The Egg Japan Says Can Add Seven Years to Your Life

Hakone has been drawing Tokyo out of itself since long before anyone called it a resort town. During the Edo period it sat on the Tokaido highway as a post station, a mandatory stop for travelers and officials moving between Edo and Kyoto. After the Meiji Restoration it was reinvented again, this time into a summer retreat for Tokyo's wealthy and the foreign residents of Yokohama, with the imperial family eventually building its own villa nearby. The whole region now falls inside Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, an easy reach from the capital: about 70 minutes from Shinjuku to Odawara on the Odakyu line, or a direct ride to Hakone-Yumoto on the Romancecar limited express.

The main reason most people come, though, sits at Owakudani, a volcanically active valley that still hisses with sulfurous steam some 3,000 years after the eruption that created it. Vendors there boil eggs for an hour in the 80-degree hot spring water, then steam them for another 15, and the sulfur in the water turns every shell a deep charcoal black by the time they're done. Local legend holds that eating one of these black eggs adds seven years to your life, which has turned a roadside snack into one of the most photographed foods in Japan; they're sold in packs of five for about 500 yen, theoretically good for 35 extra years per bag.

Getting a clear look at the valley usually means riding the Hakone Ropeway, a cable car that runs from Sounzan station across the steaming basin, with Mount Fuji sometimes visible on the far side on a clear day. It's less a transit link than a sightseeing ride in its own right, and most visitors treat the Owakudani stop as a destination rather than a stopover, eggs included.

The ropeway eventually descends toward Lake Ashi, a crater lake formed by the same eruption that carved out Owakudani. Its shoreline is marked by the bright red torii gate of Hakone Shrine, which appears to float just off the water's edge and has become one of the most recognizable images of the region. Sightseeing boats built to resemble 17th-century European pirate ships cross the lake on a loop, an odd touch of theme-park theater in an otherwise serene volcanic landscape, and most of them time the crossing for a Fuji view when the weather cooperates.

Hakone has been an onsen town since long before it was a tourist town, and that hasn't changed: ryokan throughout the area are still built around natural hot spring baths, many with mountain or lake views built into the design. The region has also become something of a quiet art destination, anchored by the Hakone Open-Air Museum's sculpture gardens and the Pola Museum of Art's collection, both tucked into the hills outside the main resort strip. Locally, Yosegi, a wood marquetry technique using the natural colors of different tree species rather than dye, has been practiced in the area since the Edo period and still shows up in boxes, trays, and souvenirs across town.

Hakone works well as either a long day trip or an overnight from Tokyo, and almost everyone visiting uses the Hakone Free Pass, which bundles unlimited rides on the local trains, buses, ropeway, and pirate ships into one multi-day ticket. Budget a full day if the plan includes Owakudani, the ropeway, and a lake crossing, and bring small bills for the eggs; the hot springs, happily, aren't going anywhere.