After we visited Hakone Open Air Museum, we continued our course using the Fuji Hakone Passes. Unlike our visit in 2013, this time we weren't able to see anything from the ropeway cabin. It was quite eerie to be suspended in the air and not being able to see anything outside!
At the ropeway final station, we went and lined up to ride on the Pirate Cruise. From the ship we were able to see a little bit more...
Our ship decked and we got off and walked to the bus station. It was getting dark and cold, and we were rushing a bit because the bus we were trying to catch was the very last bus for the day! The bus journey didn't take too long, we got off at Hakone Yumoto Station, and walked a bit further to get dinner. As per Miss Kiki's request, we dined at a soba restaurant called Yama Soba. We ordered 2 bowls of soba and a rice bowl. All three dishes were pretty good, though I must say I like cold soba much better than hot ones.
When we got back to our hotel, we went to warm ourselves out at their onsen. It was larger than the onsen at MyStay Hotel in Fuji, but it is older and not as nice. They had an ice cream vending machine by the onsen so we bought some.
The next morning, we checked out and left our belongings at the hotel concierge. We then took the time we had to browse the small stores along the main street.
We were attracted to this manjuu bun store, so we stopped to buy a couple of samples. We decided that we liked the black one best, with sesame flavour so grandma bought a box to take with us.
Just a few stores past Nanohana Manjuya, we stopped at Grande Riviere for cheese tarts. This store's specialty is honey cheese tart. We bought one to taste and grandma bought a box.
We continued walking and passed a rice cracker store. They had shaped rice crackers and freshly grilled rice crackers for sale. We ordered one grilled cracker and bough a heart shaped cracker and a set of Mt. Fuji shaped crackers to take home. The cracker was very hard, I thought. Very different from the factory-made crackers that we were used to.
We walked further and came across a gem store. If you have been following my blog for a while, you've probably read about Miss Kiki's fascination with rocks and gems. At this store, she bought a scoop of agates and they became her treasure. At the time I am writing this post, she has already made a display shelf for those agates. She made them from a piece of cardboard and tissue paper roll.
We walked further and found a nice little snack store with a foot bath at the front. We bought some snacks and dipped our feet in.
We stopped at a different soba restaurant for lunch before we went on our Odakyu Romance car back to Shinjuku. This train is a comfortable way to travel between Hakone and Shinjuku Station. There is a surcharge on top of the Fuji Hakone Passes to ride on one of the 5 types of romance cars. You also need to reserve a seat. When you book your time and seat, they will tell you which type of train it is. We rode on the 50000 series VSE with white exterior and orange interior. They all have wide windows as well as on board food services.
Upon arrival at Shinjuku Station, we retrieved our suitcases and took the JR train to Shibuya where our hotel for the next 3 evenings are located. We checked in at Tokyu REI hotel in Shibuya and was a bit disappointed because it wasn't nearly as nice as the Hiroshima and Kobe Tokyu REI I stayed at in 2016. Moreover, when I booked through Agoda, the description said twin room which apparently meant twin room - smoking. Our room reeked of cigarette and we were suffering a bit. They were nice enough to change our room to a non-smoking one the next day.
After we checked in we walked around Shibuya area and had dinner at Ikinari Steak again (what grandma wanted) and from there hopped over to Sushi Zanmai nearby so Miss Kiki can get what she wanted. We ordered her 2 tuna platters and she licked the plates clean.
See how happy she was! :D
Please stay tuned for the next post!
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