Hakone!

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We woke up this morning to rain!! Luckily it didn't last that long - and the sun came out. We had American breakfast this morning at the hotel. It was okay - a nice change from the pastries in the morning.

We walked back to the main area/river to pick up some sandwhiches for the train. Then we walked to the train station, and got on the train. The ride is so beautiful. I just love staring out the windows. We switched to a bullet train in Nagoya and had another 2 hour ride to Odawara. There we switched to a local train for a few stops, then got on a VERY local train that took us up the mountain very, very slowly. But the ride was gorgeous. So lush and green, and there was fog in the trees. Our hotel was about a 5 minute walk from the station. It's really cute here. Our hotel is beautiful and the view from our room is of the Japanese garden and the hotel. We can here water running outside in a river. So lovely.

We had dinner at a local tempura place and it was excellent! Dad says it's the best tempura he's ever had. It's his new favorite place 😊 We each got a set meal that included:
- 2 tempura shrimp
- tempura squid (which was really good)
- tempura white fish
- tempura vegetables
- tempura eel (which you put some salt on, and it was the best ever. I want more!)
and tempura Japanese plum. As well as rice and miso soup. Everything was amazing and fresh. We sat up at the bar and watched the guy cook. We got some tasty draft beers, and later some hot sake, which I drank most of. Felt very happy and tipsy afterwards.

A nice old couple came in and we talked for a bit -- they convinced Dad to try out the hotel's natural hot spring.
They also use hot spring water in the room - so that's nice if you don't want to use the public one.

I'm enjoying Hakone so far. Tomorrow we're going to do the loop around the park. It'll be fun 😊

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Photos

Hakone
View from our window.