Tokyo and Hokkaido

We spent a nice few days in Tokyo, getting over the jet lag. My baggage did eventually arrive so now I am back to my usual fashionable self. We stayed in a nice little ryokan, Andon Ryokan, with friendly staff (Japanese girl wielding frying pan notwithstanding).

We went to a party with a friend of Emmie and a mix of Japanese people and expats. No photos taken, it would have been a bad idea. Instead here is a photo of Shinjuku just for the hell of it.

We spent a bit of time doing the tourist thing, visiting Ueno park, seeing the temples blah blah. Here are a couple of random photos:

Some kids doing something thats probably traditional I guess, in Nippori, Tokyo...


The big graveyard in Nippori...


We then took a looong train journey up to Hokkaido where we spent a few days in the Daisetsu-zan national park, chilling and doing a bit of hiking. We managed to reach the peak of Asahidake, the highest point in Hokkaido. I now have calf muscles. Here is the view from the peak:



Once we reached the peak we decided to try and take a tour of the mountain range. We did an incredibly steep descent and started walking the long way back to base. This was around 2:00pm. At around 3:00 we realised the trail had vanished. The choice was to either go back and climb back up the mountain or to try to walk over rough country and try to find another path. Largely due to our level of fitness we chose the latter. This, it turned out, was a very bad choice. We ended up follow a dried up river and clambering over boulders on a steep downhill for around an hour and a half. No path was in sight. It was too late to turn back, and it would have been impossible to get back given that sunset was at 6:30pm. Also there was a very real possibility of being eaten by bears and we had no tent or food. So it was a choice of either climbing back up the river and back up the mountain and seeing how far we could get, or keep going. Emmie wanted to go back. Personally I would have rather been eaten by a bear.
We were about to give up hope and start the long walk around the base of Asahidake through the bear country (worth pointing out that Emmie was wearing shorts, the grass was very long, and there was also the possibility of snakes...), when I spotted out of the corner of my eye something that looked like a man made line. This it turns out was the path we were looking for and it took us back to base just in time to get some nice sunset photos that I'm sure Emmie will post.

You may think this was amazing good fortune. I choose to believe it was my amazing hunter gatherer instincts coming in to play at a moment of crisis. Nevertheless we did hug the mountain when we got back to base.

And some other nice photos for your viewing pleasure...





Now we are in Hakodate, on our way down to Matsumoto in Honshu. More later...

Sri