We were up early again today to take advantage of the mineral baths at the ryokan. The staff then served us breakfast in our room. Robin had ordered a "Western" breakfast, which they strongly encouraged her to order after they discovered her dislike of fish. She later described it as "the worst caricature of an American breakfast I had ever seen, complete with Folgers Coffee and a strangely yellow omelet served with ketchup." It didn't have fish, so it could have been worse. The Japanese breakfast was quite good, with miso soup, rice, various pickled things and fish.
We left just after breakfast and took the bus up the mountain to Lake Ashi where we hoped to catch a glimpse of Mount Fuji (locally, Fuji-san as a sign of respect). We took a bizarre replica of a man 'o war ship, complete with fake cannons, across the lake, but Mt. Fuji remained hidden behind clouds the whole way. Apparently, it's surrounded by clouds about 90% of the time.
At the far end of the lake, we got on the Togendai Ropeway, a cable car trip up the mountain with amazing views of the lake and the Hakone area, with the exception of Mt. Fuji. At the top is the Owakundani "Nature" trail. There isn't really much in the way of nature unless you count volcanic vents spewing sulfur. But it turns out this is a huge tourist attraction. There were easily a few thousand people up there who had come to see the sulfur springs:
You can also buy the sulfur-boiled eggs, the shells black from the sulfur. We were going to try some, except you can only buy them in quantities of 5. What in the world were we going to do with 5 sulfur-boiled eggs?
It was midday, so we headed back towards the Hakone station at the foot of the mountain for our trip to Hiroshima. One cable car, one bus, one commuter train, 2 bullet trains and one streetcar later, we were at our hotel. In Japan, the connections are almost always well-timed, and everything is on time. The whole trip only took 6 hours, though we had to run the last 1/4 mile to the Hakone station since the bus was stuck in traffic. They sell mystery bento boxes on the bullet train, so we ordered two, including one that appeared to contain no fish. Certainly, there were no bivalves in it since Robin survived. The bento boxes were actually pretty good - better than most airline or airport food, and definitely better than anything you could buy on Amtrak.
Our suitcases had not only survived the trip to Hiroshima - they had been handled with the greatest care. They were wrapped, then placed in large plastic bags and handled with gloved hands the whole way. The hotel brought them out as soon as we arrived at check-in, unwrapped them and brought them to our room.
We ventured out for dinner and had okonomiyaki, a savory pancake with meat, cabbage, pork, noodles and sprouts pressed between two pancakes. The small building had 3 floors of restaurants - or more like vendors in permanent stalls with seating around the counter grill - almost all serving different versions of okonomiyaki. We guessed that the ones which were fairly busy with patrons, smiling cooks and looked clean were our best bet. Oh, and had an English menu. The setup was pretty simple:
The okonomiyaki were huge - piled thick to the point that one was enough for 2 people - and cheap at maybe 700 or 800 yen each:
Still, even the most petite Japanese women sitting at the counter finished the entire pancake they had ordered. Robin wasn't a huge fan of the okonomiyaki, because even the one she ordered (which we're pretty sure was pork) tasted like it had fish. It may either have had a "secret ingredient" (fish sauce), or picked up a fish taste from the grill.
Full of savory pancakes, we rolled back to the hotel. One thing we noticed on the trip so far - it's been difficult to find internet access. The hotels don't always have computers (or at least free or inexpensive ones), or even free wireless. The Crowne Plaza in Hiroshima had free wireless in the lobby, but it was brutally slow, so 6 days in, we were starting to feel the e-mail withdrawal.
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