A letter from Miyajima

Im now back on Honshu in the city of Hiroshima with only three days left in japan after a brief foray last week into Hokkaido. With mixed feelings im kind of looking forward to leaving as a few things are starting to annoy. Despite being so advanced in some respects things such as the ticket offices in railway stations belong in yesteryear. The timetable bafflingly is not on computer but instead invloves the service personel taking an age to look through a book larger than the yellow pages. Any journey involving more than one or two changes takes forever. Also with little money left in the budget for this month finding accomodation is also a pain. Two nights ago i had to travel two hours from nagano to find somewhere i could afford and when in nagano i had to sleep in an internet cafe which was certainly a new experience. But despite this the last few days have had the best sights so far.

Yesterday i visited one of the best museums/memorials i have ever seen. The a-bomb memorial park and peace museum were unbelievably moving and it was a shame that i did not have more time having arrived that afternoon from Hakuba. The last few days have been hectic and with no respite today i took a day trip to Miyajima an island jut off the coast that is home to the `famous` floating tori as well as it turns out an amazing scenic walk amongst shrines, temples, pagodas and masses of tame deer. The island was amazing and was definately the best place i have visited in japan so far although the temperature has really started to get beyond bearable.

After　i wrote last time i headed a few hours north of Hakodate to the capital of Hokkaido, Sapporo for a day and then onto Daisetzusan national park. Sapporo is a pretty boring place to be honest which was a shame as the hostel Inos place was the best ive stayed in so far on the entire trip. The Sapporo beer museum was the only real saving grace and a happy hour was spent trying the various samples. There are very few people who make it up to Hokkaido and those that do all seem to be english people all teaching in japan, which seems to be becoming ever more popular as the demand exceeds the supply. As Sapporo was only worth a day i headed to Daisetsuzan national park in the hope of getting some decent hiking done as well as possibly seeing some bears. Everybody's image of japan is of densely packed buildings with everybody living on top of each other, but as soon as you leave Tokyo and the endless cities that merge with it the country becomes some of the wildest landscapes ever.

I stayed at Sounkyo which is a small hot spring resort town which provided a great base in which to carry out some hikes around the various local peaks and hopefully to the volcanically active mt. Asahi. First day i headed to some waterfalls that appear on all the photos of the area, and to be honest they were much more underwhelming in real life. But the second day i headed up on the rope way and from the top an hour or so climb to the top of mt. Kurodake. From here i was hoping to do a big loop on the mountainous plateau and across to an active caldera. As soon as i reached the top of Kurodake the weather started to go pear shaped and i made it to a glacier before strong winds and driving rain meant i had to turn around. I saw a tiny bit of the crater with the sulphur river but managed to miss the bear that everyone else saw, big time gutted. Hokkaido in the end turned into a bit of a wash out which was a shame as it was the last opportunity for hiking for a while. Despite this the relative cool made a great change to the 35 degree 80% humidity down south.

Trying to make the most of my remaining week i took the fourteen hour train to Nagano of Olympic fame. I got in at near midnight and had nowhere to stay so crashed in an internet cafe. The good thing about japan is that they have a variety of unusual cheaper ways to sleep than would be elsewhere mainly due to the fact the trains stop so early. Most parks have a spot for those with `difficulty commuting` as the trains stop so early. Nagano has few sights so i took the scenic local train to the nearby mountain city of Matsumoto which has the oldest and probably the best castle in japan. The castle and the city as a whole were great having an atmosphere unlike anything else i have seen in japan. Being a hot sunday afternoon the entire city was out in carnival atmosphere with food stalls lining the streets and people playing on the towns river beach. From Matsumoto having not found anywhere affordable i took another scenic train up into the mountains to Hakuba. The hostel here is part of the K hostel chain which provides an amazing service and if you ever visit japan this is highly recommeded although also very popular. Hakuba being off all the main routes meant another early morning in order to get to Hiroshima but it was well worth it for an afternoon in the peace park.

The last three days as you can imagine are packed starting with tomorrow with a trip to Himeji castle on the way back to Kyoto. From Kyoto i can day trip the ancient capital Nara and go the baseball before my last day in Osaka then on to Hong Kong and China on saturday.