On a stroke of luck, I got to go on a trip to Hakone with one of my best friends, and it turned out to be every bit as fun as I'd thought it would be! We got to spend post-Christmas and new year together, and the six days were awesome. I think when we go travelling, it's best to be with people we won't get sick of despite being in constant contact over consecutive days. So she was the perfect travelling companion! Over the six days we took 600+ pictures (in my camera, at least), so this entry will be just for the Hakone trip. Pictures from Yokohama will be reserved for the next entry. :) By the way, happy new year everyone!

Breakfast was really yummy! The bread and pastries were really fresh from the oven, and they were wonderfully warm and crispy, extremely tantalising to the tastebuds! Upon alighting from the bus at Owakudani, both of us were going "wahh!" Seeing the mountain with the wisps of smoke coming from here and there was so impressive. It made me want to run towards it with my arms outspread, but that would be a little unglam, not to mention cold! The sky was nice and blue while we were there, but afterwards the weather turned bad - it was soooo foggy we couldn't see 100 metres beyond us! Since we could ride neither the ferry nor the ropeway (what we would call cablecar in Singapore), we detoured to the aquarium, before we headed to the amusement park section of Yunessun to spend our evening. Horrendously crowded, which probably explained why the water was only lukewarm and not as satisfying as Mori no Yu. We basically speed soaked in the numerous onsens, then went back for our cameras and did lots of camera-loving. I've got to admit that the coffee/green tea/beer/pomelo etc onsens were rather novel and interesting!

Man, were we relieved to wake up to a bright and sunny day! Had another yummy breakfast, before we proceeded to Lake Ashi where we were overjoyed to see that the ferry was in service! We probably appreciated that and the gorgeous views more because we knew what it was like to miss the opportunity. So you see, we need enough bads in our lives so that we learn how to appreciate the goods. :) The ferry ride was delightful, but at our destination we were disappointed to learn that the darn ropeway still wasn't in service because of strong winds! Ended up going to another ropeway which was in service (why the difference huh?) which we had to pay for because it wasn't covered in our izuhakone pass. Ah well, but it was well worth it! Since we couldn't get enough of the ferry, we took it again before finally making our way out of Hakone.