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Hakone Day 4: Running against the tide for the train (pg 1)

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

IMG_0440
Originally uploaded by silverlantern

The past three days have been exhausting. Lots of walking, very little sleep. This past night was no different. After we got back we packed our bags and called Ed to coordinate the next few days. They were going to head down to Kyoto before us so we needed to decide how and when we would meet up next. We finally decided that they would meet us in Hakone for the day before going further south to Osaka for the night. We would then meet up again in 2 days in Kyoto.

Today was to be our ‘holiday’. We wanted to relax and take it slow, that’s what the Japanese do at Hakone too. Since we couldn’t check into the ryokan in Hakone until 3pm we could take our time getting there. But then I remembered seeing an interesting spa amusement park/resort online. I woke up early and called everyone, they were all interested in the park. We then got up earlier than planned so that we could catch the 9am train for the 2 hour trip. We checked out, brought our luggage down to be sent ahead to Kyoto and then with a smaller day bag we headed to the station. There we bought 2 day passes that included the ride to Hakone and all the other modes of transportation there.

As we went down the stairs to our train we heard the bell notifying everyone that the train was leaving. Ack! Since this was for a longer haul we didn’t know when the next train would arrive, for sure it would be at least another 30 minutes. Panicking, we made a run for it, entering the train right before the door closed and almost losing Di and Jason who got caught up in the crowd leaving and exiting from other trains in the process. 

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