This would have been Mum's birthday. I could have told her of how I was doing in Japan, of how appreciative I was for all she did for me.
Checked out of the Tokyo hotel after an even busier scrum for breakfast, case loaded onto the coach for the normal tour of hotels before the real tour begins. Our guide on this wet morning was the bubbly Keiko, who has a one hour commute to work. The guides and drivers must really put in the hours, and the guides must be like actors each performance saying the same lines. Left the high-rise newness of Tokyo and travelled through older style flatness of rural Japan, noticing again the cramped graveyards where families share the gravestone.
I was glad two voluble US servicemen left for another tour bus (in foreign lands I'm embarrassed almost to be with other foreigners!) but we gained new tour members who shot hundreds of pictures with expensive cameras as the coach drove along. I've never got good results doing that. If people around me are talking in English I can't ignore what they're saying, but if they talk in Hungarian or Basque it's just background noise.
As we approached Mount Fuji fog reduced visibility, and then as the coach ascended upwards snow flurries started. It was a white out as far as we could go. Snow was lying around Station 5. By a happy chance the weather cleared enough for us to see the summit, not as impressive as seeing the mountain from further away on a clear day.
Keiko demonstrated a 12-step Japanese puzzle box on the way to Hakone, and I was so taken by this I bought one at a souvenir shop. Puzzles fascinate me, though I'm not always good at solving them! In Hakone we had a cable car over Owakudani crater but saw fog in every direction rather volcanic activity beneath. They boil eggs in the hot springs there, and the sulphur content blackens the eggs. Not sure I would eat the result.
Keiko then got us onto the last Hankone Pirate Cruise (she like the other guides kept thanking us for punctuality with bows when in fact some people held up coach departure by ten or so minutes). Pirates aren't what they used to judge by the young Japanese girl clad piratically who was smiling and posing rather making annoying tourists walk the plank. Keiko then taught us 1 through 10 in Japanese (ichi ni san shi go roku shichi hachi kyu ju) and thus prepared dropped us off in Owadara to experience the Shinkansen or bullet train to get to Kyoto. Burt and Priscilla and I killed some time by visiting a local 'tea room' which was on the rural side. Burt's cup of tea came with a toy thimble of milk which was smaller than the container of syrup I had with the pancakes.
More time was killed before we ventured onto the platform. The bullet trains really whizz pass, not enough time for me to get a camera out and be ready to snap! Travelling with a large case only just worked, there is more leg room than on most trains in the reserved carriages. I don't think I could have got the main case up into the luggage rack, but I only noticed the luggage rack much later! (Some carriages have unreserved seats.) The platforms are very organised with big Ls marked for queues to form. The trains meticulously stop so you can line up exactly to wait to board. There are facilities on board including a hostess who wheeled a refreshment trolley through the carriage, bowing as she left as if to apologise. The bullet trains are very stylish from the outside, the ride is pleasant enough and scenery speeds by at 200 to 300 kilometres per hour.
On reaching Kyoto I had a slight wander to find the Karasuma metro line late at night, and then struggled to find the entrance to the Karasuma Kyoto Hotel - it was obscured by a Starbucks in the same building. My Kyoto hotel felt like a youth hostel after the Tokyo luxury - the lobby being patronised by westerners didn't help. My single room is rather cramped, bearing in mind our pet cats I won't make the normal comparison.