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  1. Checkin at Fuji-Hakone Guest House / 富士箱根ゲストハウス
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      After a very long night sleep, we woke up super early at the Pension House, tucked in to the free breakfast and took a trek down the twisty mountain roads to catch the mountain railway.

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    Our first ride of the day was a cable car up the mountain to Sounzan. The ride was so steep and every time the car stopped at a station it felt like it was going to roll down the hill again.

  3. Checkin at Hakone Cruise and Ropeway
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      We then changed to the ropeway to go even higher up the mountain. I was really excited to find a penny machine at the top and we got three of the ropeway, Hello Kitty and Mount Fuji.

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      Gallery

  4. Checkin at Hakone Kurotamago Owakudani Mountain
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      The halfway stop on the cable car is Ōwakudani , high up in the mountains where you can get the best views of Mount Fuji. It was pretty cloudy today but we could just about make out its snowy peak through the clouds.

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      The main attraction of Ōwakudani are the black eggs which are hard boiled in bubbling pools of sulphur and are said to extend your life by seven years.

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      Gallery

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      There's a mini cable car to take the eggs from the top of the mountain to tourists at the bottom, but we decided to head to the top and try them fresh.

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      The eggs come in packs of 5 and though Tom tends to cringe at icky things, 500 yen for an extra 35 years seemed like too good of a bargain to ignore, so he joined the queue. They tasted and looked just like regular hard boiled eggs once you cracked the black shell.

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    We hopped back on the ropeway and headed down to Lake Ashi where a pirate ship was waiting to take us across the lake.

  6. Checkin at 箱根海賊船 / Hakone Sightseeing Cruise
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      Like all forms of transport in Japan, the ship was super speedy and we made it across to Moto-Hakone Port in no time.

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      Gallery

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      When we arrived in Moto-Hakone, we caught a bus back down the windy mountain roads before catching a train to Odawara Station.

  7. Checkin at Odawara Station
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      By the time we'd made it to Odawara we were super hungry. However, we were in luck as we had an hour until our next train and the station had the most amazing food gallery selling all kinds of delicious bento boxes and adorable cakes.

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      We picked up two bento boxes which looked so pretty and tasted even better than they looked. It's going to be really hard going back to British sushi after tasting this.

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      We then bought Japan Rail Passes, which will give us unlimited travel around Japan for the next week and it was then time to catch our first Shikansen to Nagoya. I didn't realise how fast a bullet train would be until we were sat at the platform and one zoomed by. I tried to take a photo of the second one we spotted but I couldn't turn my camera on in time.

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      If riding a bullet train wasn't perfect enough for Tom, it was made even better when he realised buying beer from the trolley lady was even cheaper than buying coffee.

  8. Checkin at SCMaglev and Railway Park
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      I thought Tom might have had enough of trains by the time we got to Nagoya but he was super excited about going to the Maglev Railway Museum, so I agreed to go along. The museum was a gigantic space filled with trains you could explore, so we took a break from travelling on trains to walking around ones that weren't going anywhere.

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      The three most exciting trains were an old steam train that was the fastest in the world, the fastest electric train in the world and the fastest train in the world ever. It's record speed was 571 km/h and considering I was feeling queasy on our Shinkansen which was only 300 km/h, I don't think my bento would have made the journey.

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      Gallery

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      The second highlight of the museum was a maglev simulator where you could experience what it would feel like to travel at 500 km/h. The train begins to levitate when it reaches a high speed so the journey feels completely smooth. I think they played the film in English for our benefit so when we were told to look out of the windows, we were the only people who did.

  9. Checkin at Toyoko-Inn
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      After all the transportation excitement, it was time to catch another train to Gifu, where we checked in to our hotel and had a disco nap before seeing Jenny.

  10. Checkin at さかなや道場 名鉄岐阜店
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      Though we were really sleepy, we couldn't wait to see Jenny. We met up with her and her family for dinner at a traditional Japanese restaurant where we removed our shoes and sat in a private booth where you ring a door bell to call the waiter.

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      We entrusted Jenny with the menu and she ordered all kinds of weird and wonderful dishes, from fried fish fins to icky chewy raw squid which I wasn't able to swallow. Luckily, she's also ordered delicious cocktails to wash the food down including umeshu plum liqueur and a Korean liqueur.

 
 
Fuji-Hakone Guest House / 富士箱根ゲストハウス × Delete
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Hakone Cruise and Ropeway × Delete
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Hakone Kurotamago Owakudani Mountain × Delete
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箱根海賊船 / Hakone Sightseeing Cruise × Delete
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Odawara Station × Delete
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SCMaglev and Railway Park × Delete
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Toyoko-Inn × Delete
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さかなや道場 名鉄岐阜店 × Delete
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