Hakone is an easy and popular day trip from Tokyo. You can escape the busy city and head to the mountains for beautiful scenery and delicious black eggs. Boiled on site, the eggs turn black due to a chemical reaction with the sulphurous water. According to Japanese legend, each egg will add seven years to your life. Plus the taste is 20% more umami than normal boiled eggs!

Lake Ashi is at the center of Hakone, as well as the setting for the iconic image of Mount Fuji with the torii of Hakone-jinja rising from the water. Unfortunately we visited on a cloudy day, so the notoriously shy Mount Fuji was hidden from us.

One of the best things about visiting Hakone is all of the different modes of transportation. To get around the city, you have to take 5 different types of transport: mountain railway, cablecar up the mountain, ropeway over the boiling sulphur pits of Owakudani, pirate ships across Lake Ashi, and finally the bus back to the station.