Hakone, Japan

After the insanity of Tokyo, I really needed a break.

So, on the advice of a stranger, I bought a 3-day pass to Hakone.  And what a break it was.  A mountain town an hour from Tokyo, there's almost nothing to do here.  No madness, no crowds, and certainly no stress.  Just groups of old ladies in hats, taking a midweek break from the city.  

I'd climb on and off a rickety train that ran up the mountain, wandering aimlessly in little resort towns.  The best word for the area, really, was delightful.   

One stop had a huge sculpture garden in rolling hills, with a Henry Moore piece that made me cry.  A Picasso Museum left me unimpressed, save for a painting on ceramic of a boy's head...  but it was Picasso in the Japanese mountains.  That alone gave it cred.

Stopping at Miyanoshita, I found a gorgeous tonkatsu curry at the Fujiya Hotel.  The pickle selection?  Incredible!  The tonkasu?  Perfect.  The views of mountains from the century-old dining room made up for the fact that they didn't have chopsticks.

After the train, you'd  switch to a cable-car, which slowly carried you further up the mountain.  

It ended at a cute bubble ski-lift, The Hakone Ropeway, which carried you over the top of the mountain, to an incredible sulphuric hot-water area.

Sulphuric steam billowed from the ground along little paths.  80 degree streams trickled down the mountain.

A series of buses had driven crowds directly here, so for the first time, there was something approaching a crowd...

Now, the resort's primary claim to fame is eggs, hard-boiled in the volcanic water.  The shells come out black, and the insides apparently perfectly cooked.  And legend has it that each one eaten adds seven years to your life.  (Old ladies crowded around, shoving the eggs in their mouths, dropping black shell to the ground.)  Egg-y things were everywhere: egg sculptures, egg paintings, there was even a Hello Kitty, dressed in a black egg shell, to pose with.

I watched, sad and left out.  I can't eat eggs.  (I did at 大 Sushi, and regretted it.)  

But you know what I can eat?  Azuki ice cream!!!  All of Japan is flooded with red bean treats, and, on a cold volcanic afternoon, this was a real reward.

A second ropeway led back down the other side of the mountain, offering a gorgeous view of Lake Ashi...

...where a gargantuan Pirate Ship met us, and took us to the other side.  Yep, a Pirate Ship.  An incredible, cheesy, terrible plastic reconstruction of a pirate ship, loaded with a booty of retirees and awed schoolchildren.  "Sailing" across Lake Ashi, with this photo-snap-happy group, it was just about the most fun I've had in Japan.

From the boat's deck, I saw a shrine, off in the distance, at the water's edge.

And immediately I knew.  I had to take this photo. (Which looks remarkably PhotoShop'ed when so small, but it ain't compositionally altered. Click on it for a slightly larger version...)

Hakone: the perfect salve for a post-Tokyo decope.