2015-Japan: THU-24-DEC-2015 Day 5 in Hakone

THU-24-DEC-2015 Day 5 in Hakone

We were all up at 5:00 AM today and played on our devices. It was misty outside and could not see the lake at all.

We had breakfast in the hotel.

Those are doors down below and doors / balconies above - all done in small tiles. Notice the chandelier - it is a pirate theme, see next picture for close-up

Look closely. There is a face looking down, with a hat and feathers and earrings. Then the other side has another face. The other side has another face.

As the sun came out, it started to burn off

We decided to walk next door to the cable car and see if it would be worth going to the top, which is 1,357 meters above sea level. You can see the top of the cable car station to the top left. You can see our hotel on the bottom right.

We are, after all, at the base of Mount Fuji. As we walked, we looked back and we could see the top of Mt Fuji, there were no clouds obscuring it.

Picture perfect.

This is looking north east and you can see a golf course. Look beyond it and you can see the town of Odawara and next to it you can see the Pacific Ocean.

Here you can see the top of Mt Fuji and you can see a Shinto temple.

<> took this picture in black-and-white looking up at the temple

And this from the top. You can see the clouds / mist (the white stuff). You can see me just to the left of the left post if you zoom in all the way. I am looking down at my camera.

Mt Fuji in the background

We then took the 11:45 bus to Togendai, then another bus to the Venetian Glass Museum. We caught a Santa on his way to the chimney and a second Santa going for the window. That tree is all glass items at the end of each "branch" and is glistening colored light reflecting

There is a volcano in the background that had some activity in April and it triggered alert #3, which then went to #2 a few months ago and went down to #1 about a week ago, so the seismic activity has subsided. It is putting out sulfur fumes and the area around it is closed.

There are very few ATMs around and if you see one, it will probably say that foreign credit cards and ATM cards will not work in them. So beware. Carry Yen with you. Lots of it. Very few places take credit cards. You would think bus stations, where they sell tourist tickets, etc. would take credit cards, but they do not. Beware.

That is the steam coming from the active volcano behind us.

We took the 3:01 bus back and then the 4:00PM boat.

We took a scenic boat ride from Togendai back to Hakone-en, which is right next to our hotel

Setting sun and Mt Fuji. Air temperature about 50 degrees F