Hakone Roadtrip

 Glenn had a 4-day weekend thanks to Veteran's Day so on Friday we decided to head to Hakone for some lunch and to check out the area. Stella is a pretty good navigator so she came along too! We took the Tomei expressway south from Ebina to Gotemba and drove along the mountain roads til we reached Gora station. You can take the train pretty easily to Hakone as well, but for 1500 yen and only about an hour and 15 minutes of driving, it was faster and cheaper to drive.

 First stop: Lunch! We stopped at Gyouza Center.  A place we had heard much about. The entire menu is different types of Gyoza (aka fried/steamed dumplings). Glenn's favorite were the Chicken Roll Gyoza where they took a chicken wing, filled it with the normal gyoza filling and then fried it. Delicious! We also tried the Stamina Gyoza (90% Garlic filling), the original, the crab meat and the kimchi gyoza. We took a few of those kinds for takeout. I definitely recommend this place if you are in the area!

 Our next stop was Gora station area. We took Stella for a walk and enjoyed the beautiful leaves. It didn't occur to me that it would be 20 degrees cooler since we were closer to the mountains so a jacket would have been nice. :) The leaves were just perfect though. I didn't really think about the leaves, I just wanted to go to Hakone with Glenn, but our timing was just perfect!

 Next we went to the Hakone Open-Air Museum. It is a huge sculpture garden and a substantial Picasso exhibit as well.

 A beautiful day exploring Japan with Glenn! Too bad Stella had to stay in the car at the museum. :)