hakone

     Time to move on to experience a little of rural Japan. Cloase to Tokyo is the hot-springs area of Hakone. We arrived there via the high speed Shinkansen and then two little local trains, taking us up into the mountains on 8% grades to 700m, to Gora. This little village sits high on the side of a gorge and is a popular weekend resort. We stayed in the very stylish Hyatt Regency with a huge lobby providing a generous happy hour round the wood burning stove. We also tried the onsen, the Japanese style hot soaking bath fed by natural hot spring waters, and ate at the sushi restaurant, where the food was even better than the posh Tokyo place, prepared by two jolly old cooks with great skill and showmanship.

     

Nearby is a world class sculpture park, on an extensive wooded hillside, and filled with work by the famous and not so famous. Several Moores, a Hepworth, and some interesting kinetic pieces. There is also a pavilion dedicated to Picasso with work in every possible medium. The classic thing to do is a round trip to Lake Ashinoko. We did this, first going by bus to Choan-ji temple at Sengokuhara, a charming local shrine with hundreds of quirky little statues of Buddha disciples all over the wooded hillside, and a cemetery behind: the wind catches wooden grave markers and makes them clatter eerily. From there to the lake where you cruise around on ferries disguised (who knows why?) as pirate ships. Then back, up and over the mountains by cable car across a hellish volcanic landscape of sulphurous rocks and steam vents, wailing like a possessed kettle; and finally deescending by stately funicular to Gora.