Japan: 11th Sep 2015

I awoke around 5am and peaked out the window to low cloud over the valley. Properly awoke at 7:30am to find beautiful sunny views of mountains, Lake Ashi and including Mt Fuji in the background. Myself and a few others walked to the top of the building to take photos.

We had breakfast and checked out. We drove to Lake Ashi and hopped onto a boat that took us to Hakone via the lake itself. At the other end I messed about out on a kiddy game thing with a guy from the tour group which was funny.

After that we visited an historical Samurai passport prefecture control gate.

After that we visited a Japanese art gallery where I learnt that they use minerals to paint with. Meaning its the minerals that give the paintings its colour. This includes Gold. Its a very expensive way of painting, yet they cannot possibly ever fade in the sun. Thats why they paint this way. They take pride in the longevity of them. I bought some prints to frame for my room.

Next we drove to Mishima to catch the bullet train to Nagoya. We had time beforehand though to get lunch. I decided to opt out in favour of doing the Japanesey thing and buying a bentou box to eat on the bullet train. I also explored a bit around the houses and saw a huge blackish butterfly (listened to Maaya Sakamoto's Park Amsterdam for the first time ever on my phone as it was playing on shuffle. It was a nice surprise when listening to it and hopefully every time I hear this song from here on in it should remind me of this moment).

The shinkansen/bullet train was cool. It was hitting speeds that can only be described as as fast as an aeroplane would when on the runway to take off. At Nagoya we changed platforms for a train to Takayama. This was a very cool ride in itself. the back and front have windows, so if at the front like we were, you could see out and see the driver and what was ahead of us and everything! After half an hour or so the same train stopped off somewhere and started going the other way, meaning we were now at the back of the train. The train route along to Takayama was in a valley, surrounded by mountains and a river the whole way there. very beautiful I can see why this is part of the itinerary.

We all had dinner in a local restaurant at Takayama which was traditional styled. The waiter got chatting to me about Ghibli films (as I was waring one). That was cool.

We got a bus to the hotel and YES it has an Onsen! I cant wait to get in but i felt obliged to write this :/

Well I went. Its not as good as last nights as its mostly indoors and on the 6th floor. Not so traditional :/