It was time to temporarily depart from my group as I went off to Hakone while they headed the same direction, but farther north near Fuji.
It was going to be a fun fun train ride of a little over 2 hours from Tokyo to Odawara. Then another train to Hakone-Yumoto. And the final leg being a bus from Hakone-Yumoto station to Lake Ashi.
But not before we had a magnitude 5.4 earthquake in Tokyo.
I was still in my hotel room on the 9th floor at the time. It was just a bit of shaking and honestly, some of the trains were worse than this.
And to be fair, this was the fourth earthquake that had occurred since my arrival. The first three being near Fukushima.
But after some thrilling hitches in my travel such as: the train line I was on ended before I thought it was supposed to, trying to figure out what was the new correct route, accidentally buying a shinkansen ticket without the base fare, getting on the wrong shinkansen, etc.
But after figuring it all out I finally arrived in Hakone-Yumoto and saw Rei directing me where to go.
I had now arrived at the third and final Evangelion Store in Japan, EVA-YA. This particular branch has some unique offerings some of which are based on the traditional Hakone Wood Mosaics, Yosegi Zaiku.
They also offer green and purple ice cream. I did not try it as I just wanted to get to my hotel to drop my things off.
After some purchasing, it was time to take the 27-stop bus ride from the station to near(ish) my hotel.