Look at that massive crowd just entering the station.

We managed to squeeze in closer to the front of the funicular line. Let’s see how it works out.

Here comes the funicular, let’s make sure we get on it.

PL was making a fuss about sitting next to strangers on the car. Of course, someone took the last seat while she was fussing about it, so now she’ll need to stand for the ride.

There’s an ad on the funicular for the dessert that RL and PL want to buy before we leave Hakone.

Kind of a long funicular ride at 15 minutes with several stops along the way. Probably one of the longest funicular I’ve been on now that I think about it. At this station, we buy tickets and get on the gondola.

It’s a dual cable setup, but it’s just one cable wrapped around. I guess this prevents the issue of having speed variance of having two separate cables.

We got out of the funicular and went fast with buying tickets and whatnot to try to get in front of the giant tour group. Seems like we have succeeded.

A little excited, a little apprehensive.

PL is a little bit apprehensive…just a little bit.

Still got some clouds, but I wonder if we’ll be able to see Mt. Fuji when we get to the top.

Almost to the station, below us is Owakudani, a valley of volcanic sulphur vents and hot springs.

More than all the active vents, I’m really impressed by all the support concrete they’ve built up to prevent further landslides. I mean…if the land slid here, it would take out the gondola station which supports that gondola that I’m currently on.

I believe at one point you used to be able to go walk the trail system down there.

As expected, it smells like rotten eggs here.

At the station, now we need to get off and get on yet another cable car.

This gondola will get us all the way to Lake Ashi.

To be continued at Hakone Day 2 Part 2.