Back in Asia: Hakone, Ito & Osaka

And once again the night leg of our trip is over. This time: Japan Part 2, with Hakone, Ito and Osaka.

In order to spend some time outside of Tokyo, we looked in advance for places that were easy to reach by train from Tokyo or Osaka and still had a program for the day. Our choice fell on Hakone & Ito.

The Hakone region is located a little east of Mount Fuji, is very hilly, which we weren't necessarily aware of before we arrived, and offers an incomparable view of Mt. Fuji and the red gate of the Hakone Shrine from Lake Ashi. Many Japanese spend a weekend here to escape the hustle and bustle of the city.

Our hostel was right on the lake, and our journey took us from the train station by bus for half an hour through the hilly landscape of Hakone. When we arrived at the hostel, we were greeted by a cozy common room that was centered around an open fire, and the somewhat complicated journey was quickly forgotten. We booked ourselves into the hostel for two nights so we could spend a full day in Hakone.

We started this full day early in the morning with a walk along the lake, which we had never seen in daylight before. After just a few meters we were rewarded by the wonderful sight of Fuji-San reflected in the water of the lake and we treated ourselves to a simple breakfast at the convenience store with a view of Japan's landmark. We spent the rest of the day taking a boat trip across Lake Ashi, visiting the sulfur springs of an inactive volcano and hiking around the lake to the Hakone Shrine.

The highlight of many Japanese tourists in Hakone are black eggs, which are said to give them a longer life. What sounds nasty actually ends up being normal boiled eggs whose shells turn black from the sulfur. Of course we wanted to try these and since the eggs could only be bought in packs of 4 and each egg is supposed to give you 7 years longer life, we have now each accumulated 14 additional years!

After Hakone we continued to Ito. While Hakone is also known to many international tourists due to its proximity to Mount Fuji, Ito is a destination that, in our experience, is a little less known. We chose Ito because the place is located by the sea, which we had not experienced much in Japan before, and the Izu region, the peninsula on which Ito is located, has a lot to offer in terms of landscape. In addition, Ito is known for its hot springs and has the 4th largest hot water reserves in Japan.

In Ito we stayed overnight in what was probably the most special accommodation of our trip. We booked into a hostel, which is located in one of the oldest ryokans in Ito and is a registered landmark in Japan. The original rooms and the onsen, the hot bath, have been retained. The only difference we could see compared to a real ryokan was the lack of food, which we could do without because of the many good sushi restaurants in Ito.

In Ito we spent a lot of our days, but not only, in the onsen and also hiked up another inactive volcano on which there was a modern café, along the coast of Izu to a suspension bridge over the cliffs and went running by the sea. Overall, we were very positively surprised by Ito and would definitely recommend a stay here.

Leaving Ito was also surprisingly easy. Ito itself is even connected to the Shinkansen network and is therefore easy to reach from Tokyo, but we continued on to Osaka and had to change trains in Atami. On the train we were able to enjoy our Bento boxes (Bento boxes for the train are called EkiBen: Eki = train station, Ben = short for Bento) with a view of Mount Fuji, all in all a great experience!

We spent the last days in Japan in Osaka. Since we had already visited Osaka, we took it a little easier here. We had specially booked a hotel on one of the rivers that run through Osaka and Philipp used this to go running along the river to Osaka Castle in the morning. We also went on a bike ride and strolled through Osaka's culinary hub, Dotonbori. As on our last visit, we couldn't miss a visit to one of the arcade halls, where you can play every game imaginable on one of the hundreds of machines.

Unfortunately, our trip ends in Japan and even though we were able to be here once, we had a lot of fun these two weeks! Above all, we were able to discover a lot of new things in addition to places we already knew. Hakone and Ito achieved the desired balance with Tokyo and Osaka. In addition, Mt Fuji will remain in our memories for a long time.

We continue in Seoul!