The morning started with gruel - literally. Breakfast was either super thick white toast or okayu, which is Japanese rice gruel, a bit like thin porridge. Buoyed up for the day by this sustenance, we walked to the hire car office via the tourist office at Nagano Station. There they gave us several useful maps.
The car we hired was a small Mazda automatic. We set off with some maps that really didn't give the information required for driving, yet somehow arrived at Karuizawa where we started to climb Mt Asama.

Karuizawa is famous for being the playground of the rich. It is where the current Emperor met his wife, and Yoko Ono and John Lennon used to holiday here. The most annoying thing about Japan is that the speed limit on A roads is 50kph, i.e. 30 mph. Kevin struggled to keep the speed down but others overtook us.

We wound up the mountain to Onioshidashi Park where you can walk through the lava flows of the 1783 eruption. perhaps not quite as striking as driving up Etna through lava flows that have barely cooled, but stunning none the less. We took the longer path around the park which was eerily quiet. Up on the slopes of the volcano was a derelict building which might have been a ski-lift station. Weirdly music seemed to be coming from it - The Last Night of the Proms. Asama-yama was smoking quietly above us. It last erupted in 2009.

In the middle of the lava flows was a shrine - Kannon-ji - whose peacefulness was shattered by a bus load of local teenage lasses, full of exhuberance! Kevin and Joannie rang the bell at the shrine but the sound recording does not reflect its haunting chime.

Having missed luch, we bought a snack from a nearby stall, which was pounded rice balls, skewered and wrapped in nori seaweed.

We took the cross country route back, again at super-slow speeds. Miraculously we found our way back to the hotel without argument or incident.

Once back, we headed to an Italian just around the corner. It turned out to be more of a cafeteria than a restaurant, but still we ate spaghetti Genovese with an avocado salad and were grateful! Kevin spotted an unusual urinal, that seemed to have handles for drunken Salarimen. (Mostlikely it was the disabled.)