Tuesday 20 December 2011

Beautiful Hakone!

I went on a trip to Hakone a few weeks ago, which was really lovely. I was hoping to see the autumn leaves but I think we were a little late in season. I still had a great time as Hakone is so beautiful. I am sure I will go again as there is so much to see there and we only seen a little bit.


First, we went on the rope-way and the view over the lake were beautiful. This first stop on the rope-way was the Volcanic Sulphur Park, which smells horrible but was interesting to see. We tried the eggs that had been boiled in the hot volcanic water and the minerals turn the shell black. They were good but didn't taste much different to normal eggs, apparently they add 7 years to your life but we will have to wait and see!This is the man lifting a huge basket of eggs from the volcanic water.

The views were great and Fuji-san popped out between the clouds.

Then we continued on along the rope-way to the end were we took a cable tram to the Hakone Art Museum. This had a lovely moss garden and the trees here were beautiful, I was very happy to see some autumnal colours.

The museum was good but was mainly about pottery which isn't something I am very interested in. There was a room set up like this showing Japanese calligraphy which is something I would love to learn while living here.


We headed back towards the lake as we wanted to get the Pirate ship to the other side. This was very exciting! The boats were so beautiful and it was great sailing across Lake Ashinoko (芦ノ湖) as we had amazing views of Mount Fuji.


I hope to go back soon, I really want to visit the Hakone Open Air Museum. If there are parts of Hakone you liked please let me know as I would like to try and visit them.

Monday 5 December 2011

Marathons...

Our school marathon was a week ago and everyone who took part did so well. Well done to everyone in first and second years! It was a lovely day but very cold and Fuji-san looked so pretty with a little bit of snow. I did my own marathon the weekend before in Tokyo, it was called the Yamathon. It is a walking marathon that follows the Yamanote line and unfortunately we didn't get good weather, it rained the whole day!! This made it so difficult and I was so happy when we reached the end.


We were all smiles at the beginning!