Hakone: Owakudani (In Search of the Black Eggs)

Cliff and Lilia and I recently took a day trip to Hakone. We had been meaning to go for a long time and with the fall leaves changing into such gorgeous colors we decided there was no better time then the present! Ironically our favorite place in Hakone was actually the nearly barren wasteland of Owakudani! Hakone is famous for its hot springs and in Owakudani the water is so hot and sulfuric that they actually boil eggs until they turn black for the tourists! Supposedly eating a black egg from Owakudani adds seven years to one's life. We had to try it out! Off we go!
Not many trees here!


I made sound like a major goobery dork here, but I just loved hiking around Owakudani. It felt so otherworldly to me - like maybe I had stepped back in time or crossed over into middle earth or something. Owakudani reminded me of the outskirts of Mordor. Rather than the one ring to draw us deeper into the realm, though, we had visions of hard boiled eggy goodness.


Beautiful!
I think if I had a nice camera these pictures would have been even more amazing. I thought the lighting was great!



We're getting closer!


Don't touch the water!

I love the contrast of colors in this photo.

Looking back at the ropeway house where we came from.
At last! We are so close! Let's go buy our eggs!

This lucky man's job is to lower and remove the baskets of boiled eggs from the springs.
Success! This little bag of eggs was HOT! I hat to keep switching hands! Rather than eat them at the top of the hill we decided to trek back down the path before eating these.



This area reminded me so much of Yellowstone and my little brother. The sulfur smell bothered him so much as a child when we visited that park that my parents had to buy him an air freshener to carry with him.... ha ha!


Here we go!
Oooohh ahhh! I think mine looks like a picture from the Hubble Telescope. I see a few nebulas... some solar systems....
All Lilia saw was LUNCH! Yum! I think between the three of us we tacked on about 35 extra years to our lives!!