First Weekend Travels

I didn't waste any time getting out this second trip back. Dave (my coworker) and I decided that we were going to make the trip out to Hakone. It is this volcanic area which some cool trees, lakes and black eggs. The morning started at a decent hour. Meeting up at 0800 at the JR train station here in Yokosuka. Then our first train change was in Odawara, and we thought it would be a good idea to jump out of the station and check out the local castle. The place was very impressive. It was reconstructed recently and the whole interior is a museum dedicated to the era when the castle was predominant. Tons to see there.

After the short detour, we continued onto the Hakone area. Our first major stop was an outdoor air museum in tribute to Pablo Picasso. Many artists came together to create sculptures inspired by his work. Warning some of the people in the photos are atomically correct.

The rest of the trip was a combination of cable cars, sky gondolas and fake pirate boats. I put up a selection of a few photos from the trip. Some notes, the top of the trip was the sulfurous area where they boil eggs in sulfur water which turns them black on the outside. I skipped this strange food. Seeing them was enough for me. I figured that if the whole area smelled like someone passed gas I didn't need to eat an egg that would remind me of that too. But if you ever needed to fat in public this was the place. After about 10 min at the top you couldn't tell if someone had or not. The hike up and around there was really fun. Kind of weird to think though that they put a tourist attraction on top of an active volcano spewing out toxic gasses...

To end the trip I wanted to see the Hakone guard station. It was drawing late in the day and right outside he gard station most of the shops had closed up but I was able to go into the area where they made Japanese puzzle boxes. The wood worker was very impressive and I was shocked to find a puzzle box that takes 320+ moves to open. I didn't ask how much those were but I did buy another puzzle box from him.

Sunday I took it easy after all the traveling. Nice to enjoy a day to read and stare out over the balcony of my hotel room.