The only problem with a stay at a traditional Japanese guesthouse is that breakfast being served in your room (sounds all very nice on paper) means that at 8am the staff are in, folding up your beds and putting them away (hey I was sleeping on that!!), not to be seen again til the evening and that the breakfast itself is so so perculiar. It involved fish, herring I think so the first thing to greet your tired 8am brain is the very strong smell of fish. And then everything else on the tray, although beautifully presented, is either an unknown entity or a pickle. Im afraid we didnt do the breakfast much justice. Its just too much wierdness for that early in the morning. I scuttled away to the baths before she came to collect the trays!

The plus point of the early start was that we were up and ready to start a days sightseeing and because the transport pass is 18 pounds we wanted to make sure we had all day doing it!! We took a bus to Lake Ashi and had a little stroll along an ancient cedar avenue that used to offer shade or shelter depending on the season along the footpath that was the main mode of transport at the time. Very pleasant. Noticed some steps that as it happened led up to an observation point of Mt Fuji. Despite the fact that the sky was clear and blue, Mt Fuji was nowhere to be seen. Still it was very hot and sunny up on this hill so we took the opportunity to sunbathe and have a bit of a picnic. The surrounding gardens were gorgeous and we had a lovely walk around them. Then it was round to the pier for a cruise on the lake on what can only be described as a big imitation pirate ship. Which was quite fun and generated much excitement among the asian tourists (cue much photo taking of the boat). We had a funny moment when some students from Taiwan wanted their picture taken with us amid murmurs of 'so tall!!' and we posed in about 15 pictures. They all wanted one on their camera, quite why I dont know. What do they do with them at home, load them onto their facebook and caption; 'me with some tall people from England!!!', does it go into their holiday slideshow, do all the family oo and ah? I dont know. Id expected the photo taking thing in Japan but its interesting that the first ones to ask were Taiwanese instead. Maybe less reserved. Then we were in a bunch more pictures with various other asian tourists on the boat. Mainly tiny ones that came up to about my hip.

After the cruise (still no view of Mt Fuji, the crossing was viewing point 2) we walked around another park area then took a total of 3 cablecars to get up over the mountain to the town where we would get our train home. The cablecars reminded me of snowboarding trips and it was no fun without there being snow all around and the prospect of death by dismount from a bubble car on a snowboard. I got a bit nostalgic. We think we saw the base of Mt Fuji, shrouded in mist, but no proper view of it, and that had been our final view point. So we dismissed its existance as a myth.

At the train station there were about a million school children and one breached the whole politeness thing to point at me and do the whole figure of 8 gesture. Think perhaps I am slightly hippier than shed seen before.. But then she was mortified when Beth spotted her. Aw bless, I dont mind! Tired on the journey home, it had been a long day and the train kept doing bizarre zig zags back and forth across the tracks to get to the more remote stations.

When we got back we didnt do much. Thats the thing with the Japanese setting. Youre in this big room and you can make yourself tea and read a book or look out the window but I wonder if traditionally they didnt get a bit bored??? In the screen paintings showing days gone by in the palaces etc, theyll be playing a musical instrument or just generally mooning about but it just seems like such a quiet way of life. I think Id go crazy. So there were no other westerners so we just had another simple dinner and went to bed. I mean usually in the stories they are waiting to hear of a message back from a chief or whoever and just wait and wait. If I was waiting and waiting in one of those rooms without a computer, a cellphone and an mp3 player to keep me entertained.. well.. I think that Japanese people are a lot more patient than me!

I didnt sleep very well at that accomodation either. I suspect its because the surroundings were just so different to anything Im used to. Plus those paper screen things let in a lot of light! And going to bed at 8pm youre not exactly sleepy.. Traditional stuff is all very nice but I need a bit more excitement.