'Castle and squiggle'

Armed with a marginally better map this time (there is a market out there for Japanese/English maps by the way .. anyone…) the 3 of us headed off in our second hire car for a 9 day exploration of the Japanese Alps, maybe some coast and a little bit of 'where will the wind take us' spirit. How free and breezy! Taking about an hour to actually get out of Hamamatsu (bloody crap map!) we get rather lost (more queasy than breezy!) but finally make it into the mountains, rather proud of ourselves for not caving in and taking the motorway option. It is during this trip that the possibility of J being a mountain goat in his former life hit home as he had an amazing knack of knowing which way to go when crap map failed us! Said talent got us through many dodgy scrapes for the next 9 days - thank you J!

Due to crap map and lack of proper research on our part we really aren't 100% sure when the actual Alps started or ended, but safe to say that the Japanese mountains we travelled through during this time were astonishingly beautiful. Like other things we've mentioned about Japan, we think our impression may have some bias owing to the contrast of the beauty to some of the modern trash you have to travel through to get there! (A bit harsh maybe?) Whereas the 'real' Alps offer up stunning vistas with matching picturesque housing and the odd bell-clad cow, Japan does not really do this - at least the part we visited didn't. There was a sort of 'realness' (not a word, but it should be!) to it that we have come to love about Japan. There are parts of towns with historic quarters, packed to the rafters with charm, but the majority of the town is modern. There are thatched houses, but they are preserved for us tourists.

Stopping two nights in one town with its 'historic quarter' offered up classic Japanese tea-houses where the Gs sat cross-legged on tatami mats on one rainy day, supping coffee (not tea - the tea we keep getting served here smells of fish - yuk!) and playing games. This was after J had been rescued from a straight 8 hours staring at our tiny notebook watching live election coverage! Not to have an end in sight when ones eyes were in agony was very unfair! (is this not a bit like cricket???.. J groans!)

Next day and the sun shone for us to head off in search of one area noted in Lonely Planet. About three hours, one wasted tank of petrol later and lots of swearing, we gave up trying to find it and headed off to the next place on our agenda. No thatched roof is worth such stress!! It must be said however that some of the best scenery we saw appeared when we got lost, so the old adage 'every cloud…..' is true!

Next stop, (we hoped!) was an onsen village in the heart of the Alps, noted in LP as a good base to explore the area.So ..its not LPs fault that the route into the village which would have made it a good base seemed to be closed (Quite a few roads seemed to be closed due to landslides (!) ), however the 'alternative' route involved an utterly terrifying drive which took Js claustrophobia to the brink with the narrowest, badly lit, long tunnels we have ever seen, and put Hs ability to swear into the guiness book of records! O just sat staring at Postman Pat on the ipod the whole way! Not having booked a hotel and having had a few failed attempts in some towns where you can't distinguish an Inn from a vets, we were a little worried as 5pm hit and we were still edging our way at about 15kms an hour up a mountain (knowing the village was in fact at the bottom of a ravine). Phew, got there in one piece, found the tourist info with a few minutes until closing and collapsed in the ryokan!

The village, (whilst now offering the worst option for exploring the region) was stunning! Sat at the bottom of the narrowest ravine possible, with a river raging through it and forest all around, it was utterly enchanting! There were no dodgy offerings in our set-meal that O could associate with 'serpents' - only wonderful tastes! Falling asleep with the slightly sulphuric pong from the hotels springs on our skin, with the sound of the waterfall outside our window made the whole trip very worthwhile indeed! (except for yet another futon!)

Owens one request in the Alps was to go to 'Snow Mountain'. After Disney it would seem that some places have to have a sort-of theme park title! With snow-capped mountains all around us, we had planned to get a cable car to 'Snow Mountain', but as access now involved completely retracing our steps we opted to take the road higher up the mountain until we stopped and hoped for a patch of snow. Owen found his 'snow' and was happy, if not a little miffed that Mummy had not packed 'snow gear'. (!) We stopped the afternoon and night in a rather boring city, I think just to get a western bed and be on a plateau not a mountain!

Next day …more mountains and one major detour courtesy of some terrible( or more likely totally misunderstood) local advice right over the top of a mountain on some one-lane track in our crappy Toyota. (This car will definitely have a reduced shelf-life thanks to us!). Bloody map! Trying to see the positive of being in the midst of a beautiful cherry-blossom clad forest with breathtaking views was hard whilst passing one car-wreck covered in rock debris! We really did worry! With no possibility of reaching our destination that day (Mount Fuji) we ended up back in Hamamatsu (Ground Hog day!), stuffing our furrow-browed faces with McDonalds!

So, our summary would be that the Japanese Alps and whatever the name of their neighbouring mountains are called are stunning, majestic and well worth a visit -BUT - take a good bilingual map with you before you leave the UK - we had a few moments of trying to memorise Japanese signage by 'nicknames' - for miles we kept looking for the symbols we had nicknamed 'Castle and squiggle'.

On to Mount Fuji (Via the motorway!). Sticking to its notorious reputation for being hidden by clouds, we did not see an inch of M.Fuji until the second day when we sat outside in the sunshine for breakfast with a crystal clear view of the snow-capped mountain right in front of us. The previous day was spent in a theme park - treat day for O. A Japanese Thomas Land sat amongst some of the scariest roller-coasters we've ever seen. O missed his mate Oscar who, having spent a day out in Thomas Land in the UK, he associates with all things Thomas! Thomas in Japanese is odd (Not that Ringo Star narrating in the UK isn't?) The rest of this region is not surprisingly very touristy, so we spent a small amount of time here, adding to the woe of our poor car by puncturing its tyre! (Our vehicle hire track record is abysmal seeing as we bashed the campervan in Oz!).

Next stop on the way to Tokyo, Yokohama. J and O treated H to a Japanese Mothers day dinner on the harbour front which was fab - non-asian food for a change - yum!