15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido – Day 04 – Hakone – Hakone Shrine Torii Gate

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There are two popular places to get a good view of Mt. Fuji – the 12,389 feet tall mountain of Japan – Hakone, or Lake Kawaguchi. Both places can be included in the same trip, though most people seem to choose one or the other each trip. From what we read, one’s chances of getting a good look of the mountain is higher in Kawaguchi, and that’s not considering having the lake in the foreground too. But Hakone is also regarded as the place with a lot more things to do than just gawking at that grand old lady.

Our itinerary for several months now had a day visit to Hakone placed on Day 02. and in large part because that day would be a.week day. And the general rule of thumb we’ve always used is to avoid tourist hot-spots on weekends. A couple of days before departure though, the wife – whether it was through checking out weather forecasts, tea leaves, or women’s intuition (?!) – said emphatically we’d need to move our Hakone day to Day 04 instead, as clear sunny skies were expected on Day 04. Fortunately, our itinerary is quite modular with little dependencies between days, though part of me still felt that getting good weather in winter was a crap shoot. There’s been a lot of friends who’ve visited the region surrounding Mt. Fuji hoping for good views of the mountain but ended up disappointed, as cloud layers can frequently obstruct the view of the mountain.

As luck turned out, the wife’s homework paid great dividends. We had a gloriously clear day on Sunday today: not fully sunny, but close enough, and walked away with pictures of Mt. Fuji from two places: the Mishima Skywalk, and also while on the Hakone Ropeway.

Many visitors also do either a clockwise or anti-clockwise route when visiting Hakone, and the Hakone FreePass is a must purchase that’d make getting around a whole lot easier, and that’s not even counting the significant savings you’d get if you totaled up the transportation costs for a normal full day visit. Our plan was also quite ambitious: we’d head to Hakone through a series of trains and buses and get to Moto Hakone to check out the Hakone Shrine Torii Gate, then Mishima Skywalk, then Sightseeing Cruise, then to Togendai for the Hakone Ropeway for a visit to Owakudani, followed by the Open-Air Museum and also staying for night illuminations there. The transport arrangements this visit was also made quite a bit more challenging by the recent typhoons in Oct this year that’d damaged parts of the track used by Hakone Tozan Railway, and the Hakone Tozan cable car was also undergoing maintenance. Real bummers. Thankfully, there would be buses to ferry visitors between points covered by both of these transport systems in outage, though Japan-Guide.com warned that these replacement buses could get real crowded.

Our eventual day long trip saw us dropping the Open-Air Museum and replacing it with Gora Park, again as we’d have to pack tonight for our next long segment this trip – ten days in Hokkaido – so figured we’d need to get back to Tokyo by early evening. Our eventual path looks like this: Tokyo => Hakone through Yokohama and Odawara  => Hakone Shrine Torii Gate => Moto Hakone for breakfast => Mishima Skywalk => Sightseeing Cruise => Togendai for Lunch => Hakone Ropeway => Ubako for a short trail  => Owakudani Valley => Sounzan Station => Gora Park => Back to Odawara.

The first post in this series of three on Hakone: Moto Hakone area and also the Torii Gate, the latte being one of the most photographed spots in the area and while the gate that ‘floats’ on the lake’s edge is as pretty as the drab colours of winter can manage, a queue had to be formed for visitors to take their turns for photos. What I wasn’t expecting – but then again why should I be surprised – was six tourists from a certain country up north that seemed completely oblivious to the people waiting for them, and who went ahead to pose in all manners of styles. Nope; these people aren’t satisfied with a few shots, queue or no queue waiting for them. We didn’t want to keep anyone waiting, so took under a minute to complete our turn: and the young couple – locals from their accent – even seemed surprised we were done and even asked if we’d like help to take a family picture.

Sleepy Sunday morning at Moto Hakone. Most establishments would only open in the later part of the morning.
The famed floating Torii gate.
It’s a short walk from the bus drop-off point to the floating Torii gate – perhaps about 8 minutes.
In and out in under a minute – took just a few pictures
Pictures done, we walked back to the small town to look for grub, and had to make do with 7-11 – that was the only F&B establishment opened at 9:45AM.
The Hakone Tozan Bus pick-up to bring us to our next stop: Mishima Skywalk.

We headed to the Mishima Sky Walk next!