what do you see?

So...last weekend we spent 3 nights in Hakuba, near Nagano city in the Northern Japan Alps. It's where the 1998 winter olympics were held. An out of season ski-resort is a very special place, especially with two huge, green ski-jumps looming hauntingly over the town...anyway, we went by shinkansen (bullet-train) which was amazingly fast and efficient, more so than we'd expected. Then it was an hour's bus journey to our town. We stayed in a small lodge, about 30 mins walk from the station. Our first night we were the only people there, so we got the restaurant to ourselves, and were able to share one of the Japanese style communal baths (the Ladies one in case you wondered). The manager, Mr Hirabayashi, was very friendly and nice, with only a few words of English - much more fun that way. He even gave us a lift back to the station on the day we left (it was pouring with rain) and lent us bikes for the whole weekend! On Saturday we spent the day hiking - first up a river (not dry) and then up a long twisting road in the mountains. The weather was dry, just about, but the clouds were hanging low, covering the tops of the mountains which was very atmospheric. Dinner was in a cosy restaurant, decorated in a kind of Christmas/New England style, where the owner took pity on us and gave us a free dessert...Next day we set off early and used the cable car and ski-lifts before hiking to a small lake about 2000 meters above sea-level. We had lunch up there - just some sandwiches as you'd expect, but the Japanese families (of which there were many even on a foggy Sunday morning, in expensive hiking outfits, with boots, sticks, huge backbacks, alpine bells...)...? Oh, they had rice, chicken, salad, tea, stew (which they cooked on stoves) etc. etc...Dinner was in a Tex-Mex place in town this time, the best Mexican we've ever had



On Monday, we spent most of the day in Nagano, and visited Zenkouji temple - one of the most popular in Japan. Its main feature is a pitch-dark underground tunnel, under�@the main altar, which you go through blindly hoping to find a handle on the wall which is supposedly the door to heaven...(we found it y the way).

the only drawback is that all e-mail sites are blocked!!

I am in the main Ichikawa city library at the moment - there are lots of English books here, videos, CDs and internet access too! All free. It's a grey, drizzly day at the moment and I love it! It reminds me a lot of England, I think I'm getting my first pangs of homesickness - I keep craving random things (like eating cheddar cheese, watching "Come Outside" or "Yes, Minister" or eating a Drifter). Christine is working a shift-swap today in preparation for our long weekend next week.

Yesterday we went to 2 Japanese gardens in Tokyo - both cost 300 yen to get in but were very very worth it...first one was the oldest in Tokyo - laid out in the 17th century, but decreased in size since then. It's only 14 acres, but so well landscaped that it seems huge. It has a couple of old bridges (the very steep curved type, one stone and one bright red wood), small hills, woods, rivers, ponds full of koi and so on. A very peaceful place to go, with only the nearby offices and hotels looming over it, and the vast white bulbous roof of the Tokyo Dome (next-door!) reminding you of where you really are.



The second one is over 60 acres in size, right next to the water. This has a very large salt-water lake with a tea-house in the centre, bridges, duck-hunting grounds (not in use anymore!), fields of wild flowers etc. etc. There are parts where you can sit under the exquisitely maintained pine trees and look out on the factories and offices that surround the Bay, with jumbo jets flying over the Rainbow Bridge in the distance...amazing.



After we left, we stopped off at the most scarey supermarket ever (yellow ceilings, mirrors everywhere, a maze of aisles, underneath a huge expressway) where we bought our first muesli and breakfast cereal (a lot more exciting for us than it probably sounds to those of you living in the West!!) and then walked up to Ginza and stumbled on TGI Fridays in a back street - it happened to be happy hour so of course we had to have a couple of cocktails at the bar and some food...