We ate another fabulous breakfast at the Hilton, this time on 1F. This was the big buffet.
Sauna room at Hilton
Steam room in Hilton
Relaxation room at Hilton
We then took the Hilton bus to the Shinjuku train station, about 10 minutes away and we were dropped off at the West entrance. There are apparently many entrances. It was a crazy station with a million people. It was a national holiday today, the Emperor's birthday.
We had to buy one-way tickets from Shinjuku to Odawara. While I was doing that, Kathryn was scouting for the JR Rail ticket office. Sam was looking for food we could buy to eat on the train. Alia was guarding the luggage.
We had JR passes that we pre-ordered but had to turn them in to get real passes and to activate them. It turned out we had to go to the East entrance and it took a while zig zagging amoungst so many people. Turns out the line was moving very slowly - actually not moving at all - so we abandoned that effort. Must find another station sometime.
We then had literally minutes to run - yes, run - to track to and boarded our "Romance Train" to Odawara. It turns out they sold food and drink on the train but no one told us, even though I asked many people and many times. It was only 1.5 hours and it was non-stop with one stop. We paid extra otherwise the local was cheaper but made many stops and took longer (and we had reserved seats). Not all the seats were taken so <> moved up to an empty row. The conductor must have had the sold seat map memorized as he came by and stopped at <>'s row and said some words in Japanese that we did not understand. He then typed some stuff in his tablet and then showed it to <> and she got up and moved back to her seat. I asked what did it say? She said he typed will you please move to your assigned seat, thank you.
When he left our car, he turned and looked at everyone and bowed. He turned and went to the next car. He looked at everyone and bowed and walked. I watched him. As he left that car, he turned and looked at everyone and bowed. And so on.
The two young women with the food cart (one pushing the cart and one with the credit card machine), both did the same thing, bowed when leaving the car and when entering the next car. Our stop is near the bottom left where it says Hakone.
We decided to not stay at the Hilton Odawara and decided to stay in Hakone.
http://www.princehotels.com/en/the_prince_hakone/
This hotel is right on the lake.
The lobby is very pretty
We left the kids in the room and explored the quietness of the resort and watched the mist roll in
We ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant 2 miles away
<> had the opportunity to practice his Chinese.
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Day 5 click here
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