Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 42

The final week that I'll cover our week-long trip to Tokyo and Karuizawa in July 2012. Day 6 we did a side-trips from Tokyo to Mt. Fuji.

This is the Tokyo Station from the outside, which we thought just looked really nice.

These are just random pictures of scenario, as seen from our bus going to Mt. Fuji.

If you remember last week's blog, you'll see a common thread here. Again, we had fog during our trip and unfortunately, that meant that we really didn't get to see Mt. Fuji. However, we were able to learn about it during the trip.

Mt. Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan at 12,389 ft and is about 60 miles southwest of Tokyo, which makes it a convenient side trip. They say on a clear day you can see it from Tokyo, but obviously, we didn't have a clear day! It started hundreds of thousands of years ago as the Komitake volcano, which got bigger and bigger through repetitive eruptions, until it was about 2,400 meters tall. Then about a hundred thousand years ago, another volcano, called the Old Fuji volcano, erupted to the south of the Komitake volcano. The New Fuji volcano erupted in the early Jomon period (15,000 years ago or so) and it absorbed these two volcanos to form one large volcano. We went up to the 5th station, which is as high as you can go by car. After that, you're hiking (which we didn't do).

There is a shrine at the 5th station that we went over to, which was okay. From there, we tried to see the mountain but really only got clouds.

Then we had lunch, again at a traditional restaurant. This one seemed to be similar to a bento box.

Next up was the Hakone area. This is a mostly tourist area near Lake Ashi. It is noted for it's hot spring resorts and geysers. It started at the Togendai station of the Hakone Ropeway, which is an aerial lift that takes you up the mountain. It gave us amazing views of the area and the lake. We also noted quite a few golf courses (hmm...another trip in our future?).

If you look closely, you can see a yellow house on the side of the mountain with smoke around it. We visited this later in the trip but you can see it here from the ropeway. This is where they have sulfer springs and the "black eggs".

We got off at Owakuzawa (or Owakudani), which is an explosion crater created by an explosion about 3,000 years ago. The crater still discharges hydrogen sulfide and sulfer dioxide. We walked up to the "yellow house" and there you can see these sulfer springs, where the gases are coming up.

Now the black eggs. Kuro Tamago or Black Eggs are one of Hakone’s trademark items. This unique snack can only be found at the volcanic valley of Owakudani. The eggs get the black color when they are boiled inside of the hot sulfur springs. The egg shells turn black due to a chemical reaction with the sulfur in the springs. Legend has it that eating one of the black eggs increases one’s lifespan by 7 years but it is also said that one should not eat more than two and a half eggs (the “or else” is not explained).

We made our way back down the mountain to the same place we caught the ropeway, which also has the pier for a boat trip on Lake Ashi. There were 2 boats there (one was ours) that were full-scale replicas of man-of-war pirate ships.

Then back to Tokyo Station via the Shinkensen. Dinner was Shabu Shabu, which is a Japanese version of Chinese Hot Pot. You take very very very thinly sliced meat and veggies and you cook them very quickly in hot water or broth, then dip them in a set of sauces. The dish is prepared by submerging a very thin slice of meat or a piece of vegetable in a pot of boiling water or dashi (broth) made with kombu (kelp) and swishing it back and forth several times. The familiar swishing sound is where the dish gets its name. Shabu-shabu translates to "swish-swish".

So final morning, we did the traditional Sushi breakfast at a little tiny place near the Tsukiji fish market. Then it was back to the airport to return back to Shanghai.