Yesterday we took a trip over to Hakone. We started off our day by meeting in Shinjuku station at 7:30am (keep in mind that I had to wake up at 5:30 in order to take a shower and get there on time, which is quite an accomplishment for me). From there we got some breakfast at this small soba shop and caught the train out to Hakone, which is about a 2 hour train ride. Once we got there we took a bus up to the most common starting place for the hike and began our journey. Along the way we saw a lot of cool stuff including old shrines, and one road we walked up is a popular car drifting spot. and at one of the rest areas they were selling oden style mochi with this miso dipping sauce and 甘酒, or amazake - sweet sake, which, if I'm not mistaken, has no alcohol in it. Both the dish and the sake were amazing. They also had free tea there which was really good, but none of us could figure out what kind of tea it was. It had a flavor none of us had ever tasted before.

After that we continued along the trail, and that's when it started to become more rocky and then the stone path started (you'll see in the pictures) for the most part it was fine as long as you watched your step, but once we got to the top and started back down the other side, it got pretty steep and if you weren't careful you could slip on the moss and stuff growing on some of the stones. At the bottom of the 30 minute long stone path was Lake Ashi, which we crossed on a pirate ship-looking ferry boat. On the other side we ate a quick late lunch and got onto this gondola that took us further up the mountain and we got some great views of the lake and even Mt. Fuji. The gondola then took us down the other side of the mountain and then we had to take a trolley down these switchback roads to get back to the station.

From there we took a taxi to an onsen (Japanese style public bath house) and about half of us went in to do it. We took a few pictures outside near the parking lot as we were getting ready to go into the lobby to pay, but clearly we couldn't take pictures inside the bath house and I'm sure you all wouldn't want to see pictures of us naked anyways ;) It was definitely an interesting experience. It was one of the most relaxing things I've ever done and when you came out you just felt super refreshed. So the way it worked was right when you entered the lobby you took your shoes off and stored them in a small locker. Then you went to the front desk and paid to get in and bought a large towel for drying off and a small towel to bring with you into the actual bath area. Then we went past a resting area with tatami mats and down some stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, the women's bath area was to the left and the men's was to the right. Inside were more lockers to store any bags or clothes you had with you. So it was at this point that we all found our lockers and, well, got naked haha. We of course had our smaller towels to cover up "the area". The layout of the actual bath area was pretty cool. Everyone's required to shower off before going into any of the baths so we did that. All the baths were outside and varied in size from quite large, to about hot tub sized. Each bath was a different temperature, and they were all pretty hot except for one which was literally ice cold. The other cool thing is they had a sauna which was really nice. I know people's instinctual reaction to this kind of thing, especially if you're really, really Westernized, is to think "whoa, that would be really awkward." And I won't lie, it was a little uncomfortable in the beginning just because it was a completely new and different experience, but you honestly get over the fact that you're pretty much naked - other than having a small towel to hold - within minutes of walking in there. And once I just let myself relax, got comfortable and just started having normal conversations with my friends there, it was one of the most relaxing, stress-relieving, and rejuvenating experiences I've ever had. I know some people are going to be homophobic and be like "wow that's gay," but honestly, don't knock it till you try it.

Anyways, after the onsen we just took a taxi back to the station, got some dinner and headed home. It was seriously an awesome day!