THREE TRAVELERS WE

Most of today was spent traveling between Kurashiki and Hakone - a taxi to the train station, a local train to Okayama, a "super express" shinkansen to Osaka, then a transfer to a "stop-in-every-station" shinkansen train for the three hour trip to Odawara, followed by a short local train to Hakone Yumoto, and finally a forty-minute bus ride over the mountains to Lake Ashi where we are staying tonight at the Hakone Hotel, a lake shore resort hotel right next to the pirate ship (!) boat dock.
 

The variety of transportation utilized kept the day from being a bore -- as did our eki-ben box lunches and all those electronic devices we brought along (iPad, Nook, iTouch, and two laptops - one, a mini) which kept us occupied while we swept along through the countryside at breakneck speed.

Only once we settled in to our hotel room and turned on the television news did we realize that we were in the midst of a major weather event!  It had rained all  day long -- which we regarded as a fortunate turn of events because we hadn't planned to be out sightseeing today anyway.  Turns out that the stormy weather with all its wind and rain struck many as "typhoon like", a turn-of-events taking place months ahead of schedule and causing havoc over much of the country -- trucks upended, trains delayed, air flights canceled.


We were lucky to get to our destination at all, but tomorrow's weather is supposed to turn sunny and pleasant once again.  We hope that will be the case because we have a "circle tour" to complete utilizing a host of different transportation modes to get us around the lake: bus, cable car, vehicular tramway, rope way and that pirate ship across the lake back to our hotel.

Due to the inclement weather, we stayed in this evening, having an onsen public bath, changing into yukata sleeping robes and ordering room service, just for a change of pace.  

After all isn't that what a Japanese resort experience is all about anyway?