Hakone and the arts
Woke up refreshed after a great sleep in the futon on the tatami mats and went up for breakfast, which was buffet style mixture of western and Japanese.At the breakfast table we worked out what we were going to see. We decided on first going to the Hakone open air art musuem which is a cool park with sculptures in it. We also decided on some other places that we ended up not going too.
After check out the hotel took us back to Yumoto Hakone in the shuttle bus and then we had to make our way to Chukokku no mori station, just near the area of Gora where we were yesterday. The train that goes there is very slow as it winds up the mountain. It also has to use switchbacks where it goes up the mountain then comes back down a little before going back up again.
The Hakone open air art musuem is directly outside of the station,we had initially planned to stay here around an hour but that soon changed as its such a great place for the whole family, basically its just a huge park with sculptures from the likes of Rodin, Moore, Bordelle and Despiau. I had been to the Rodin Musuem in France so I knew I would like this place. The sculptures were all very interesting my favourite being the hand of god sculpture.
After walking around the park and my son having a ball in the kids section where they have sculptures that the kids can all play on we headed towards the Picasso pavillion this is an indoor exhibition with some of Picasso works in it. They showed a interesting piece of abull fight that each piece was connected from the start when the matador came to the end with them taking the dead bull away my son enjoyed looking at that.
We had lunch at the cafe at the place but I wouldn't recommend to eat there, food was very small and quite expensive, then did some souvenier shopping and before we knew it was already 2pm. We had no time to go to any other places so it gives us a great excuse to go back again. Caught the trains back to board our shinkansen at 4pm. We had enough time to grab a coffee from you guessed it Starbucks just before boarding. I stayed awake waiting to catch my last glimpse of Mount Fuji.
As the train passed Mount Fuji I thought to myself about the phrase they have in Japanese 'You are a fool if you have never climbed Mount Fuji but you are even a bigger full if you climb it more than once'. I thought I may be a fool now but this year I will a fool no more as I am determine to conquer this mountain sometime this year.
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The musuem also holds a collection of Picasso works which opened in 1984 being the first Picasso musuem in Japan, after aquiring 188 pieces of ceramics that had been inherited by his oldest daughter. The Picasso collection now numbers more than 300 items. There is also a photo collection of Picasso's life taken by David Douglas Duncan, during 17 years from 1956 to Picasso's death at age 91.
The musuem also holds one of the worlds largest collections of work by the English sculptor Henry Moore but to be honest I preferred many of the other sculptors work.
The Musuem is located out the front of Chukoku no mori train station and is open from 9am to 5pm, admission permitted 30 minutes prior to closing. The entrance admission is rather expensive at 1600 yen per person but you are given a 200 yen discount if you have the Hakone free pass. There is also an audio guide available for 300 yen with a 1000 yen deposit ,which we never purchased . All in all a great place that I highly recommend.
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