Shizuoka and Hakone weekend!

This weekend, I took a trip with the adventure club Tokyo Gaijins. Our tour schedule got changed many a times due to unforeseen circumstances but we powered through it and had a good time.
We started our trip by taking a hike to go these seven famous waterfalls. Here is where some of the trouble started. There was a huge typhoon that just passed through here a couple of weeks ago. There was still damage that the grounds staff had to clear up, so two of the waterfalls were still off limits. We still saw five of the waterfalls and had a picnic lunch while sitting and enjoying the view.

The legend is if you can throw a stone and it stays on this sacred rock, you will have good luck for the rest of your life. I failed...

It was so beautiful

After the hike, we were supposed to go to a traditional Japanese onsen (hot spring). However, we ran into two problems. First, the original onsen was closed due to typhoon damage. At the second onsen that we were supposed to go to a maintenance man dropped a light bulb into the spring and there was glass everywhere. Needless to say, that onsen was out.
We decided to head up to Hakone and find an onsen there to relax at. I was determined to visit one as this was one of the main reasons I signed up for the trip.
We started the Hakone trip by traveling up to the mountains on a literally spiraled road.

Once there, we did a little sight seeing. My group visited a shinto shrine in the area which was beautiful! It was dedicated to the lake.

Sacred tree

My favorite part of this photo is the Japanese couple admiring the lake.

After that, we went farther up into the mountains to see some sulfur pots and natural springs. As expected, it was pretty smelly but still cool. My favorite part was the view of the town and Mt. Fuji.

Wow, just stunning.

That's Mt. Fuji in the distance.

Then came the part of the trip that I had been both dreading and looking forward to, it was time to go to the onsen. Now, something to understand about traditional Japanese hot springs is that there are two different hot springs for ladies and gentleman because you go into the hot springs totally naked...quite a daunting
idea to me...I was determined to do it at least once while I was here though. At first, I was a bit embarrass ed because I had never done anything like this before. But the others were really supportive and coaxed me out of the dressing room. Soon, I was in the natural hot spring and relaxing. We knew it was a natural hot spring because there are trace amounts of sulfur which started turning my skin yellow! I ended up loving it so I'm beyond happy I gave it a try!
After the relaxing onsen, we drove home. I was so relaxed that I slept the whole way home. All in all it was a fun trip. I got to meet some new people and saw some great sights.

The group. The photographer told us to do a muscle man pose but apparently I was the only one who got the memo lol