Owakudani is one of the tourist attraction at Hakone, Japan. It is at the mountain peak where there are still some volcanic activities and smoke is constantly coming out of the surface. Getting to Owakudani is not an easy task from Hakone Yumoto, or from Hakone Gora. First, you would have to take the Hakone Tozan Railway to get to Gora. Then transfer to Hakone Tozan Cable Car and go all the way to Sounzan Station. Finally, you take the Hakone Ropeway all the way to the top of the mountain to Owakudani. This whole trip takes about an hour or so.
We got to Owakudani around 2PM in the afternoon. The railway train and the cable car was so unbelievably crowded. In addition, we were unlucky to ride an older railway train that did not have AC and it was so humid and hot.
When we got to Owakudani, it was foggy and hard to see things. The first thing when we got off the station is that we smell sulfur. A very strong sulfur smell. As we walked towards the observation deck, we could see smoke coming out of the ground. Unfortunately due to the foggy condition at the summit, we could not see very far.
Owakudani also has a very famous snack, and that is hot spring egg. The egg is cooked with volcanic sulfur water and appearance of the shell becomes black. The souvenir store was selling it for 5 for 500 Japanese Yen. We did not get it since we could not finish 5 eggs by ourselves. We looked at other people enjoying it and cracking the egg shell, the egg inside the shell is still white. So it did not look that bad. It might just be the smell that may smell bad. The store also indicated that it is a healthy food, but that is what they always say when they try to sell these things.
There is also a hiking trail to the mountain peak, but unfortunately the hiking trail was closed off due to some volcanic conditions. We love hiking and really wanted to hike up there. It was quite disappointing.
In general, we spent a lot of time on commuting all the way to the top just to see some smoke coming out of ground, it was a bit disappointing. We would not recommend this to be the must visit place, but if you are interested to take a boat cruise at Lake Ashi, you might as well stop by Owakudani.
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