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From Nikko, we spent an entire day travelling back to the Shinjuku Eki (Station) in Tokyo, in order to take a train to Hakone-Fuji area. We’ll be in this resort area for a couple days now, and it looks to been an adventure! Hakone-Fuji is known for it’s onsens and for the health they bring. Unfortunately, I’ve managed to pick up a cold!
Our Ryokan, The Fuji-Hakone, has an outdoor family style onsen one can reserve, as well as an indoor single onsen! Our room, #8, has 10 tatami mats-quite spacious. The room to beg for is #7 as it sports a breakfast alcove and a sink with a mirror!
But, we settle into our room happily. The place has a very peaceful feeling about it, and the ryokan is nessled in the trees. The gals who run it are young and they’re learning about the trade in order to someday open their own establishment.
We all went out as a group to a delightful little place, see the picture of me about to enter the restaurant. Dennis had fried chicken (See the picture above, it’s nothing like KFC!!!) and I had terryaki chicken (very yummy indeed). Dinner for two was 2600 yen including sake. Pretty reasonable for sure.
The outdoor onsen (natural hot springs) at Yunnesen are incredible. A very Japanese experience. They’re a very clean society, which you kind of have to be when you share limited space with so many millons of people. Public bath houses are common all over the country in major cities and towns, and coming to the Mt. Fuji area to bathe and relax is reportedly a great vacation for the Japanese.
At the spa, the mist in the hills made for an cool scene while roaming in one’s birthday suit between many outdoor and indoor springs. All the pools were different temperatures, one had jacuzzi jets, and since it was off season and slightly rainy weather, we just about had the place to ourselves.
Each of the springs could hold probably a couple of dozen people, and there were about a dozen springs. But when we were there, there was probably only 15 patrons, total.
Due to the weather, the only time we actually saw Mt. Fuji was on the train ride to the area. The pics are okay, but don’t really give the sense of what a towering, massive mountain it is.
At the Fuji-Hakone ryokan we stayed at, the staff taught us origami one night. That ryokan was one of the nicer ones on the trip, with multiple hot spring baths, including an outdoor one.