Wandering Fel

The very first view that you see at the ropeway station is the view of Lake Ashinoko from the top. Really beautiful indeed. There is a viewing platform to stand so you don't have to take the picture of scenery from a dangerous spot. 

The next view which you will see when you step out from the ropeway station is a red shrine and red gate against the blue sky. You can go and visit the shrine but you need to do a little bit of walking up there. 

There are some stones which are left over up here. I wonder if they are supposed to be used to build something originally. 

Even though the top of Mount Komagatake looks like a deserted place, the pathway leading to the shrine is really well maintained. 

From the pathway, you can take picture of Mount Fuji in the backdrop. You just need to be patient and take turn with fellow visitors when you are up here, I guess. 

However, the best place to take picture with Mount Fuji lies up ahead on the open area. When the weather is super bright, it may not be easy to catch the white top of Mount Fuji though. I don't know why but my Samsung camera tend to wash the background and focus on me instead. Oh well, I wonder if the #beautyfunction is at fault here. LOL.

If you join a day tour at Hakone, chances are the ropeway trip will be included in the itinerary. Usually, visitors start from taking the sightseeing cruise at Lake Ashinoko. The cruise will dock at Hakone-en so that visitors can directly continue their journey to ride the ropeway to Mt Komagatake. 

One of the perks to join tour is that you do not have to queue for your ticket as your tour guide will do it for you. To be honest with you, it seems that the visitors that day were all part of the tours. That explains why they are so many of us standing but not many of us queuing. In fact, there was nobody at the ticketing counter. 

Which is good for us, as we can get our ticket straight away. If you manage your own trip, one return ticket for adults costs 1,050 Japanese Yen. 

And joined the queue to ride the ropeway. 

Here come the ropeway. The journey to the top of Mt Komagatake takes only 7 minutes by the ropeway. 

On the way, you will be able to see Mount Fuji and a chain of Hakone mountains on the left. You can supposedly see the island of Odawara, Yokohama, Ohshima island and Sagami Bay on the right but I could not tell as I stood nearer to the left window. 

So, you know where to stand if you want to see Mount Fuji, ok? =P

Such a cute art drawn on the terminal door.

As usual, there is a souvenir store in every terminal in Japan including at Hakone Kojiri Terminal. But, the first thing that we saw in the souvenir store is not meant to be eaten by human. Because they are cookies especially made for dogs. Oh wow. Did you see the packaging for dog's cookies? I bet the dogs will be happy too when they see such a nice gift.

The rest of the cookies are edible by human, don't worry. The matcha pocky taste so good. But I recently see both the matcha pocky and collon in Singapore. I guess you don't have to travel that far anymore if you miss these Japanese snacks. 

This snack is so weird. Hahaha. I suppose it is a sponge cake shaped like Mount Fuji with a pair of eyes. XD

There are Mount Fuji cookies too. Majority of the cookies in Japan has cute mascot, really.

After we replenished our stash, we were ready to board our cruise. There is a map showing the cruise routes on Lake Ashinoko. But it is written in Japanese so yeah, let's just see and move on.