This article is based on a visit made on Saturday, 12 May 2018.
Edit 10 October 2019: Updated prices to reflect the increase in Japan's national sales tax.
Back in the Edo Period, well before the development of modern railroads or automobiles, if you wanted to travel long-distance across Japan, you would have to do so on foot. The Tokugawa Shogunate set up
five routes from Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to other major cities. The most-travelled one was the
Tokaido (東海道,
Tōkaidō, lit. 'eastern sea road'), which led from Edo to Kyoto along the coast of the Pacific Ocean. The Tokaido was lined with post towns for lodging, and checkpoints to control the flow of traffic. And in 2007, the Hakone Checkpoint (箱根関所,
Hakone Sekisho) was rebuilt as a museum.
Just as the old post towns were full of lodgings for weary travellers to spend the night, the short road leading up to the Checkpoint Museum is also lined with shops that look more vintage than they probably are. Still, if you're looking for something authentically local, I recommend wooden boxes and other crafts inlaid with parquetry, a specialty of Hakone. One of the places along this avenue, the Sekisho Karakuri Museum (関所からくり美術館,
Sekisho Karakuri Hakubutsukan, not pictured), displays and sells these kinds of creations.
Within the museum's buildings, there are mannequins set up to depict the people who would have ran the checkpoint. The guards who would have worked here needed a place to stay, so they would cook their meals over
irori (囲炉裏) firepits like these.
The old Tokaido passed through multiple
provinces, and at each of those border crossings, you had to have a permit in order to cross from one to the other. It may sound hard to understand these days; can you imagine if you had to break out your passport every time you crossed into a new prefecture on the Shinkansen? But yeah, Japan wasn't unified like it is now until the 1800s; before then, the regional governments ruled by the shoguns had more powers of their own. Hakone was one such checkpoint, so it needed an armoury well-stocked with guns, bows, and other weapons of the time.
Didn't have your papers in order? Well, then, you would get locked up. Today's visitors can climb into one of the on-site jail cells, and more importantly, climb out.
Behind the buildings, you can climb up a hill to this guard tower.
The hill has a commanding view over the checkpoint, as well as Lake Ashi.
And guess what? I got to see Mount Fuji yet again from my new vantage point!
 |
The Ancient Cedar Road, a section of the Old Tokaido between Hakone-machi and Moto-Hakone.
By Daderot [CC0], from Wikimedia Commons |
If you have more time than I, there are sections of the old Tokaido which has been preserved for people today to hike along. Not far from the Checkpoint Museum, a 500m section of the path, attractively lined by cedar trees, follows the modern road up to the port at Moto-Hakone. Beyond that, an even longer preserved section (3km / 2 miles) can be hiked. Halfway along this section is a teahouse, the Amazake-chaya (甘酒茶屋, lit. 'sweet
sake teahouse'), named after the hot rice wine it specialises in.
My sign-off selfie comes from the jail cell at the Checkpoint Museum. Little did I know, I was serving my time pre-emptively. When we tried to get the bus back to Odawara Station, I panicked when I read that it didn't stop in front of the museum. As I learned after the fact, and wrote below, I didn't know we were supposed to walk down a bit to the station at Hakone-machi. But luckily, there was another bus from a different company headed the same way. Our Hakone Free Pass wasn't good on it, but it got us there in good time. My ever-religious grandmother gave thanks to God for providing for us; I extended the praise also to Buddha, Amaterasu, and the CEO of Izu-Hakone Transport. Just to cover my bases.
This wraps up my brief stay in Hakone. In the coming days, look forward to a new Know Your Trains, a kabuki-themed hotel room in Kyoto, and the city of ninja, all on Sekai Ichi!
Hakone Checkpoint Museum
Hours: Open from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM; closes at 4:30 PM from December through February. Admission ends 30 minutes before closing. No regular closing days.
Costs: ¥500, or ¥400 with an active Hakone Free Pass.
Address: 1 Hakone, Hakone-machi, Ashigara Shimo-gun, Kanagawa-ken 〒250-0521
Access: From Hakone-Yumoto (platform 2), take the Hakone-Machi
(H) line bus to Hakone Sekisho-ato ("箱根関所跡", 35 minutes, 4 per hour, ¥980). Alternately, the Hakone-Shindo
(R) line is faster, but less frequent (22 minutes, 1-2 per hour, ¥980). The Hakone Free Pass fully covers these buses.
Note: When returning to Hakone-Yumoto or Odawara, the Hakone-Shindo bus does NOT stop at Hakone Sekisho-ato; you will have to walk down to the Hakone-machi bus stop, only 3 minutes downhill on foot.
If you do not care about using the Hakone Free Pass, you can also take Izu-Hakone's Hakone Sekisho
(Z) line bus to Hakone Sekisho-ato (40 minutes, 2 per hour, ¥980). Their bus stop is in the parking lot to the left of the alley leading to the Checkpoint Museum. When returning, the faster Bypass
(B) line does depart from the same bus stop (17 minutes, 1 per hour, ¥980), but some services skip Hakone-Yumoto en route to Odawara Station (35 minutes, ¥1,200).
Website:
(English) (Japanese)
Sekisho Karakuri Museum
Hours: Open from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. No regular closing days.
Address: 17 Hakone, Hakone-machi, Ashigarashimo-gun, Kanagawa-ken 〒250-0521
Directions: From the Hakone Sekisho-ato bus stop, on the short road heading to the Checkpoint Museum, the Karakuri Museum is the second building on the right.
Website:
(Japanese)
