Timely Updates

Our last day in Tokyo included the famous Shibuya Scramble Crossing, Bank of Japan currency museum (no photos), and a walk in the Imperial Palace East Garden.

It started with a coffee on my balcony. There, far in the distance, is the famous Tokyo Skytree.

Now the Shibuya Scramble Crossing. First, photos and video from above...

... and then we joined the crowds and crossed it ourselves.

This being Sunday, we walked towards Yoyogi Park, as recommended by Simon, to watch the locals. But it started drizzling, and the locals apparently preferred to stay indoors - there was hardly anybody in the park, we left and took the subway to the Bank of Japan Currency Museum (it being indoors). It was very interesting, but they prohibit taking photos. We then ate lunch in one of the Ninonbashi food courts nearby, at a place that advertised itself as "tongue specialists" - we did get tongue, but it was hard and chewy, rather disappointing...

From there, we walked towards the Imperial Palace East National Gardens, and somewhere along the way came upon this shape-shifting fountain.

(Supposedly this is where Alex dropped his IC card, when he pulled out his phone to take a photo. We discovered the loss much later, at the subway station.)

The Imperial Palace gardens are surrounded by moat and a stone wall, some parts are open to the public and East Garden is one of them.

From there, we walked a long way to the subway station, discovered that Alex no longer had his card, realized that neither of us had the energy to try to walk back to the fountain and look for it, charged a different card and went home. The day was long and dreary, and we had nothing to eat since morning except the subpar tongue. As we were passing the Starbucks with tables on a covered terrace (I noticed it before, we passed it every time on our way home from the subway station), I just turned into it. We got another chestnut pastry for me and a scone for Alex, and two coffees.

We just spent some time there quietly, enjoying our treats and watching the people hurrying by. Then we went home and had dinner at the apartment (using the groceries that we got the first evening).

The day ended like it started, with the view from our balcony. Here you can see the SkyTree being lit in a certain way. Apparently it has three alternating styles: Iki (blue), Miyabi (purple), and Nobori (orange) - according to the website, they express the concept that today is connected to tomorrow, and the future expands beyond that. This one looks like Nobori to me, unless it was a special display - they have those too.

> Day 5

On Monday, we rented a car and drove to Hakone, a small town in the mountains, famous for its hot springs. We started with the Open-Air Museum, a park with a great number of sculptures, including - amazingly - one work by Rodin and a whole Picasso pavilion. Then we tried the Hakone Ropeway, which goes over the mountains, and - in clear weather - sometimes you can even see Mount Fuji from there! Unfortunately, weather was anything but clear... in fact, the fog was so dense we couldn't see ANYTHING at all. We dismounted at the next station and bought their famous "black eggs" - regular eggs boiled in a sulfur stream. We planned to walk around the geothermal area and then take the ropeway all the way to the lake, but had to scratch that plan due to the fog. We drove to the Venetian Glass Museum instead - exquisitely beautiful! - and then checked into our first ryokan. That will be a separate story.

Here is our rental car: a new Toyota Prius. In the second photo, you can clearly see the steering wheel on the right.

The drive is about an hour and a half. That is because Alex, very wisely, found a rental place in Yokohama - outside of Central Tokyo, so that we didn't have to deal with city traffic.

Hakone is a major tourist destination and very crowded. It's a small town, but as we were driving through the center of it, by the train station, the traffic was horrible and the bus queues very long. So even if technically you can do the trip by train and bus, it is better to rent a car - if you can drive on the wrong side of the road, that is. Or, like I, have a husband who can do it.

Open-Air Museum was not in our original plans, but when our Tokyo guide - Mark - mentioned it, we checked it out, and turns out you have to go. Unless it is raining hard - because it is in the open air, all except the Picasso pavilion and the cafe. In our case, it was just drizzling slightly on and off, so we went.

Entrance to the museum.

Sculptures - the first one is Balzac, by Auguste Rodin, but there are a lot of other good ones...

... as well as some interesting installations.

The last photo taken not because of the weird sculpture, but because of the tree full of persimmons. We saw a lot of persimmon trees in Japan.

This is the Picasso pavilion...

... and inside it a lot of his works, here are some.

At the end, we had lunch at Chokoku-no-mori, an Italian restaurant on the top floor of the museum building, supposedly with a view of the mountains. The day was foggy, so not much of a view for us, but the food looked good. Tasted good, too.

Next we drove to the first ropeway station, Sounzan, intending to take the ropeway all the way to the lake, and then come back to the second station, Ōwakudani, where there is a geothermal area with sulfur vents and hot springs. We planned to walk around, look at the volcanic activity, and try their famous "black eggs" - regular chicken eggs that become black as a result of being boiled in a hot spring. They say that eating such an egg adds 7 years to your life.

As it often happens, reality made corrections to our plans.

The fog was so dense that - forget Mount Fuji (which you supposedly can see from the ropeway on a clear day) - we could not see ANYTHING at all! We dismounted at Ōwakudani, realized that even walking around the area did not make sense in the fog, took a photo of the monument to the black egg and bought a package at the store. They sell them in packages of four. We each ate two and supposedly added 14 years to our respective lifespans.

I have to say, the lines at the store were very long, as well as the line to get on the ropeway to go in the direction of the lake. I am not sure whether this is an indication of the whole area being very crowded. We got on the ropeway back to Sounzan station with no problem and drove to the Venetian Glass Museum.