Hakone: Land of Art, Fire and Water 🇯🇵

Hakone: Land of Art, Fire and Water 🇯🇵

[Music] Today I’m in the Hagani region about 90 minutes from Tokyo. This is a geothermically active onen area that offers stunning views of a mountainous landscape, an abundance of art museums, and best of all, views of Fuji. [Music] Today we’re exploring Hakone and our journey begins here at Hakone Moto station. In order to explore Hakane, you need to take trains, cable cars, uh ropeways. It’s pretty interesting. So, let’s find the train and we’ll start heading up the mountain to Bora. This is Hakone Yamatoto station. Now I need to find the Hakonei Tozan train which heads up to Gora. This train will take me up to Gora, which is about 2/3 of the way up the mountain. From there, I’ll need a cable car to get to where I’m going. If you’re coming to Hakonei and you want to see all that it has to offer, get yourself one of these, a Hakonei free pass. I’ll put the details down below. This gets you on trains, cable cars, a boat, buses, everything you need to get around. And today, as we explore Hakani, we will be on trains and cable cars and rope cars and pirate ships and you name it. It’s going to be an interesting travel [Music] day. This 100-year-old railway line is the steepest in Japan and I believe the second steepest in the world. [Music] The mountain’s so steep that the train has to do a few switchbacks. So, it’s come here, it’s stopped at the station, they adjust the rail, and then it goes back up on a separate rail as it travels further up the mountain. But generally, there’s only one line. So, we’ve got to wait for the other train to get here before we can take off and head up the mountain. The railway rises almost 600 m in its 15 km run. So at each of those switchbacks, the driver who was behind me has to get out, walk up to the other end of the train and start driving from that end. And he’ll stop at the next station and do the same as we go back in the opposite direction. [Music] [Music] The train has signal station and we do our third switch back. [Music] It will still be [Music] This drain is programmed to squirt water as it turns the sharp corners so that way it doesn’t have so much [Music] friction. We’ve arrived at Churro Kokamorei. That’s the first stop for today. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] The Hakonei open air museum opened in 1969. It’s a beautiful sculpture park. It’s a place to just wander and enjoy. I can’t say I know much about art, but what I can say is this is a really beautiful setting for a whole range of sculptures from all over the world. [Music] [Music] Heat [Music] up here. [Music] The park features works by Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso, and a whole range of other artistic luminaries from around the world. That’s me after a big night out. And if your toes get cold while you’re wandering around up here in the mountains, that’s okay because they’ve got a hot foot bath for you that’s warmed by the waters coming from the volcanic region that’s uh just up the mountain. [Music] World’s largest Jenga game. [Music] Maybe a little further up the line and I come to the mountain town of Gora. So, we’ve arrived at Gora now, but we’re still not there. We take the next mode of transport, which is a cable car. Next stop is number 15. The cable car powers up the steep mountain to Suzanne station to connect with the ropeway. Passengers heading to next is a transfer to Hakonei ropeway. My fear of heights. This is the bit I’ve been dreading. It’s chaotic. It’s really busy. I think I might adopt a Japanese granny. [Music] [Music] I just told her I’m scared of heights. I want I want my Japanese grandma to look after me. [Music] So, this roadway travels from Sunzan to what is it called? Dani. Terrible at Japanese, aren’t I? Um, that’s a volcanic hellscape. [Music] Somehow, having Granny there was more reassuring, even if she wasn’t aware of the adoptive arrangements. [Music] Don’t like the bumpy bit at all. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] So the ropes rope way will take you to a Wakadani just over the lip from that volcanic hellscape. Okay, I’ve lost my grandma. Um I’m going to go outside and have a look. I can’t believe I just rode a ropeway way up in the air over boiling hot gases and water. So, I guess it’s a little bit like Japan to turn an active volcano into a tourist attraction. Oh my goodness. It is pretty interesting and spectacular [Music] though. Yeah, I know. So, all that hot water that’s in the onsen in the villages below, it’s all coming from up here, straight from an active volcano. It’s only from the top. Up here at Awakadani, you can buy black eggs. They’re special. It’s basically a hard-boiled egg boiled over the heat from the volcano. It’s black and it’s supposed to bring you good luck. I’ve read somewhere that if you eat one of these, you get to live for seven years longer. They sell them in packs of four. So, I’m going to live to be 100. My hair is like a mess right now. Okay. Black egg. Seven years of good luck. Tastes like molten lava. No, it doesn’t. Doesn’t at all. Just tastes like a boiled egg. And that good luck kicked in straight away. Oh my god. I’ve just realized I can see Mount Fuji. Wow. or at least some of it. She’s uh notoriously shy about revealing all of herself, as it should be. She’s modest. Wow, the clouds just parted, but I could see the top of Fuji. Oh my goodness. That’s something to take off the bucket list. And my luck just kept getting better and better as Fuji finally revealed herself in all her glory. It’s quite an incredible place with uh the volcanic vents. It makes it really dramatic. And then Mount Fuji in the background. This is like the perfect day. Freaking awesome. that lake down there. That’s where we’re going next. More of this ropeway. This horrifyingly scary ropeway will take us down to the lake. And then we’re going to take a ship, but not just any ship across the lake. For some reason, they have pirate ships here. [Music] There are large groups of foreign tourist um group tours. I’m trying to keep away from them, but they’re everywhere. So, I’ve arrived at the town of Tokandai on Lake Ashi. It’s a beautiful lake. And apparently the way you get to see the lake is take a pirate ship the length of the lake. It is absolutely shockers. crazy busy. But I think I might stay up here on the deck and might get a view with a little bit less of the senior citizens tour groups that are clogging up down below. [Music] Now, if you watched my last episode, I was talking about the old trail between Edeto, Tokyo, and Kyoto. This here next to the lake is also part of that same trail. And this is an old checkpoint. Everybody that came through here had to be checked and made sure that they I don’t know, they weren’t enemies or something. [Music] This old checkpoint has been preserved and probably rebuilt. and it shows you what things were like in those times. There was one woman who worked here, Hitia Mona, and her job was to conduct body searches on any women that was passing through the gate. Check the weapons, rifles, swords, bows and arrows, everything needed to maintain order. Okay, I’ve dug a little deeper and perhaps part of the reason why this checkpoint was here is because the shogun had many wives and many children and was concerned that some of them might escape. So that makes it sound like some of the wives probably didn’t want to be wives and weren’t very happy and tried to run away. That sounds a little bit like DV to me. The old power of the patriarchy. Not cool. Um, there is a jail cell here that’s been here for 250 years. I’m told in that time, how many prisoners do you think they would have? I would have thought thousands. Answer is five. And the reason it’s only so few is because if you came through this checkpoint and for whatever reason you were causing trouble, they didn’t bother putting you in jail. These old stone steps come from the Edeto period. They were discovered fairly recently in an excavation. And here is a lookout overlooking the checkpoint. What a great view. Hakoni does get really busy, but I can see why. It’s actually a really beautiful area of Japan, and it’s only about an hour or so from Tokyo, so a lot of people will come here for the weekend. Today’s a Saturday, so it’s particularly busy. This is now the little port of Moto Hakonei. It’s uh about a 20-minute walk from the other port. Short walk out of town through a little bit of forest. hopefully away from all the tourists. I do know I am one, but I’m only one. I’m not a freaking busload of them. And I’m going to take you to somewhere special. This is one of those Instagram reality moments. I’ll show you Instagram in a minute. Here’s the reality. I understand it’s a beautiful location, but my gosh, there’s so many people. Oh my lord. Uh, all right. I got a shot. That’ll do. [Music] Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing some of what Hakone has to offer. I’ve tried to have a quick look around in one day. It’s an amazing place and I understand why it’s so popular. But, uh, now I’m going to head back to my Japanese guest house and I think it’s time to soak in the onen. So, I’m staying in a nice little Japanese style guest house. Here’s the room. [Music] futon on the floor. Uh it was really comfy. I actually slept really well last night. And the best thing is um you just make an appointment and there’s an in-house onen. So at the end of the day of exploring you get some bliss. This is a private onen and it’s included in the price of the [Music] room. Hey, thanks so much for watching. I really enjoyed exploring Hakame. I’ll see you in the next video. [Music]

Hakone is a beautiful mountain area south of Tokyo known for its mineral hot springs, mountains and volcanoes. To explore this area I ride Japan’s steepest railway, a cable car, a gondola and even a pirate ship! It was fun. Oh, and I had the most incredible view of Mt Fuji along the way.