My latest trip was to Tokyo

I headed to the south of Tokyo, because I wanted to see the Mount Fuji in all of it´s glory.    

The weather forecast was very good, but unfortunately it turned out to be not that well.

But anyway I had two great new discoveries:

One were the black eggs

And the other Onsen

Well, let´s start with the eggs:

I went to Hakone, which is about 2 hours south of Tokyo in the area of the five lakes near Fuji. Hakone is actually kind of a national park, there are mountains, to be precise volcanic mountains, like the Fuji itself, and a great lake.

You can leave from Shinjuku-Station in Tokyo with a special train, the panoramic train (and the best is, you buy the free ticket for 5000 yen which is about 40 euro) then you can use all trains, busses, the cable car, and the boat).

But I discovered that later, so I took the normal train to Ohinawa (which is a nice little city as well), and then the bus to Hakone Yomoto. From there you take another train, which goes up to the mountains. It’s a great scenery. I have been there in January, but I think in spring, summer and autumn it must be beautiful with all the flowers etc.
The next step was the funicular, which is spectacular, because it goes over the volcanic area, so you see rocks, and smoke coming out from nowhere, its really strange, but superinteresting.

On the highest point is a little walking path on which end you find a little hut, where eggs a sold. And now the highlight: The eggs are black. You can only buy 5 eggs (I wanted to have only one..) in a little bag with salt. Next to the hut are stone tables and everybody is standing around , knocking their egg on the table, then peel them and eat, hilarious.

And, well I am not such a big egg fan, but I really liked them, I ate 3 of them!!

I am not sure how they are cooked, maybe they are cooked in the hot volcanic water, but I think what is more logical, they are put in the hot volcanic turf, that’s how they would get the color as well.

From this viewpoint you have a great view on the Mount Fuji-san, I saw it a little bit, but unfortunately there were too many clouds.

Now the second discovery, which was greattt!

Onsen

I went back to Hakone Yomoto, and only with the help of Lonely Planet and a nice guy, I could find a nice Onsen right behind the railwaystation.

If you don’t speak or read Japanese its sometimes difficult to get around and find places…

But I was lucky.

Onsen are public baths, the water is coming from natural volcanic springs.

This Onsen was quite small, there was one basin for women and the other for men. It is strictly separated. Before you enter you have to wash your body. The bath is outside, so if its too hot you just sit on a stone next to the bath.

The water temperature was quite high, I guess more than 40 degrees, because it was hard to stay in the water for more than 10 minutes.

It was soo relaxing, fantastic, I felt like newborn afterwards, and the skin felt so soft!

After this bath I also survived the almost 3 hours trip back to Makuhari, half sleeping in the train, but that’s nice, nobody cares about that, because almost every body is sleeping :)