A Day Trip to Hakone and Our First Shrine…

Today we head to the most popular attraction in the area. Hakone is a quaint town built in the base of Mt. Hakone. Getting there via public transit was awesome. The area has a very unique public transit system that includes the Hakone Tozan Railway, the Hakone Tozan Cable Car, the Hakone Ropeway (gondola), the Hakone Sightseeing Cruise, and various buses. The railway was very unique in the sense that it takes you up the side of a mountain from Odawara to Hakone. Because it takes you up the side of a mountain the train is about half the length of a normal train and sometimes has to go through switchbacks where the conductor would get out, switch sides of the train and continue operating the train from the opposite end. With the constant switchbacks it was a long, scenic ride up the mountain and as usual, Lex fell asleep.