After our visit to the Open Air Museum, our tour bus took us to Sounzan Station, where we boarded a Cable car bound for Owakudani. The Cable cars were fairly good size, and could fit about 12 or 15 people in them. On a nice clear day, the views of Mount Fuji are supposed to be beautiful, but of course it was very overcast for us.
I thought our ride would be over once we reached the top of this mountain, but once we got over the top we kept going. The view on the otherside was very suprising. It went from very beautiful, to looking like the pits of hell. You could smell the Sulfer, and see the steam rising from the ground. All I could think of were scenes out of Lord of the Rings.
After about a 5 minute ride, we arrived in Owakudani. Here is an excerpt from the brochure we were given by our tour guide:
"Owakudani was formed roughly 3000 years ago when an explosion occurred on the hillside of Kamiyama. To this day there are still volcanic fumes of hydrogen sulfide being emitted. As a result, timber has wilted and rocks have turned to clay, exposing a bronze-colored hillside. Come experience the boiling pools, steam-spewing vents, and the many other activities of a dynamic volcano".
Strangely enough, Owakudani is most known for it's black eggs. They boil regular eggs in the Sulferic water until they turn black, and they sell them at a price of 5 for 500 yen (roughly $5.00). You can walk 10 minutes up the side of a mountain to watch them harvest the eggs.
There are tables everywhere, that you can use to crack the eggs that you can purchase at the top. Supposedly for every egg you eat, you add 7 years to your life. We each had one.
The eggs taste like normal hard-boiled eggs. They even came with a little packet of salt.
You can never pass up the chance to have a family picture taken by the smelly sulfer pits. It's not like I'm not constantly used to living with that smell anyways.
After we bought and ate our eggs, we walked back down to the bottom and got some food and hit the overpriced gift shops. At one of them I couldn't help but notice a stuffed Boar of sometype. On the sign next to it, please note that they call this a "beaver".
1 comment:
Oh dear that animal looks like that one creature out of Princess Bride (the "rodent of unusal size"). Strange beings they have. I'll never forget that sulfur smell in Hawaii so I don't imagine you'll ever forget that smell either. :) great pics again Laurel - thanks for sharing. Oh and the black eggs sound interesting!
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