Once getting to the hostel I tried to devise a plan for the Fuji climb the next day. With the bus times being narrowed (as it was off season), I'd have around 4/5 hours to go up and down Fuji, so near enough everyone stays the night in a tent, catches the sun rise and comes back down to the bus station. I'd heard before arriving that the hostels/huts were closed but noticed a few toilets on the trail map, but the hostel staff said these were locked now too... I'd...

Once we reached Tomo's place in Chiba, he went straight in to drop an old school hip hop set on his technics. After some funny conversation it dawned on me that I was staying with the Japanese version of Niki. The thing at the top of my list for Chiba was to climb Mount Nokogiri, so I headed that way the following morning via a couple bullet trains. The beginning of the trail forks off into three different directions. I went for the most direct route thinking it'...

I stayed at 3 different capsule hotels in Tokyo, the first of which had been about for decades and made no attempt to keep with the times - the reason I chose it. I reached Tokyo at 11pm ish so dropped my bags off at the capsule and roamed about. I discovered a little bar and had some whiskey with a few locals. A laptop was cracking out some reggae via youtube, so I whipped out the ace of spades and threw down some Martin Campbell - went down a storm! I played DJ...

I had a pretty basic plan for my day in Nara - get a bike and ride around the park, chilling with the deer. When I first got there and went searching for my guesthouse, I went into this old guys house thinking I'd arrived. He was so sound it took me ages to realise I was in the wrong place and he actually wanted me to leave! Nara's quite surreal and really peaceful. I spent the majority of the day cruising about, feeding deer and catching some temples on the way...

I'd pulled into Kyoto quite late, and my Taiwanese couchsurf host was out and about with a couple other couchsurfers, two solo French travellers. I didn't spill that I found it funny the Taiwanese guy showing the French lads around was called Frog. Went over to Fushimi Inari Taishi the next day and climbed Mount Inari. Got some quality street food on the way down called Takoyaki. Got chatting to a local and went for a couple pints with him. He was keen to find ou...