With our time in Tokyo quickly ending, it was time to head on to our next destination. Before we left the bustling city, we had one more place to stop. Tokyo Station. This station is one of the busiest stations in Tokyo serving a mix of Shinkansen (bullet trains), JR East regional trains, and the Tokyo Metro System underground. This massive station is built with an extensive network of underground tunnels linking it to nearby commercial buildings and other train stations. We came here with one purpose, to do some last minute souvenir shopping in Tokyo before heading to Odawara.

A little geography lesson needed here to demonstrate the error in our ways. Our Airbnb was in Shinjuku which is more on the western part of Tokyo, but Tokyo station was on the eastern part of the city and the train to our next destination departed from the Shinjuku station. In order to accomplish this last minute shopping we had to lug our bags to Shinjuku station and find the lockers we used a few days before, then get on a train we hadn’t been on, to take us to Tokyo station where all the shopping was and get all the way back to Shinjuku for the train we had reserved for our trip to our next destination.

Underground Tokyo station was like a maze. It took some time to search for it but once we found it, we were amazed by all the shops and restaurants that surrounded us. We walked past ramen street and found a quaint shop with several different flavors of Kit Kats. Which were a popular souvenir for many of our friends and family. We continued to explore and found a Hello Kitty shop, Gudetama shop, Rilakkuma shop, and Totoro shop. Luckily Lex didn’t buy the whole store. It was now nearly time for our reserved train.

Leaving Tokyo Station with our shopping bags in hand, we navigated back upstairs to the platform. We took the same train back to Shinjuku, then grabbed our luggage from the lockers and attempted to locate our next ride, the Romancecar. Within Shinjuku station, we found ourselves lost again, this time because this new train was operated by a completely different company and finding it’s ticket gate was a challenge. On through the ticket gates and down to the platform we finally made it, but then we had to find the car we had reserved seats for. Luckily the car numbers were printed on the platform to help make navigating easier.

We finally got to board our Romancecar. I discovered a trick online that we used to store our luggage. All of the seats rotate to accommodate for travel in each direction. We used this to our advantage so we could sit facing each other and so we could squeeze our luggage between the backs of two sets of seats. By now I’ve said Romancecar nearly half a dozen times and you’re probably wondering why this train is called the Romancecar, so here’s some trivia. It was originally named the Romancecar because the chairs are all setup like loveseats. No armrest (or a movable one in our case) between the pairs make for a more romantic experience, or just makes it easier for your wife to sleep on you while you enjoy the sights of Japan.

Once we arrived at Odawara station we transferred to a local train to make the rest of our journey. Two stops later we were at Nebukawa station. A very rural station situated along the coast on a cliff. The views from here were incredible. We hailed a taxi to take us the rest of the way up the mountain to our resort. We had booked a stay at The Bay Forest Odawara by Hilton (not a sponsored post). This timeshare resort was beautiful. We stayed in a cabin below the main hotel with a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean. The cabin was outfitted with all the most modern fixtures you’d expect from a Hilton hotel and offered a full kitchen as well as two story living. This was a fantastic place to finish up the last three days of our trip.

Talking about amenities, this resort has everything you could ever want: Bowling alley, Karaoke, Tennis Courts, Basketball Courts, a Putting Green, an amazing indoor/outdoor pool facility and Onsen. The onsen was amazing, albeit very awkward at first as a westerner. Onsen are Japanese hot springs where the public can come to bathe in the nude, so you can see why it would feel odd for us. One of the amazing side effects of being in a mineral hot spring is that when you get out, your body retains so much of the heat. This was very important since the Onsen was in the main resort building and at least a five minute walk in the freezing cold back to our cabin. The heat retention was so effective, that we would sit outside to cool down. We became so accustomed to the rules and norms that this became our favorite thing to do each night we were at the resort after long cold days of exploring. Since we were here during Christmas, the hotel was nicely decorated as a Christmas village and had small booths selling items like ginger bread houses and it even had a model train set on display.

After exploring the resort, we decided it was time to go find dinner. While I’m sure the resort had great choices for food, we wanted to checkout the nearby town of Odawara. Luckily the hotel had shuttles to take us to and from the train station. After a short train ride we were in town. Hungry, we walked up and down the streets looking for somewhere to eat. We finally settled on Jitokko Kumiai this place was a small Izakaya style restaurant located in the upper floor of a building. They were famous for their grilled Miyazaki Chicken which tasted amazing. Every thing we had here was good, although very small. We grabbed different dishes so the four of us could try as many different things as possible. This was exactly what we were looking for. Late night food we could snack on together after a day full of travel.

Since it seemed the food was still not filling enough, we decided to stop at 7-Eleven on the way back to the station to grab some food to eat back at the hotel. Luckily it was right next to the train station so we didn’t have to wait long to eat dinner number two. With our hands full of more midnight snacks and some groceries we made our way back to the hotel where it was time to try the Onsen for the first time. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing in our room, watching some Japanese reality shows and eating those 7-Eleven snacks. Tomorrow would prove to be a very busy day full of travel and tons of walking up hills. Look for our blog post all about our day in Hakone coming soon.

As always, thanks for reading!