I am having the Weak Constitution

So... mad hiking continues. We read the tour guide, and set ourselves up to walk the old cobblestone highway to Ashinoko Lake. It was sold to me as a somewhat idyllic stroll down to the picturesque lake. What we didn't know (because the warning was in Japanese...) was that this hike is considered to be the most challenging parts of the Hakone highway. Oops.

Really, I should have been able to figure this one out. I refer the reader to the map whose photo I took the other day. It shows the relative elevations of all the places around Hakone too. Our hotel is happily situated at 200m above sea level. The lake is at 750m. We hiked straight from the hotel, so obviously SOMEWHERE in there, we woulda had to have hiked uphill just a teensy bit. I didn't really put that together until we were cruising up the path. I wish the path had a warning sign like the sulphur mountain did.

Halfway through the hike (and thankfully just before I ran out of bodily electrolytes) we stopped at a cozy tea house. (Probably situated there for people just as insane as us). We had delicious chewy rice snacks, sweet tea (no sugar added - just fermented rice) and some interesting green too. The hostess was awesome - she spoke almost perfect english (she did college in Seattle 25 years ago... which is weird, because she doesn't look a day older than 35...).

After that, we carried on over the stone path. In total, we hiked 6 KM (excluding the hike to the start of the path... which was also uphill from the hotel...). The rest of the day was relatively tame after that. We ate some amazing tofu... Ate ice cream parfaits (about 20 minutes after cramming the entire giant tofu set lunch down), and then bought more snacks for later... come home... and ate some more. And took pictures of us eating (the guy who sold us rice snacks posed for us. Ten guesses what pose he chose.)

So in summary: I guess hiking makes us hungry. Who knew?