Togendai View Restaurant

Togendai View Restaurant

Website: http://www.hakone-kankosen.co.jp/foreign/en/restaurant/togendaiview/index.html

Decided to grab early dinner as we waited for the next ride from Togendai Port to Moto-Hakone Port.

Aunt had the hot soba with tempura shrimp

I ordered the pork curry

Mum had the cold soba with tempura shrimp

Beautifully presented

We sat at the counter table which offers a nice view of Lake Ashi and you can actually see the cruise.

After that, we went on board the Hakone sightseeing cruise which is free again with the free pass.

I highly recommend the free pass to anyone who's travelling to Hakone as it really saves you a lot of money on transportation. We paid 5,640 yen each for a 3 day pass from Shinjuku.

Website: http://www.odakyu.jp/english/deels/freepass/hakone/

Hey there! You must be the Captain!

The cruise is free seating. You can opt to stand too....

As we leave the port~

Bye bye~ Togendai Port~

The weather was gloomy and cloudy most of the time we were in Hakone and hence, no Mount Fuji view for us!!!

The trees in Hakone are really beautiful~

It's amazing how beautiful nature is and how peaceful it makes you feel~

Another cruise passing by~

Here's we can see the tori of Hakone shrine

This is a popular picture spot for locals and tourists

Eating Japan - Bread series 3

This time round, rather than bread, they're more like the baked series~

1. Ohisama no tamago - Praline

Slightly on the sweet side but I like the texture

2. Styleone honey french toast

I really like this on days when I'm too busy to prepare breakfast. The toast is thick and juicy, hence keeps my tummy full till lunch.

3. Cherie Dolce- Marble choco pound

The beautiful marbling effect attracted me first but that buttery taste.....ooo so addictive! Love this after my lunch as a dessert or as a late afternoon snack.

4. Cherie Dolce yam cheese tart

First time seeing a yam cheese tart and it was surprisingly delicious~

5. Cherie Dolce baked cheese tart

This is good and is my Americna colleague's favourite. He would have it almost every day after lunch!

Hakone Palace Hotel

For our trip to Hakone, we booked a place a tHakone Palace Hotel, which was located on top of a hill and hence offers a beautiful view of Lake Ashi.

Website: http://hakone.palacehotel.co.jp/english/

We booked a triple room.

That was pretty huge. It came with a study table, TV, closet, coffee table, couch, a dressing table, coffee table and bathroom.

Pretty common in most hotels in Japan

The bathtub that I did not use as I always take a bath at the onsen.

Toilet

Free amenities

The rooms are expensive as I was looking for a place with western style rooms, onsen, nice view and access to bus transportation.

Yup, I'm just blown away by the view~ This was taken from the balcony of our floor. But our room offers the same view.

This hotel is just one stop from Togendai. While it is pretty far from other restaurants and stuffs, it was easily accessible. The bus stop was right in front of the hotel and buses come pretty often. As we bought the Odakyu free pass, all these buses are available to us for free.

There's also Odakyu bus that you can take

Here's a sample map of the bus lines and bus stops

I absolutely enjoyed the onsen in this hotel. I take a bath there every morning and night. It's clean and has all the amenities that you would require. There's an outdoor and indoor onsen. Of course the outdoor one was way better than the indoor one! 

Oooo...I'm missing it already~!!!!

Then in the lobby, there's a shop which sells Peter rabbit items.

One morning, we woke up to this beautiful view with a double rainbow~!!! <3

So happy that I got to see both ends of the rainbow~

But that amazing view didn't last long....when the sky cleared up, the rainbows were gone too....

Unagi in summer

In Japan, somehow unagi is a really popular food in summer. 

Come summer and you can see all the restaurants that don't normally sell eel start serving it on their menu. Then the local supermarket will be selling ready packed eels too.

So we bought one too from Aeon. All we had to do was just reheat it in the microwave.

The verdict?

Yummy~ as good as the ones you can get in the restaurant. 

In Japan, it's very common to get packaged fish stuffs from the supermarket. They're convenient and taste great. But of course, the cost is higher than if you were to prepare the fish yourself.

Odaiba day trip

Third visit to Toyota MegaWeb

While I don't have a license to test drive any of the cars, it is still interesting to look at the designs of some of the cars.

Lol, my dream pink car?

This mini one is not too bad! 

Perfect for a single person to get to work.....probably need some doors as the driver might get wet from the rain.

For lunch, we went to Odaiba Decks and had some qyouzas which were so-so.

Gindaco takoyaki which is always delicious! So good that we bought a second tray.

Hanamaru udon~

First time seeing Mr. Gundam in person~

As it was drizzling, we went back indoors to shop summore and got freshly fried Calbee - sarada sticks!

This was super delicious. I like this sooo much more compared to the packaged one,

Uuuu.....it started drizzling again. Look at the dark clouds~

But we really wanted to get some nice outdoor pics so we braved the rain! hahaha....

And the sky cleared up in 5 mins!

Odaiba always bring back such sweet memories to me from my very first trip to Japan!