Japan Vacation: Hakone

     On my 4th day in Japan, I made a day trip from Tokyo to the city of Hakone. The city is most famous for its proximity to Mt. Fuji and its hot spring onsen, bathhouses. The city is also famous for its Open-Air Museum. These were the three reasons I wanted to make a visit to Hakone. I packed very light, so climbing Mt. Fuji was not in my plans. Still, I hoped to explore around it.
     First, I head to the Open-Air Museum. The museum featured various types of art, most in the form on  bronze statues. Others included a Picasso exhibit, and another exhibit with artwork based on the human form. From the video that I will show you, you will see that Japan has no problems with nudity. Most of the men and women are nude in their statues. It's all a part of the culture! My favorite statues were the Grande statues. They are bigger than life size, and just nice to look upon. My favorite artwork may have been in the Picasso exhibit. My focus was visual art up until college when I switched to business, so I'm familiar with the artist Picasso. It was great to see a lot of his artwork in person. After spending 2+ hours at the museum, I was pretty tired so I decided to relax in a hot spring bath at an onsen.
     For those that don't know, in Asian countries bathhouses work a bit differently than in America, lol. In the bath houses here, everyone is completely nude. The men have no problem seeing each other naked, especially in South Korea where homosexuality taboo. Actually, these bathhouses are usually where a lot of people socialize with each other. Families bring their sons and daughters with them (to separate sex parts of the bathhouse) and co-workers come together. What I heard about the onsen was true in that it was very relaxing. It was also an outdoors onsen (surrounded on the sides by walls), so nice sunlight came in and there was just a great environment overall. You have your options of which bath to sit in, and the one I happeend to choose was scorching hot. I would have gotten out immediately, but there was a Japanese guy sitting in there like it was nothing. I stayed as long as I could, but I had to make the switch to a cooler bath. There are suppose to be special things that they put in the water, but I just know that the water felt great (especially to my flat footed feet).
    By the time I finished there, it was too late to go explore Mt. Fuji (it's suppose to be hard enough to see during the day depending on the weather). :/ I then wrapped up my time in Hakone and headed back to Tokyo. The next day, I headed to Kyoto!