I’m writing today’s blog from our room on the 29th floor of the hotel. We have the most amazing view from our room and we went to the 42nd earlier in the evening for drinks and of course the spectacular views of Tokyo at night. This was to be our final day of “road touring” and we certainly finished it in a very enjoyable way and more relaxing way. In the morning, we travelled for about two hours to a mountainous area to see Owakudani (the Great Boiling Valley), a volcanic crater and geothermal area. While travelling there, many people watched the movie starring Tom Cruise, called The Last Samurai which our guide put on the screens for us. It’s funny how more relevant history becomes when you are travelling in a country. I learnt through our guide that from about 1630 odd until the 1850’s Japan was virtually cut off from the rest of the world (self-imposed). They didn’t progress at the same rate as other parts of the world did. A small part of the movie is about the modernisation of the Japanese army to use rifles instead of the Samurai swords. Our guide also told us why the Japanese drive on the left-hand side of the road. It was due to the fact that the Samurai warriors always carried their swords on their left hips to make it easier to pull the swords our with their right hand. When walking or riding on the roads or paths, it was easier to travel on the left side to prevent their swords, clashing with other passerby’s. Anyway, our trip to the volcanic area was excellent as long as you didn’t mind the smell of sulphur. There were excellent facilities at the top of the mountain and plenty of space for people to explore and view the smouldering surroundings. We had another good view of Mt Fuji from this area too. This area is famous for its black eggs. Eggs had been hardboiled in water which must have had some sulphur in it which turned the shell, black (the yolk and white inside was no different). The Japanese believe that if you eat 1 black hardboiled egg you will add 7 years to your life. Many hardboiled eggs were being sold by the various food outlets, but Rob and I decided we didn’t need to partake. From this volcanic area, we were driven to The Hakone Open-Air Museum. Here was a brilliant open-air museum/gallery full of magnificent sculptures located around gorgeous grounds and gardens. There were over 120 large sculptures in the park and some smaller ones in the gallery buildings. We also enjoyed a visit to the Picasso Pavilion which had an excellent short video running about Picasso and the gallery itself featured many of his ceramics as well as sculptures, tapestries and gold and silver objects. I must admit that I didn’t realise he worked with so many different mediums. Again, the experience here was brilliant due to the expanse and the fact that we did not need to battle crowds to see anything. We arrived back in Tokyo soon after 5pm. Our cylinder-shaped hotel is attached to a shopping centre, so we wandered through to the shopping mall and found a wonderful pizza bar for dinner.
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