April 3 - Fuji-Hakone National Park (富士-箱根國家公園) & Tokyo (東京)

In the morning, we got up and walked around the garden, took some photos with the beautiful scenery and then enjoyed a Japanese style breakfast.  

Then we drove toward Fuji-Hakone National Park (富士 - 箱根國家公園) to enjoy the pirate ship boat ride in Lake Ashi (蘆之湖).  The ship was built like the original pirate ship, however it was raining, we couldn’t really enjoy the beautiful scenery of the Lake Ashi. We started the boat ride from Hakone-machi-ko (箱根丁) and end up at Togendai-ko(桃園台). 

Due to strong wind, the Hakone Ropeway ride was cancelled for safety consideration. Then we drove to Owakudani Valley (大涌谷). The wind was so strong, we had to be very careful holding onto each other when we got off the bus and walked to the souvenir shops near by the visitor’s center. Owakudani Valley is famous with their boiled black egg (黑鷄蛋) and Charcoal Ice Cream (木炭冰淇淋). These boiled eggs are cooked in the naturally hot spring water, whose shells are blackened by the sulfur. Legend says consuming the eggs will increase longevity - eating one is said to add seven years to one's life. Some of us did try the boiled black egg, but we only went for the Charcoal Ice Cream.  After eating this ice cream, you can clearly see the teeth turning to black.

Supposedly we should have a stunning view of Mount Fuji and the sulphur vents just below the visitor’s center, but the rain prevented all of these.  

We went to Il Miraggio French restaurant in the Hakone Hotel for a buffet lunch. This restaurant has a beautiful lake view, again the rain prevented us to see anything.

After lunch, we traveled to Tokyo. The first stop in Tokyo was the Tokyo Imperial Palace (皇居). We could not get into the palace, we only stayed just outside of the complex ground near the Nijubashi Bridge (二重橋) for photos. There are quite a few cherry trees in the surrounding complex ground and we were able to take photos of Sakura in close distance.  

Later, we check into the Imperial Hotel (帝國酒店) which is just across the street from the Imperial Palace.  Imperial Hotel is the best hotel we had stayed in the whole Japan trip and we believe it is either 5 or 6 stars hotel.

In the evening, we had free time and are supposed to handle our own dinner in the Ginza area.  Tricia walked us to Ginza and shown us how to get around and then she set us free to explore the city by ourselves. We went to a toy store (博品館) recommended by her to buy some toys such as Pokemons and Transformers for our grandkids. We also shopped at Uniglo store in Ginza and found that their price was cheaper than the Uniqlo stores in Taipei. After shopping, we ran out of time for sitting down dinner, so we just purchased carryout food and ate in the hotel room.