July 11th, Hakone

Today my parents and I got on the train, reserved seating on the "Romance Car". We reserved our tickets the previous day from the ticket booth, reserve/non-served seating for the Romance Car. It is a little extra, but in my opinion worth the extra money to spend for the "romance car" reserved seating. It is about $14 or dollars extra round trip per person, but you get a reserved seat, and it is 30 min faster each way. Hakone to Tokyo is about 1hr 30 min, probably close to two hours with the regular train. We left Shinjuku station around 9:30am and arrived in Hakone about 90 min later at 11am. We discovered the rainy weather all around, and how choppy the water was at Lake Ashi, where Mt Fuji lays ahead. But due to the cloud cover, seems to happy every time i visit Japan during the summer months, i could not view the magnificant mountain, that i can only imagine seeing. The boat on Lake Ashii which i have been on once 4 years prior, was currently closed due to the bad weather. The Ropeway was also closed down due to the weather. I have been on that one before as well. The scenery was very nice, and green, but it was quite rainy and a bit windy. We took the bus around Hakone area from the station. We grabbed lunch at a nearby restarant along the way, after we had gotten off from the bus. We had soba noodles with tempura for lunch. Later we caught another bus to get off to see the outdoor Picasso museum. This was my second visit to the outdoor museum. They gave out umbrellas to use at the museum, but not to keep. After we caught a tram to go up the hill, which was nice, great scenery all around. After we came back down, we were about ready to head back to civillization, to the big city of Tokyo. For what it is worth, Hakone which is about 90 minutes from Shinjuku Station, Tokyo, is a great get-a-way excursion type place to see more of the green lush country side of Japan. Mt Fuji is here, Lake Ashii, and plenty of outdoor onsens, and other outdoor nature type activities. It is away from the hussle and bussle of the big city of Japan. Personally, I think it is nice to visit and get away, as you see another side of Japan. I want to see Takayama, another countryside area outside of Nagoya area. But i prefer the big city environment of Tokyo, there is so much to see, do in Tokyo.