Japan Trip (Spring 2008) - Part 2

Part 2: Hakone, Mt. Fuji, Shizuoka, Nagoya

I hope you guys have a good Internet connection cause this post has a lot of pictures! First off on our way from Tokyo to Hakone we made a rest stop at one of the many service areas along the way. Normally when I think rest stop, it’s kind of like ewww. But the ones that we went to in Japan have nice bathrooms, free green tea, good food, and lots of snacks! It was pretty cold over at this place so we first tried a taiyaki. This was a nice and warm slightly sweet pancake type exterior filled with custard. Here’s what it looks like up close and on the inside…

The warm cake and custard filling were very satisfying on a cold morning.

Next he wanted to try something from the neighboring stall.

This was a kind of grilled mochi. He really liked this steaming hot, shoyu flavored mochi. It was pretty good but all I had in my head was - I want another fish! But seeing as we just had breakfast an hour before this, I figured I better pace myself.

Well good thing I didn’t go for that second custard taiyaki because soon after we got back on the bus we were given a snack.

These were so good!! Crispy wafers with cream in the middle. Mine had a regular cream filling, some others had chocolate in the middle. On the wafer it says they are called Gaufrette.

Weather started to get a bit rainy but we made our way to take a boat cruise across Lake Ashino-ko.

The boat was not too big, but it was comfortable and smooth.

After crossing the lake we visited Owakudani, an area located in Hakone. It is known for its sulfer fumes and hot springs. You can kind of see the fumes rising in the picture below.

In what seemed like a couple seconds, the weather turned into this! I almost blew away in all that crazy wind and snow!

I pretty much ran into the building dodging people’s flipped inside out umbrellas. When I got in I found my way to the restaurant where a seat was saved for me. I haven’t shown a Japanese menu yet so here is one below.

Most of the menus I came across in Japan were only in Japanese, with some pictures. I’d basically try and read the katakana and hiragana to get the gist…then point to the picture when ordering. But this was a rare menu that had English translations for the dish name. The prices were a little high but it was worth it - the food was really good.

I had the Pork Katsudon. This really hit the spot - some tender breaded pork over rice with egg and sauce on top.

After a little more driving, we finally made it to our hotel in the Mt. Fuji area. On the down side we weren’t able to see a complete view of Fuji san. But on the up side, I got my snow! And if you know me, you know how I love going to pretty places that snow - this definitely qualifies!

At our Mt. Fuji hotel we had a kaiseki dinner. This is a traditional type meal made up of many little courses. I had been looking forward to this since I always see shows about it on TV. But I was always worried that since it was made up of such small portions that I would be hungry after. With this particular kaiseki dinner I ended not stuffed, but very much satisfied.

Above is the setting that we sat down to. They brought several more dishes in addition to these.

While watching my Japanese shows, another thing that concerned me were the exotic looking dishes that come in a kaiseki dinner. But these weren’t bad. There were a couple unusual dishes, but everything tasted pretty familiar.

The next morning I woke up extra early to play in the snow and take some pictures.

After getting my fill of snow and frozen fingers, I went inside for the breakfast buffet. This hotel had a pretty long line up of choices. I made one plate of Western foods and one of Japanese.

I also took some tofu…

and later, a second helping of hotcakes - I love these little guys!

Packed up to leave the Mt. Fuji area, we drove through Shizuoka Prefecture and stopped at a strawberry orchard. This was great. You got to go into these little greenhouses and basically eat strawberries to your heart’s content. Just bend down and pick the juiciest looking ones that you can find!

Very sweet!

After eating strawberries and picking up some strawberry omiyage (I left with some strawberry gaufrette), we stopped at another one of those service areas. This time it was a lunch stop and we ordered up some food from this totally efficient vending machine.

You look at some pictures on the side, look for the matching name/number on the machine, and purchase a ticket. At this place all you have to do next is wait for your number to be called in Japanese. Please note - at many other places we went to, we had to give them our ticket first.

We shared a mini ramen and mini curry. These were both good. We opted for the mini size since we had just eaten a mountain of strawberries. Oh, and also because we both had like three plates of food each at breakfast! (Thank goodness we did a lot of walking on this tour!)

Next up was another fun activity. We went to visit a green tea farm and factory. While it wasn’t currently tea picking season yet, we got to walk through their green tea bushes and take a peek into the processing factory.

At the end of the tour, our group went to the omiyage shop and bought all kinds of green tea products. I bought a can of green tea gaufrette (yes, I did just get a box of strawberry flavored ones from the strawberry orchard).

The two of us also shared a green tea ice cream cone. Now in Hawaii, green tea flavored ice cream is pretty popular. In fact it’s my favorite flavor. But I have to say it tastes nothing like this. This one is WAY better! The thing is that in Hawaii it doesn’t really taste like green tea. To me it’s more like a light chocolate or coffee type taste. The one here (and we found it a couple more times throughout the trip) was without a doubt GREEN TEA ice cream. You could really taste the tea flavor which I loved!

After finally making it to Nagoya, we checked into our hotel then went out for dinner - the buffet at Westin Nagoya Castle. The food was good and there were so many sakura themed dishes. Here we have sakura tea…

steak with sakura sauce - so tender and tasty!

and a cake with sakura blossom.

This portion of the trip was really fun with the snow, strawberry orchard, and all the good food as usual. Stay tuned for Part 3 where we’ll be starting off on a bullet train to Kyoto!