Our eyes welled last night as we remembered our travels. The feeling intensified by Snow Patrol delivered via itunes. The words were just so relevant. Or so we thought after draining the contents of our duty free litre of vodka in a little under two hours. In the cold light of day, we are struggling to see any relevance at all in the lyrics of 'Chasing Cars'.

We have seen more large Asian cities in the past couple of months than you could shake a stick at. So we made for the enormous and utterly mesmorising Tokyo JR station this morning, bound for the Northern Japanese Alps.

6 hours, one subway and five trains later we arrived into the one horse mountain town of Kamishiro. And very pleasant it is too. The 1998 Winter Olympics were held in this area and we are told the ski jumps are just one stop further along the single track railway.

Not only have we unearthed one of the best accommodations of our trip and enjoyed a Japanese bathing ritual this afternoon, but we also stumbled across a huge tin of Baked Beans in the free food basket by the kitchen door. Beans on toast tonight earnt us a couple of puzzled looks from fellow guests of Asians descent.

We are trying to stay awake for the football updates tonight. St Albans City will almost certainly be relegated tonight. Black Monday you might say?

On the cards front, it was exciting stuff on the JR Limited Express bound for Matsumoto. 4-2 on the day in favour of Phill, the hairy devil now leads the series 2-1.

There is a chance of a days skiing tomorrow. The high slopes still have snow we are told. If we can find size 45 ski boots in this country of midgets and we ignore the fact we are not insured for such activities, we might well be tearing up the pistes. Lets see.  

PaSx