David here, thought id better do my bit towards the blog, as Ann`s busy uploading the photos from the last few days, well we decided to get out of the madness of Tokyo on Monday and go and see the view of Mt Fuji from a place called Hakone which is out west from Tokyo and takes a good 2 hours by train. We showed up mid to late morning and read that it was the Hakone Daimyo Gyoretsu Parade and was packed out (Basically national Culture Day holiday with locals dressed up re-enacting a feudal lords procession). The plan was to go from Hakone exploring the region via a train, funicular, ropeway, cable-car, tall ship and local buses.....well we did none of this as it was far too busy and so with purchasing a two day pass we decided to head back to Tokyo and come back tomorrow...

So up bright and early we headed to Hakone again and luckily the weather was better than the previous day and ended up doing the full tour which is all mapped out for you and worked out we had used 15 different modes of transport/journeys which is unbelievable, ive got to say it was very tiring but enjoyable at the same time...we in fact decided to go to another place on the map via bus and when we arrived expected a view of Mt Fuji but instead got Gotemba Train Station!!! so we got on another bus and made our way back to place we had left, we wondered why we got some strange looks on the way to what we thought was a mountain town but in fact was a large city!!!!

Wednesday we finally left Tokyo and made our way to the Hida District, an ancient and mountainous region to a place called Takayama to stay in a Temple Inn called Zenkoji where the monk who greeted us was called Tommy!!! On the 2hr journey up on the gorgeous mountainous train ride we got chatting to another British couple called Garth and Amanda who ended up coming with us to our accommodation and booked themselves in. We ended up having a great two days with them eating out at a mexican restaurant of all places that night and getting the local bus to Hirayu Onsen (within the Japan Alps National Park) the next day where we went to a hot spring complex (Hirayu-no-mori) which involved seperate male and female indoor and six outdoor baths, cold dip pools, sauna`s walking around stark B*****k naked, with a small facecloth to hide the wedding tackle!!! and totally naked whilist in the pool. A strange one but quite liberating i guess! All four of us the youngest there!! The natural water was boiling but felt totally chilled with the snow capped mountains surrounding us with the sun shining!! Refreshed after our first Onsen experience we ate at a local cafe and then headed back to Takayama where we ate at a local restaurant in the evening called Suzuya which served the local Hida beef. We actually ate like locals sitting crossed legs at little tables, the food cooking in front of us on little charcoal burners and magnolia leafs. Once we had ate we headed to a local inn and had a few more beers and my first guiness of the trip so far be it served from a can and a smaller than usual pint glass!!! Today we headed back on the superfast train said our goodbyes to Garth & Amanda who got off at Kyoto as we carried on to Osaka.