Day 4: Hakone rules

Group picture with master of Kurata Izakaya.

River next to Hakone-yumoto station.

Stew pork soba at Hakone. The main dish was yuba tofu soba which was way too healthy for me.

Yes, smoking and ping pong at Ohmiya Ryokan. They had ping pong bats so we didn`t need to use slippers.

To Yao Ken aka Will J, this is what you are missing out when you decided to FFK us. Did I mention that they got two ashtrays in our rooms and in the toilets!

Chicken skin yakitori! Yes, Jeff they are even tastier than Melbourne`s.

Chanko nabe stew. Apparently E. Honda eats this so he can do the flying headbutt.

Our rock band singer plus the best maracas in Japan = win!

I finally got to sing Love Machine at a karaoke! Unfortunately, my mind went blank at the beginning of the song much to the amusement of my friends.

Yes those are real geisha. Thanks to Hellcar and his gaijin ninja shot skills.

Rei failing at busu-kawaii. Clearly he had enough alcohol at this point.

Billy showing us his excitement from being so close to the geisha.

More Hellcar gaijin ninja shot skills. I need to rent me a geisha in order to practice my Japanese with.

Two guys and 3 geisha? Throw us a bone here mate!

Waking up 10 minutes from check out time.

View from overhead bridge at Hakone-yumoto station.

Our rooms at Ohmiya Ryokan.

Random notes and observations:
- We went to an outdoor onsen and it was really good. Thank god I`m short sighted so I didn`t really see anything. There was a wall divider like in the doramas/anime but it wasn`t to the female section. Ohmiya Ryokan also had a private indoor onsen which I woke up at 6am to enjoy.
- Kimutaku`s ads suck.
- Ohgura Yuko seems to be a staple of variety shows. Saw her in two different shows and she`s no longer speaking in her fake voice although its still very kawaii.
- The boss of Ohmiya Ryokan and master of Kurata Izakaya really went out of their way to make us welcome. Ohmiya Ryokan gave us free tickets for the onsen and made a booking for us at Kurata. I really had a lot of fun and would definitely come back here again. I wish we could have stayed an extra day.
- Now in Kyoto and its raining so we couldn`t be stuffed going to shrines etc. Off to Osaka tomorrow!