Today, our plan was to leave Tokyo and take the train to Hakone, a mountain hot springs town near Mt. Fuji that is known for its hot springs. There’s a spa theme park that has a lot of fun pools, and we also booked a night at a high-end ryokan to treat ourselves.
In the morning, we got to the Shinjuku station after a bit of mixup on my part about Shibuya vs. Shinjuku, and then we picked up some discounted tickets at the Odakyu travel center for the Yunnesun. Odakyu is quite a big company: they have a department store, a travel agency, and even their own railway. We were able to get it discounted for both parts of the park to $22 each! But we wouldn’t use the naked part (onsen) since we would be separated from each other. Onsens separate by gender.
We bought a small breakfast snack at 7-11 and the Romancecar cafe. Romancecar is a version of the Odakyu railway where the train is a little better (sort of like Amtrak-style seats compared to subway cars), and it cost $20-ish for this to go to Hakone, one way. We got on the train and it was a relatively quick ride.
After about an hour or two, we touched down at Hakone Yumuto station, and we took the bus up the winding road up the mountain to the Yunnesun. We went to the Yunnesun (I stupidly forgot to bring my swimsuit lol) and the ticket actually came with free towel and swimsuit rentals! So it was a lot like the Sojo spa club in Jersey city with the wristband to pay for things and open the locker. We had to take off our shoes before entering the rental shop and the rest of the yunnesun. I chose a black polka dot bikini but it was quite worn since it was a rental so it looked like I had droopy boobs! Oh well!!! Then I went to the locker room and changed. The Yunnesun was quite empty, and I didn’t run into a single person in the locker room.
They had a main pool (never entered that pool), kiddy pool that was super shallow and had toy character statues, and then they had specialty pools: 3 rose-scented pools that were circular and basically jacuzzis, a coffee pool, sake, green tea, and the red wine pool which was in a “cellar”.
We first walked around the whole area. It was basically a really big indoor water park, and all the water was hot. When we entered, they made us pose for a picture with plastic hawaiian leis and the characters that were the mascots of the yunnesun. The characters are all square-headed cats of different colors.
The pools are themed, but mostly in decoration and color. I was a least impressed with the green tea pool and the sake pool since it didn’t look or smell like it at all. But the wine pool and the coffee pool were a little more convincing.
We also passed Dr Fish, which is a foot nibbling fish pool decorated in a Mediterranean style. We soaked in all of these pools. There was also a paintball or BB gun firing range (??) inside there, and a Grecian style thing.
The place is decorated with the skyline of Santorini or something. Then, outside, there’s a Great America/Six Flags style water playground with a big bin that dumps a large amount of water occasionally, and then there was Rodeo Mountain. It had a cave in it, which is supposed to be an aquarium plus a salt cave, and a “lava” pool or something. But that was under renovation so it was closed.
Then there was a lower level, which caught the water from a waterfall above the entrance of the cave, and on top, there were two pools plus the entrance to an epic water slide. It had 3 levels; easy, medium, and hard. It was super fun and you come crashing down into a pool at the bottom!!!
There is also a pool further away that is terraced, but it’s not peak season for the yunnesun, so it was closed. We had lunch there, and calpico soda. It was decent. At the coffee and wine pools, they throw wine and coffee into the pool. They even have you drink it to see if it’s real (it is) and then they toss it onto you! Finally, we went to the Dr. Fish thing and had our feet nibbled for 5 minutes. Masa had a ton of fish eating his dead skin…
Then we left the yunnesun at 2:30, got changed, and went to the bus stop. Took the bus down back to the town area, and then walked for about 8-10 min up to the ryokan. It was a beautiful, quaint town. We had to cross a bridge that went over a wide but shallow river.
We entered, and they had us take our shoes off and sat us down in the lobby facing a beautiful outdoor waterfall in the center of the building. We checked in, selected our mealtimes and options, and they took our bags to another waiting area and brought us welcoming drinks while they prepped our room.
Then a nice man brought our bags to our room, but first, he showed us around, took us to the elevator, and then RAN UP THE STAIRS to go to our room before the elevator brought us there. SO EXTRA.
Our room was so beautiful. We didn’t know it at the time, but they had boiled water before we arrived in the room so we could have hot tea available as soon as we walked in. They also sized us up during the check in process, and laid out yukatas, communist looking purple pajamas, and vests in the closet for us. The onsen is made up of a few floors, and rooms are on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors. Every room has a balcony and a private onsen, and they all face the same way, so you’re guaranteed to have a good view.
We took a bath in the private onsen on the balcony, and then headed down to get some free drinks at the bar lol. We had orange gin + tonic, which was delicious. We then went back to our rooms to chill, and I was a bit scared of using the toilet actually, because of how automated it was lol. They had even provided glass bottles of every step of a 10 step skincare routine, robes, fluffy towels, and even a towel warmer! Then we got a call at 6:50, saying that our dinner was ready. We were greeted on the 3rd floor and led to our private dining room. Then it was an 11 course kaiseki meal, which traditionally was a meal served to royalty. THE FLOORBOARDS UNDER OUR SEATS WERE HEATED FOR OUR FEET!!!! The level of detail put into this experience was crazy.
After dinner we hung out in the private onsen more and slept on our futons, which they prepared for us while we were eating dinner. I noticed that the pillows were a little soft, but on the bottom, they felt like a bag of beans. I tossed mine around a bit because it was literally a bean bag.
Then i woke up at like 4am since I had such a good, peaceful sleep. We bathed again, checked out the public onsen on the first floor, and just sat around waiting for breakfast. We watched TV, and saw this episode about a Japanese woman who made wreaths out of nontraditional materials.
Breakfast was equally extra.
Then we bathed, again, and reluctantly checked out. They gave us back our shoes and we walked through the small town to the train station, and took the romance car back to Shinjuku.
