Japan

The day after Nikki's birthday we had a wander round a small park in northern Hiroshima (Shukkien Park). It represents a part of Chinese landscape in miniature, including a small mountain that we conquered. In the centre of the garden there is a huge lake with lots of friendly terrapins in who came to say 'Hi' to us whenever we stopped at the side. After making our way back through the city we hopped on the Shinkansen up to Kyoto.

When we got to Kyoto we got a local train close to where we were staying, then tried to walk the rest of the way with our backpacks, then we got lost. Once we found our way we were shown to our room, a 22 bed dorm, that was virtually full! It had been a long day so after a chilled evening we tried to get some shuteye, only to be woken by a bunch of rowdy Aussies in the middle of the night/morning!

We got up the next day and went and had a look round Nijo Castle, the place where the shogun would stay. It was pretty good, but the thing we liked best was the musical floorboards that would alert the guards when someone was sneaking around. We went to check out the Manga museum, only to find it was closed on Wednesdays, so had a walk around Kyoto city centre. After so many descriptions of it being a spiritual city it began to feel like we were in the wrong place surrounded by tourists, skyscrapers, Starbucks and McDonalds.

The following day we planned to do east of the river, which is where all the temples and shrines hang out. Starting out in the south we visited the temple of 1001 Buddhas. 500 kannons (The Goddess of mercy) line up in rows on either side of a giant Buddha in the middle, each one has 40 arms holding something different and each kannon is unique. Along the front were the 28 guardian Buddhas. It was a pretty impressive sight especially viewed from either end of the giant wooden hall (supposedly the longest wooden structure in Japan).

We then took a walk up to Kiyomizu-dera Temple at the top of a hill, the temple itself was quite understated but the walk up took us past a hillside graveyard that seemed to go on forever. Once up the view from the temple's balcony over Kyoto was a great sight, the trail then led us back down past a waterfall that is said to cure all illnesses (although we decided not to as there were hundreds of people doing so and we didn't want to catch their diseases!) and down the paths of 2 and 3 years. If you fall on these paths you are said to get 2/3 years bad luck. We took a stroll through Gion which is old Kyoto with small wooden houses and bars lining the streets. We finished the day with a visit to the Manga museum which turned out to be more like a library. Some 200,000 manga titles (with a small English/foreign languages section) line the walls and visitors are allowed to take them out to read in the garden (a large AstroTurf pitch) or in one of the many seating areas.

The next day we took a trip to Himeji, a small town about an hour and a half away from Kyoto on the Shinkansen. We had heard it was possible to rent bikes for free but were disappointed when informed that they had run out. We started to walk up to Himeji Castle which dominated the landscape and came across another tourist information centre who were more than happy to give us bikes which we rode up to the castle. The castle was never used in a war, but is supposedly one of the finest examples of its kind in Japan. Afterwards we went through the miniature gardens next door and participated in a tea ceremony. Basically you wander in and are served something incredibly sticky and sweet then a bitter bowl of green tea that tasted similar to grass. We hopped back on the bikes and spent the afternoon riding the roads and dodging the traffic of Himeji.

We had planned to spend the next day in Nara, but after a tip off we went to a small peaceful garden in the north-east of Kyoto where we saw some crazy trees and a bird (a heron apparently). We did some deep thinking whilst walking down the path of philosophy then hopped on a bus down to the Fushimi Inari shrine. Thousands of torii gates are packed in along the paths creating tunnels that almost completely block out the sunlight in places. Each gate is paid for as an offering by a company who wish to do well in business. One of the most impressive things we saw in Kyoto and well worth a visit.

On Sunday we spent the day travelling up to Tokyo where I (Mark) unfortunately spent the evening bed ridden with some kind of flu and a fever. We stayed in the Asakusa area, which had lots of small market stalls lining the streets around the Sensoji Temple. The following day we looked into getting out to Mt. Fuji as I was planning on climbing it. That evening we went around Akihabara the discount electronics area that is awash with neon signs and cafes where girls dress up as Manga maids to try and get business.

We got up early the next day to explore Tokyo's fish market, rows and rows of merchants line the giant warehouse and crazy 4-wheel drive buggies whizz past ferrying goods back and forth. We got some good pictures of various sealife (both dead, alive and twitching) but unfortunately Nikki's camera packed in half way round.

Although I was still running a bit of a fever I decided to go out to Fuji anyway. I took a highway bus out to Kawaguchi-ko then a local bus to the Sengen Shrine at the foot of the mountain. As it was outside tourist season there weren't regular buses up to the 5th station which is about 2300m up the the 3774m mountain and I had missed the last one. Therefore I would have to climb the whole way which I would be doing at night to get to the top for sunrise.

Now this may be hard to believe but I left my camera on the highway bus which fortunately I got back the next day, but have no evidence of my climb! I started at around 6.30pm by following the road as the mountain trail looked a little dangerous, somewhere I took a wrong turn and ended up going around the mountain but eventually found my way back onto the forested Fuji-Yoshida trail. The trail is separated into 10 stations at which I had planned to rest along the way. I realised this plan was not great when I approached a run down shack with broken benches stacked up inside signposted as '1st station'. I carried on climbing and thought of getting to 5th station as I knew this was more major with 24 hour toilets at least. As I made my way up (listening to Red Dwarf spoken novels on the iPod) my flu kicked in and I felt I would have to give up once I reached fifth station. Eventually after stopping just past fourth station I had one of the two Snickers I had brought with me, and it tasted so good I decided to save the other one in case I did make it up. During this rest I also realised my bento box that I had packed had exploded, and was now inedible! Along the path on trees were hung small pieces of paper that were counting down to something, and as I passed 4th station I realised they were counting down to fifth station. The map indicated it would take around 45 minutes to walk between 4th and 5th station so I was surprised when I came across a sign for five station. My heart sank as I realised it was yet another run down shack that was all locked up, but then I saw another small piece of paper that was tied to a tree that still wasn't at 0, so kept climbing. Eventually after 6 hours of climbing I came across what I thought was the real 5th station, with toilets and a rest room. I sat on a warming toilet seat for a while, put on some more clothes, filled up my water bottle and freshened up. After a brief stop I decided to try and make it to the top.

It was around 1am when I set off from 5th station so I figured I had around 5 hours to make the rest of the climb. Soon the trees thinned out and down below I could see the small towns lit up at the base of the mountain. Progress was good at first but slowed when the air became thin at around 3000m and I was stopping at almost every bend in the path that zig-zagged up the mountain. As I approached the last base before the summit I saw the sun starting to poke up along the horizon and stopped to watch it rise. It was an awesome sight, that was truly unforgettable. I tried to climb the remaining 250m but the flu along with the wind made be begin to shiver and I though it best to descend again (after consuming my second Snickers). I went back down to what I thought was 5th station where I intended to catch a bus back to Kawaguchi-ko. As I sat there sipping a cold coke taking in the view I asked someone when the first bus was, they told me it would be in 3 hours, but it went from 5th station about 1km across the mountain. I felt my muscles groan as I stood up and walked over to 5th Station where I made a phone call to Nikki and posted a postcard to my Mum and Emma. Once back at Kawaguchi-ko station I picked up my camera and got a train back to Tokyo, struggling to keep my eyes open all the way.

We spent the following day exploring central Tokyo which was more of what we expected out of the city, tall skyscrapers and bright lights. We were on the hunt for a new pair of flip-flops for Nikki when we saw a sign for H&M. Following the stream of people coming towards us with H&M bags we eventually found the shop down the street with a HUGE queue of people in front of it. We followed the queue past one block, then another and a third, before it went round the corner as far as the eye could see. Insane! We gave up on H&M and explored the awesome 7 storey toy shop across the road instead.

The next day was a dead, spent travelling back down to Hiroshima where we spent the night in a Ryokan style B&B, the best nights sleep we had in Japan! Not too difficult after nights spent in 22bed dorms. After catching a train back to Shimonoseki we got the ferry back to Qingdao in China where we've spent the last few days. We're now just about to get a taxi out to the bus terminal to get a 14hour sleeper bus across to Xi'an to see the terracotta warriors.