We went up Mount Hakone in a cable car and could smell the sulphur which is constantly seeping out of cracks in the mountain. At the top there was a gift shop of course, but also small museum about how the mountain grew as a volcano about 60,000 years ago. There have been many landslides, some causing serious damage due to the activity within the mountain so now there have been a lot of measures taken to try to stabilise it.
Up from there we drove down again and got on a boat on lake Ashi for a brief ride down the lake. Then it was back into the bus and on to Odawara. We were so early there everyone was able to get the train two hours earlier than expected. We bought our train tickets for tomorrow in the station and then found our way to the hotel which we found without trouble having a picture of the outside. It turned out to be quite a luxury in comparison to the last two nights – twin beds and lots of space – even 4 coat-hangers, in Tokyo we only had three!
Odawara turned out to have some interest. A castle on the highest point, it is supposed to be very similar to the one which burned down in Tokyo.
Below the castle there are some excavations being carried out and some very nice gardens as well as an impressive moat.
This post is an extract of my mother’s travel journal written during a tour of Japan in 2014.
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