Day 4: Hakone + Gion (Ichinoyu Honkan & Gion Tsujiri)

Some pictures of Ichinoyu Honkan. This ryokan has received a lot of good reviews online so we booked the best room they had available, the Type 2 Japanese style room with open air rock decorated bath. It was huuuuge. And the best part was the hot spring which was facing a small river.

Soaking in the hot spring with the sounds of the rushing river.

With flash

Comfy futon beds.

Yukata provided by the ryokan

It was cold so everyone walked around the ryokan with the jacket thing. I thought it was nice that they provided a few small snacks on the table to welcome us.

I forgot to take more pictures of the ryokan. But it's the same as the one in the video here. I didn't like the toilet and the bathroom, which was a traditional Japanese bath but it looked really old and didn't look very clean. It doesn't really matter though, cos the outdoor hot spring, the whole reason why I booked the room, was phenomenal.

Breakfast at the ryokan. The thing in the cup is natto. I tried a bit and almost puked! The smell, the texture... uck. It's definitely an acquired taste.

Then we stored our luggage at the nearby Hakone Yumoto and embarked on our Hakone Round Course, anti-clockwise direction beginning in Hakone Yumoto. Another good thing about Ichinoyu Honkan, it's only 2 short bus stops away from Hakone Yumoto and the bus stop is just outside the ryokan.

There were a lot of Japanese who had traveled from Tokyo and were doing the same course as us so it was a bit crowded on the train, a fact made worse by a bunch of school children who would push their way through to grab good spots on the train. But other than that they were quite well behaved and tried to keep as quiet as a bunch of school kids out for a trip can be. The Japanese are quite particular about making noise on the train. In fact, you are asked to switch off your mobile near the priority seats and to keep it on silent mode in other areas and avoid speaking on the phone in the train.

Cable car! There were a lot of people lining up to get on but the cable cars came by frequently and we were seated in one in no time.

View from the cable car. It was a cloudy day. I like the shadows the clouds cast on the hills.

The leaves were beginning to turn red.

Mount Fuji! Slightly covered by the clouds.

Owadukani - an active volcanic zone. View from the ropeway.

Mount Fuji from Owadukani.

This is why there aren't much pictures of me. My mum is a horrible photographer so most of the pictures of me look like this. Slightly awkward cos I've been standing with a shit eating grin for a whole minute and people are running around trying to avoid getting into the shot while my mum tries to figure out how to use the camera... This pic makes me LOL though.

A pool bubbling with sulfuric fumes. The fumes kind of stink but it was fun to hike up to the top with a pack of chesnuts from the street vendor at the gate. I love autumn in Japan!

Holy lens flare!

More fumes.

Black eggs! I think they're black cos they were cooked using the naturally hot water there. They sell them in packs of 5 for ¥500. Since there were only 2 of us we had to eat 2.5 eggs each! But it's ok cos they are supposed to prolong your life by 7 years!

View from the top! Unfortunately the evil clouds have decided to block our view of Mount Fuji >:( I think you're supposed to go earlier if you want to avoid the clouds.

Piping hot sweet potato. Sold to us by an African guy, I thought it was kind of weird to see a foreigner working there and speaking such fluent Japanese.

On board the boat! The views were absolutely breathtaking.

Oops I think I resized this one wrong lol.

 We were kinda tired by this point, I think the hot spring may have relaxed us a little too much so we decided to skip the rest of the course and just take the bus directly to Hakone Yumoto and take the shinkansen to Kyoto.

Spotted on the bus ride back: a cute little shop with a bow on the roof.

Two hours later, we arrived in Kyoto and checked into our next hotel: Capsule Ryokan Kyoto

I love this hotel! By far the best hotel deal I've booked!

1. The price. Only ¥7980 a night for 2 people
2. The location. 2 bus stops away from Kyoto station. Bus stops with buses to Gion, Kiyumizudera and Kinkakuji all are about a 2-minute walk away. In Kyoto, a bus ride costs ¥220 so it makes sense to get the one day bus pass for ¥500.
3. The service. Extremely friendly and helpful. There's also free wifi on the first floor and computers available for use. But you have to pay if you need to print something. In the room, they had a folder with a lot of useful information, like cheap places to eat and places which are open past 10pm. There was also suggestions for what to do on a rainy day. It was really sweet and thoughtful of them.

They definitely made effective use of the space in each room. Even the sink was a Convenient Sink that you could fold away if you weren't using it. And the shower was the best thing ever. It looked very futuristic and there was no worry of splashing water onto the room floor. Everything about the hotel looked very new and clean. I highly recommend it.

It was late by the time we got to Kyoto so we decided to spend the night in Gion.

Sadly, Grill Miyata was closed so we settled for having dinner at Gion Tsujiri.

Some delicious ramen. There was a strong sesame taste.

Green tea cake and Matcha. The cake was all right, not as flavorful as I thought it would be.

The parfait! I think this was an autumn special.

It was perfect! As it should be, since it cost about $20!

With our tummies filled, we then wandered around Gion and spotted a geisha! I was so excited but couldn't get my camera out in time. There were a few foreigners following her down the street. I wanted to go after her and snap a picture but my mum was like no. Not really wanting to look like a crazy stalker, I decided not to follow so we continued strolling down and guess what. We spotted another geisha as we turned the corner!

Blurry shot. Hands were trembling from the cold, and excitement.

She was really pretty, too bad I couldn't get a picture in time. But I wasn't expecting to see 2 geishas in the span of 5 minutes!

We continued to stroll around for a while more and saw some scantily clad ladies, wearing just a thin silk dress with a wrap around the shoulders.

Day 5