Hakone - Black Eggs and Hot Springs

We caught the shinkansen over to Odawara, and from there, the local train to Hakone. We took the bus from there to our onsen ryokan, where we left our baggage until check in. From there we knew we needed to go up the mountain to see the volcanic hot spring at the top, but we forgot to have any information about this printed out. We made our way to the cable car station, and from there finally remembered where we wanted to go – Owakudani.

To reach it, we had to take a cable car up part of the way, then take a ropeway car the rest of the way. The view was magnificent despite the rainy day. To see the mountains being enveloped by the clouds was pretty cool. On clear days, you can see Mount Fuji as well as the ocean from Owakudani, which would have been also neat, but alas, mother nature was not cooperating.

The ropeway cars were like an amusement park ride!

One of the hot spring pools at the top

Owakudani is famous for its black eggs – eggs hard boiled in the volcanic waters of the hot spring at the top of the mountain. They are fabled to bring you extra vitality and an extended lifespan if you eat them, so we bought a pack and ate one each. They actually tasted really good, better than regular hard boiled eggs.

We also ate at the Owakudani Sky Restaurant because they advertised a special Owakudani curry. No lie, it tasted like American chili. It was quite tasty. Meghan got some pancakes because she was craving them, and they ended up being almost angel food cake-like. Pretty weird, but pretty good anyway.

The shells are black, but the insides are normal colored

Angel-food-like Pancakes

Owakudani Curry (AKA American Chili)

After getting back to the ryokan, we checked in officially, and discovered that the staff had already brought our luggage to our room. We got right into the private hot spring bath, which if your not familiar is basically a hot tub. It was quite nice.

The view of the river from our private hot spring bath

After hanging out for a while in the room, we went up to dinner. We had a very traditional Japanese meal, which wasn’t entirely satisfying, especially considering we saw another couple who had somehow gotten shabu-shabu. That choice was definitely not available when we booked our stay.

The first course of the meal. We were also given some
steamed vegetables (pumpkin, carrots, brocolli, okra, potatoes,
and cabbage), fish tempura, some pork, and a small scoop
of some sort of sorbet.

We got in the bath again once more before getting ready for bed. The ryokan didn’t put out our futons for us, which was kind of disappointing as well, but there were enough to double up the futons to make sure we were comfortable.

We finished packing in the morning, and headed down to breakfast. We ended up with a traditional Japanese breakfast as well, which consisted of a bunch of pickled vegetables, some tofu, a soft-boiled egg, a grilled fish, some sweet miso soup, and natto (fermented soy bean). Despite having a pretty terrible smell, it didn't actually taste like much on its own. I didn't eat much, and Meghan didn't even try it.

The dreaded natto.

Link to today's pictures.