Continued from Hakone Day 2 Part 2.

We are packing up to leave Hakone and head to Tokyo this morning. We’ll check out as late as possible (close to 11) so that we won’t arrive in Tokyo so early that we can’t check into our next hotel for a long time.

Taking advantage of our private onsen this morning. The source of the hot spring for our onsen has bubbles that comes out along with the hot water. The water is so hot that they’ve got a cold water source that you can run to blend with the hot water to make it the temperature you’d like. I want a hot spring in my own house that’s constantly overflowing and filling, it would be awesome.

Breakfast time! Basically almost as fancy as dinner. We ordered the western breakfast for the kids today, but honestly I think they may have prefer the kaiseki breakfast instead.

Lots of packing. We’ve accumulated a lot of extra stuff since coming to Japan. And the shopping restraints will be fully released in Tokyo since it’ll be our last stop this trip so anything we buy will only need to make it from the hotel room to the airport instead of on our backs through train stations etc. etc.

Our giant key for the sliding door to get into our room. To my surprise, it actually locks.

One last chance to feed the koi.

What a fun stay, but RL and I both agreed that two nights is just right. Old school ryokan is very cool, but we also miss the more modern amenities of a regular hotel.

3 kid life logistics. Regular taxis fit 4 only, so if we were to take a taxi to the station we would need to call two. And the walk back to the train station is long and very very uphill. We decided to take the 10-15min slightly downhill walk with our heavy packs to the station and hope that the kids won’t complain too much.

Would be an awesome car to drive around these mountain roads. I want one.

It’s actually quite a beautiful walk.

Look at that cool blue hue to the river. This is the river that runs outside of our room in the ryokan. The two lane road and the river snake around each other in this valley.

Reached Hakone Yumoto. This is the rice dessert shop that RL and PL have been wanting to visit…unfortunately, sad news. RL went inside, and they weren’t selling any at the moment because their machine that makes it is currently broken. Doh!

There’s goldfish under the netting. I guess to prevent birds from getting to them.

Reached the station. Took us close to 20 minutes of walking to get here.

Nice, seats for us.

A few stops and we are back at Odawara station. We’ll connect to a different train that will take us into Tokyo.

JR maps are pretty confusing. I guess that’s part of the complexity of the train network here around Tokyo.

Lantern has Odawara written on it.

I think this is maybe the line we take? It was confusing which train would take us to station we wanted. I haven’t really had any issues in Japan so far on figuring out the trains, and this is the first time I’m a little confused. Google Maps helps some, but also not too much because it keeps on changing route suggestions.

Took me forever just to find the Koga Station that this specific train will terminate at.

Starting station, so we got seats. Let’s hope this is the right train.

Lunch…or a snack.

What’s this, another delay. This is the subway line that I was planning on connecting to…may need to get off at a different train station and take another subway line. We’ll see. This train ride is supposed to take about an hour and a half, so we’ll have time to see if the subway train status changes(it does).

Hour and a half later, we are in the heart of Tokyo.

Now, go even deeper in the train station and connect to the subway.

Nice, found seats again. It’s not fun standing around with heavy packs.

At the Asakusa station, lots and lots of stairs to get to surface.

We are here, in Tokyo. All trip the girls have been asking about coming to Tokyo. They’ve got in their mind that Tokyo is this amazing place with lights and crazy stuff. We came up on this street, and so far, it isn’t what they are expecting…well duh. Not every part of Tokyo is operating at an 11. There are calm places, and busy places.

How do the Japanese not sue each other for having these stacking parking. I can see Americans getting injured due to their own negligence and suing everyone for it.

Our hotel, happy that this is our last hotel before heading home. RL and I are a little homesick.

Oh look, I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to just start pulling on random levers.

Free beer!! This is the lever that Little KL was pulling on. Our hotel offers free sake, free beer, and free snacks. Imagine what kind of drunkfest this would cause in America.

The hotel lobby is more bar and less check in. Works for us.

They’ve got a small smoking area porch from the lobby. So Japan to still have smoking areas.

Well, we are here, can’t check in yet since we are still early. Gonna pound a quick beer then head out on the streets of Tokyo for a little bit until it’s check in time.

I want this.

Free coffee. Liking this place a lot already.

We didn’t quite have enough of our to-go food on the train, and we are all still hungry. Of course, the kids want sushi, so that’s what we’ll be having. Our hotel is situated about 5min from the busy parts of Asakusa.

Tokyo Skytree. We didn’t make plans to go visit it yet, but now that we are here, maybe we’ll put it on the agenda.

Crowd and madness right up ahead.

Kaminari mon. Well, this part of Japan didn’t change. 11 years ago, it was super crowded here, today it’s still super crowded here.

Second lunch spot. Just an overall solid choice.

This place feels old school Japanese.

Now ordering through a tablet though.

Fuck yeah, let’s do this!!!

Everyone’s happy.

Now that we are fueled up, let’s take a walk around Asakusa.

Love all these covered walkways in Japan.

Oh shit, just ate and am very full from sushi, but still need to get something from here.

It’s all about that custard filling.

The reason why we took a walk after lunch.

Taito Station!!!! We’ve saved this until our last stop in Japan. We know we’ll probably end up with more stuff to carry back home, so now’s the time to attack.

But first, let’s finish our taiyaki before we go to work inside Taito Station.

To be continued at Tokyo Day 1 Part 2.