We had a good sleep and were ready for challenges and fun at Space World today. After quickly packing our bags and depositing them in the hotel, we went to the railway station for the train to Edamitsu. Tei bought a train-plus-admission ticket at a special price, but since we had our JR pass, we bought our admission tickets when we arrived at Space World. A bonus for going to a theme park like this on a Monday was that it was almost empty, so the queues were very short except for the two or three most popular rides.

We decided to warm up by first taking the Star Shaker (a gentle virtual reality ride), followed by Planet AQA, a water rapids ride. Water rapids rides can be quite amusing, because everyone always wants to avoid getting wet, but no matter what they try, everyone comes out soaked to some degree. Still, it was a sunny day, so getting wet wasn't too bad, and Tei and I were both completely dry when we reached the entrance of our next ride - Free Fall G.O. (Matt was still wet because he wore a thicker shirt.)

This free fall ride was my main reason for wanting to come here, although there were plenty of equally exciting rides to complement it. The car first climbed steadily (but quite fast) up 40 metres, then waited for a few seconds while our anticipation grew, and then all of a sudden, it dropped straight down. According to the brochure, it subjected us to a massive acceleration of 5.1G! We were only starting to scream when we reached the bottom and the car started to decelerate along a horizontal track. "Wow, that was cool" were the first words we uttered when we regained our composure.

The Space Shuttle at Space World

Next, we decided to try Venus, one of the two premier roller coasters in Space World. This ride dropped you from 40 metres at a 60-degree incline, while twirling around. It went around the Space Shuttle (the symbol of the park) and was quite exciting. To maximise our excitement, Tei and I decided to take the very front seats. Matt, waiting at another car, was a bit confused as to what we were doing, and inadvertently took the ride before we did! However, when he came back, the queue was virtually non-existent and we asked Matt to ride again with us. Tei kindly let Matt to take the front seat this time, while he took the seat behind. After the ride, Matt commented that it was MUCH scarier to take the front seat on this ride.

After these two exciting rides, we decided to take a brief rest by going to the Space Museum, where there was an exhibition of Japanese achievements in space development. The next ride we tried was the Lunar Swing. Basically, it swung you around, and turned you upside down, etc., making some unexpected moves and sudden spins. The brochure said it made you feel like you were actually floating on the surface of the moon. Well, if that was how the moon was, I didn’t want to go to the moon! It looked quite terrible to me, and I minimised its effect by choosing the middle seats while Tei and Matt enjoyed themselves with the most vigorous seats. When we finished the ride, Tei told us there would be a Level 4 ride later, which would be more violent than the Level 3 we had just taken. Somehow, I knew they would want to try this ride again later!

Next, we went to try Alien. It was a kind of horror house, based on the film with the same name. They provided a rope to link everyone in the group together, so that nobody would get lost. However, we thought this killed much of the joy of this attraction. We were at the back of the group, and all the surprises were spoiled because whenever the group reached something scary, the people at the front would see it first and scream. At one point, an alien (actually an actor in costume) went around trying to scare us by almost touching us. Nice touch, but we still left the attraction a bit disappointed.

The awesome Atlas Tower

Following this, we tried to most shocking ride of the whole park - the Atlas Tower. After watching a few times, Matt decided that it was just too scary for him, and he absolutely refused to try it, no matter what we said to persuade him. We even tried to resort to physical force, but Matt is a big bloke. So, what was so special about this Atlas Tower that Matt was so determined to avoid? Maybe the 50 metre climb in a few seconds, with an acceleration of 4.0G! A turn in the direction of acceleration followed, and the ride would drop down. To make things even more exciting, you sat on an exposed seat attached to the tower, so your legs were basically hanging in the air. To exaggerate the effect even further, I was looking downwards instead of to the front. The most exciting aspect of this ride was its shooting up at the crazy speed of 65 kph, which was quite different to being dropped quickly. After this initial climb, we were quite calm, and I talked with Tei nonchalantly for the remainder of the ride, as it went up and down a few more times.

After this exciting ride, we decided that it was time to eat. We agreed that we wouldn’t have a large meal, as further vigorous rides lay ahead of us. We bought some sandwiches in a fast food restaurant and sat down at the Big Bang Plaza to eat, while enjoying the show called "The Key of Happiness". It was an amusing and interesting show, even though we didn't understand what it was about.

After lunch, we returned to the Star Shaker, because there was a now a different program from the one we saw earlier in the morning. Following this, we took the "Titan" roller coaster. There were fewer twists in this ride, but it compensated that by the fact it dropped from a crazy height of 60 metres, with a 60-degree gradient and 115 kph speed. Even without the twists, I still thought this was a more exciting ride, while allowing us to have a good view of the whole park at the top. Unfortunately, we were too busy screaming to see the view! Just before the ride set off, Aki called on the mobile phone, and Tei and Matt were talking to her an instant before the car pulled away.

Now that we had tried the best rides, we decided to take some lesser ones. We went to the Black Hole Scramble in the Space Dome. I had wanted to take this ride, having had a similar-looking one at Alton Towers in England, which I had enjoyed a lot. Unfortunately, the version here was much gentler. Next, Tei suggested going to the Galaxy Theatre, where dynamic images were projected on a gigantic IMAX screen. We couldn’t understand the Japanese dialogue, but the special effects clips (the subject of the film) were interesting.

Now it was time to repeat our favourite rides. Tei and Matt took Titan again, while I decided to sit this one out, taking pictures for them instead. Afterwards we chose the Atlas Tower again. Even the promise of some free ice-cream afterwards couldn't persuade Matt to try it. Next, Tei suggested taking the Lunar Swing again, at Level 4. The beginning of Level 4 was pretty much the same as before. Then it became more exciting. It shook, spun and twisted more vigorously, and at one point, it left the punters hanging upside-down at its summit for a good few seconds. I admit I felt a bit unwell afterwards. Next, I wanted to try the Planet AQA again. Tei and Matt preferred to try the Free Fall G.O. instead, so we split for a few moments. Unfortunately, for me, the rapids ride was already closed when I made my way there. I tried to run to the free fall ride to catch up, but they were already coming out when I arrived. It turned out that there was no queue at all for the free fall ride.

We just had to enough time to take one more ride before we had to go, so we tried the nearby Venus. I felt terrible this time. Perhaps my body was a bit unsettled by all the excitement and unusual stresses. Fortunately, the park was closing, and we had to go. I felt that if I had I taken one more big ride, it might have finished me off forever!

We returned to Hakata at about 6pm. Aki hadn't finished her work yet, so first we went to the post office to buy some stamps and send some postcards, then to the shops buying some food for dinner. I bought some sushi, but Matt decided that he loved bento so much that he would buy one on the train.

It was bad luck that Aki had actually been free quite early, but because she couldn't reach Tei on the mobile, she didn’t come to the station until about ten to seven. Since our train to Hiroshima departed at 7:35, we walked back to the hotel to collect our luggage, then we went to the café bar we went to when we first went a couple of days before. Time passed extremely quickly and we had to go. We had had such a good time and it was hard to say goodbye. After a couple of hugs, we had to run to avoid missing our shinkansen.

There were three kinds of shinkansen trains: Nozomi, Hikari, and Kodami. Nozomi was the fastest of all, but unfortunately, our JR passes didn’t allow us to travel on it. So far, we had been travelling on the semi-fast Hikari trains, which were fine. This time, for our journey from Hakata to Hiroshima, we had to take the Kodami service. It basically stopped at every station, and the worst part, for Matt, was that no catering service was available.

We arrived at Hiroshima two hours later. Ours was not the easiest hotel to locate, though it was close to the station and we managed to check-in before 10pm. After settling down, Matt’s hunger forced him to go out to search for food. He came back with a huge bag of food and drinks from Seven Eleven. I hadn't got my breakfast but I was too lazy to go out at this hour (particularly given this hotel’s ridiculous midnight curfew) and decided to leave this task until tomorrow.

After acquiring a roll from a convenience store for breakfast, I asked Matt where he would most like to go most and to my surprise, he answered "the launderette"! He explained that he really wanted to wash his clothes today. Amazingly, he was able to locate one from his LP, and it was quite convenient as it was near the first place we wanted to go in Hiroshima, the Peace Memorial Park and Museum. The main form of the transport in Hiroshima was again trams, and they were convenient and cheap.

On 6^th August, 1945, Hiroshima became the first city in the world to be the victim of an atomic bomb. In memory of this event, a Peace Memorial Park was established, and a memorial museum was constructed. The first thing to strike us when we entered the park was the A-bomb Dome. It was located just a few hundred yards from the hypocentre and was destroyed when Hiroshima was bombed. Instead of reconstruction, it was decided that it should be left in its state of devastation, as a reminder of the terrible nature of nuclear weapons.

The A-bomb Dome near the Peace Park in Hiroshima

In the park, there was also the Hiroshima Peace City Memorial (a cenotaph for the A-bomb victims), the Flame of Peace, a Peace Bell (which visitors were encouraged to ring to spread the message of peace to the world), a Peace Clock Tower, and finally the Children's Peace Monument, dedicated to a child called Sadako Sasaki. She was just two years old when the bomb was dropped. Ten years later she was attacked by the "A-bomb disease" and later it proved fatal. While hospitalised, she folded paper cranes and prayed for recovery. She managed to fold 1000 cranes, which was symbolic to receive good fortune. Upon her death, a nation-wide campaign was launched to build a monument for young A-bomb victims like Sadako. Finally, we went to the museum. We finished this a bit quicker than we did in Nagasaki, mainly because much of the information on display was by now already familiar to us.

The Peace Bell

After these sad sights, we went in search of the launderette. When we arrived, we found it to be rather shabby and dirty. We hadn’t realised that this wasn’t the place recommended by our book, and were a bit disappointed when we came across the genuine place! Nevertheless, Matt was glad that he could find a launderette at all. While his clothes were being washed, we looked for somewhere to have our lunch. We found a reasonable restaurant where we ordered our usual katsudon. After lunch, we returned to the launderette and Matt tumble-dried his clothes.

After finishing his laundry, we decided to go to Hiroshima Castle. It was also known as the "Carp Castle". Completely burnt down by the raging fires of the atomic bombing, it was reconstructed in 1958. Not every part of the castle was rebuilt, but the main tower, which was rebuilt, now housed a museum of local history. We had lots of places to visit, however, so we gave the museum a miss. Outside the tower, we saw an interesting sign which read "Lavatory: No lavatories in castle". Matt found this sign so amusing that he decided to use the adjacent lavatory, which allegedly, wasn't there.

Matt, pictured near Hiroshima Castle

We took the tram to go back to the railway station area. While Matt went back to the hotel to put down his clothes, I stayed at the station to find out the platform details and times for the train that we would take to go to Miyajima, as well as reserving our seats for tomorrow's shinkansen to Osaka. In fact, we decided to take the shinkansen to Kyoto instead. We had read in our guidebook that we would be better off finding a hotel in Kyoto, and taking a 20-minute shinkansen ride into Osaka each day.

The grand torii on Miyajima Island

The grand torii by the Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima Island is considered one of Japan's three outstanding scenic marvels, another one being Mount Fuji. After 30 minutes by train and an additional 10 minutes by JR ferry, we reached this scenic island of Miyajima.

The Itsukushima Shrine

The Itsukushima Shrine was a beautiful shrine, but apart from that, there wasn’t much inside to justify its admission, except that it was the best place to view the grand torii! Again, as in every other tourist spot we visited, there were swarms of school children, in uniforms, on a day-trip. It was difficult to take pictures in these circumstances, but despite all the difficulties (it didn't help when it started raining), we managed to take quite a few. Matt asked a lady to take a picture together for us. She must have been rather impressed with his Japanese, because she started speaking to us, and we just looked a bit uncomfortable as torrents of rapid speech we couldn’t understand came our way!

When it was starting to get dark, Matt suggested having dinner on this island, because he thought the torii might be illuminated at night, and it would look spectacular. (He had already given up on the idea of taking a picture of the torii at sunset because of the poor weather.) However, when we noticed shops started closing, I suggested that it might not be that good an idea after all. It was also getting cold.

We returned to the pier and waited for the next ferry. We sat down for a while, unaware that our ferry was ready to be boarded, until I noticed we mis-read the departure time. We ran and just managed to board the ferry. Phew! That night, we had our usual katsudon for dinner. Oh dear, twice in one day! We needed to vary our cuisine. In fact, we did buy some sushi afterwards, as we were still a little hungry. We had discovered that in the evening when shops were closing, they would put their sushi on sale, because they would otherwise be thrown away if unsold.

Today was our planned trip to Osaka. We rushed to the railway station as soon as we checked out of our hotel. After two hours of shinkansen travel, we were in Kyoto. It was only half past eleven when we arrived. In a way, it was good to stay here once more because we knew our way around already, and we were at the TIC within moments. We asked for a hotel near the station, but the lady explained that the budget accommodation was not located there. However, some hotels sent details of "special offers" to the TIC when they were short of customers. The lady managed to arrange accommodation in a luxury hotel for just 3000 yen extra, which was a substantial discount.

This was definitely a hotel in a completely different class to those we had stayed in previously in Japan. There were porters to take our luggage on arrival. We were lucky it was just noon, and we were allowed to check-in straight away. We settled down, rested a bit, had lunch in a restaurant in the station, then took the shinkansen to go back to Shin Osaka. We needed to change to a local train to get to the city centre itself.

Matt urgently needed to cash some traveller's cheques, as he was running out of money, and he was keen to find a branch of American express to save commission. Unfortunately, the branch indicated in his guide book seemed to be closed, and we had to enter an ordinary bank offering a foreign exchange facility. To Matt’s surprise, he was not charged commission here, and even the security guard spoke English. The teller seemed to get a little irritated when Matt didn’t find all the information quickly. Matt said that if this happened in England, he would have got annoyed and maybe would have walked out. After he completed the paperwork, we were asked to sit down. After a few minutes, the money was brought out in a bowl and offered to Matt. Quite strange!

We then made our way to Osaka Castle - the symbol of Osaka. First built some five hundred years ago, the Castle had since been destroyed and reconstructed a few times. The present main tower was rebuilt in 1931 in accordance with the wishes of the citizens of Osaka. I was initially a bit reluctant to pay the rather steep 600 yen admission to climb up seven floors, but fortunately, they had installed lifts to allow easy access.

Me, at the Osaka Castle

On entering the main tower (the Osaka Castle Museum), we were first transported to the fifth floor by the lifts. From there, we could go up to the 7^th and 8^th floor (the sixth floor was strangely missing). The top floor was an observation deck, from which we could get a panoramic view of the castle grounds and Osaka. Back to seventh floor, we found an interesting display, in which the life of Hideyoshi Toyotomi was introduced, in miniature diorama. The rest of the museum was dedicated to artefacts from the Momoyama period and other historical exhibits related to Hideyoshi Toyotomi. Unfortunately, to enjoy this museum completely, we suspected that one would need to have a good knowledge of Japanese history.

By the time we were finished at Osaka Castle, it was already getting dark. We decided that it was time to do some shopping. We took the subway to Nippombashi station, from where we walked to Den Den Town - the place to buy the electronics goods, cheaply, in Japan. Matt had earlier decided to buy a personal CD player and we walked around to look at the models and prices. Eventually, he decided to buy a Sony model with a 20 second "ESP-2". Matt was careful to find a shop that offered a duty-free service, so that he wouldn't need to pay the 5% sales tax. Tei had earlier advised Matt that he needed to haggle in these shops. Being an unaccomplished haggler, Matt asked me to come over to offer moral support and "haggling backup". Matt was very happy to buy his new toy at one-third of its price in England!

Den Den Town, THE place to buy electronic goods in Japan

After buying the Discman, we continued to walk around. We saw a shop selling the memory cards for Matt’s digital camera. He was running out of space so we decided to take a look. On closer inspection, we discovered that his 2 MB cards were no longer on sale! Matt asked the shopkeeper how much the 8 MB card cost and when he was told that it cost less than twice the price of a 2 MB card (and hence very cheap), Matt immediately snapped one up. With an 8 MB card, Matt could resume taking plenty of pictures in high resolution.

For dinner, we wanted to avoid our over-familiar katsudon. We found an alley full of restaurants in this Namba City Shopping Mall. We wanted to try shabu-shabu, another style of Japanese cuisine, but the difficulty in ordering, as well as the high price made us decide against it for now.

Fountains illuminated by neon lights at Dotombori

After dinner, Matt suggested going to Dotombori (which looked like a scene from Blade Runner at night, according to the guidebook), whereas I preferred to go to Shinsaibashi. They were practically adjacent, so we decided to see both. At Dotombori, we took a picture of some fountains by the river. Illuminated by neon lights from the signs nearby, they looked really beautiful. Shinsaibashi was best known for the magnitude of shops. Unfortunately, even in this busy area, shops closed quite early.

Later, we found an arcade centre and we went in to play some games. We first played a rowing game, which Matt had played before with Aya in London. We watched somebody playing it first and noticed that you needed to row really vigorously. The couple playing it managed to achieve a good score and they started to enter their names. I could hardly believe what I saw: Aya and Mas. So close! We were watching in disbelief until they entered the last letter. Next we tried an "air hockey" game, and because Matt cheated, he managed to beat me comprehensively.

When we finished playing in this arcade centre, we needed to rush back to Shin Osaka immediately if we wanted to take the last shinkansen going to Kyoto. Missing it would mean taking a local train and doubling the travelling time. After some serious running, we managed to catch it.

Back in our luxurious hotel, Matt tried out his Japanese CD on his newly-purchased Discman. Matt the smuggler then decided to throw away all the packaging of his Discman and digital camera, so that he could take these electronic gadgets home without paying import duty! [Matt says, "if you are a customs officer reading this, I want to remind you that the travelogues are wholly fictional. Any similarity of any character to any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Um, sort of."]

Our hotel was really nice and so we decided to wake up later today! Matt said it was his best sleep of the trip, due to the extreme comfort the room offered. Matt bought some food for breakfast when we stumbled across a convenience store in Osaka, but I ended up having breakfast in a restaurant at the station.

We packed our bags and returned to the station to take the shinkansen to Shin Osaka, for our second day’s visit to Osaka. We also reserved our seats for our journey from Osaka to Tokyo, in the evening. On arrival at Shin Osaka, we stored our luggage into lockers, as there was too much to carry for sightseeing. We then headed for our first attraction of the day - Shitennoji Temple. This temple was the second oldest in Japan, built as early as 593 AD. It had been destroyed and subsequently reconstructed a few times, most recently in 1963. The highlight of the temple was a five-storey pagoda. We didn't enter the pagoda itself, as we believed its exterior was the real attraction.

The Shitennoji Temple

It was then lunchtime. The district around the temple was not very busy, so we decided to go straight to Kyobashi. We had noticed from the map that there was an underground food court near the station, and it was the correct stop for our next attraction anyway. When we arrived at the food court, it happened to be the office lunch hour as well, so it was quite busy. We walked around until we found a small restaurant where we quite like the food. The style of the restaurant was quite strange, however. Instead of tables, the diners were sitting at a kind of bar, behind which staff were cooking and serving the food. There were no seats at the time, but to avoid further delay, the waitress took our order, so that we could have our food as soon as we had seats. After a while, two separate seats were free. Matt was quite puzzled when we were told to take those two seats, which weren’t adjacent. Our food was served almost straight away. (We had ordered Tianjin rice, which was basically fried rice in some thick syrup/soup. Matt wasn’t particularly keen on it.) We had hardly started eating when a seat beside me became available, and Matt was puzzled again when he was moved to this seat.

After lunch, we headed for the Twin Towers, the symbol of Osaka Business Park, where Panasonic Square, our next attraction, was situated. Panasonic Square was a kind of exhibition of interesting electronic gadgets, which visitors could play with. We started it off by trying out the TV phone system, followed by the periscope, from which we could see the nearby Osaka Castle.

Next was a "fantasy studio" where you could create funny pictures. You could have a picture of yourself with one of the world famous attraction (the Pyramids, Big Ben, etc) in the background, or you could see what your face looked like when combined with that of somebody else. I tried it but Matt didn’t. Coming next were some CD jukeboxes and a three-dimensional film, "3D Dinosaurs." While interesting, they were hardly state-of-the-art technology.

The next item on the itinerary was more interesting and rather cool! At a corner called "Moving Fantasia", we had the chance of making our own moving picture "animated cards", like those that get given away free in cereal packets. Of course, these would feature our very own faces. We needed to choose the background, colour, and the style for the card. Since we were in Osaka, we decided to choose Osaka Castle as the background. Then came the difficult part when we had to decide what animation we wanted to perform. After a lot of deliberation, we decided just to hit each other with some bright clubs. It was a bit tricky synchronising ourselves so that the animation would "loop" nicely. Eventually, it turned out quite well.

We gave the Portrait Studio, where a robot would draw your portrait, a miss. I tried out the F3 Simulation, and it conclusively proved that I was not good enough to be a professional race driver. Finally, we decided to try out the Chromakey Studio – basically, making a film of ourselves in front of a blue background, so that different background images could be substituted by computer. We chose the Magic Carpet and we were asked to wear some costumes. It was actually quite a tough job to be an actor - we had to perform actions that didn't make sense to us until they were combined with the background. Initially we had just wanted to give it a try, but we were really impressed with the amusing outcome, so we bought stickers made from the film, and almost bought the video.

There was still time to try the on-line karaoke before we left. Unfortunately, most of the songs available were Japanese, and when we did find one English song that Matt knew how to sing, he absolutely refused to sing it. After leaving the main hall, we proceeded to the Digital Art Square where Matt decided to see a big-screen 3-D computer graphics story with virtual sound. I decided to sit this one out. While Matt was enjoying this, I went outside to make a phone call to United Airlines in Tokyo to reconfirm my flight in a few days' time.

A panoramic view of the area around the railway station, from the top floor of Daimaru

After a brief rest, we went back to Osaka station. We still had more than one hour to spare, so we went to the Daimaru Department Store to browse. This huge department store had 26 floors, and we headed to the top floor first. Back at the Twin Towers, we had the option of paying 800 yen to go up the observation tower for a panoramic view of the city. I think we just saved 800 yen by going to the top of this department store instead. After strolling around for almost half an hour, we went down to the basement floors and shopped for our dinner. I, of course, didn't want bento on the train, and Matt wanted to avoid his previous experience of starvation when the train from Fukuoka to Hiroshima didn't provide a catering service. We found a nice shop selling some smart sushi, so we both bought some.

After finishing our shopping, it was time to return to Shin Osaka to reclaim our luggage and board the shinkansen to Tokyo. We managed to get there on time and a few hours later, we were back in Tokyo. We made our way straight to our ryokan at Nippori. We were a bit disappointed when we were informed that we couldn’t have a room with a private bath this time. I guess we did save 1000 yen, but our previous room had a bathroom, and was much bigger and quieter to boot.

That night, we revolved that we would go to Hakone tomorrow, and Mount Fuji the day after. We then headed out to Seven Eleven to shop for some food and drinks, before going to sleep.

Today was our day-trip to Hakone National Park. It promised to be a very exciting trip as it involved quite a few different interesting forms of transport and some spectacular spots to be visited. Our plan was first to take the shinkansen from Tokyo to Odawara, from where we would take the Hakone Tozan Railway to go to Gora. At Gora, we would visit the Gora Park before we take the funicular ride to Sounzan. From Sounzan, we would take the "ropeway" (cable car) to Togendai, taking a brief stop at Owakudani to see the sulphurous vapour erupting area. At Togendai, we would take a tourist pirate boat and cross Lake Ashi to Hakone. According to our guidebook, we could see Mount Fuji from Lake Ashi if weather permitted.

This sounded like a very feasible and interesting plan, but the poor weather wrecked it completely. The first leg of shinkansen to Odawara posed no problem at all. At Odawara, we found out that the Hakone Tozan Railway for climbing up the mountain was a private railway, and our JR pass would not cover it. From our guidebook, we knew that travelling around in the Hakone region was going to be expensive, and we were advised to buy the two-day pass (yes, even a two-day pass would be worthwhile for a single day-trip). Unfortunately, after many attempts to tell the man at the ticket office that we wanted a two-day pass, we found that this pass could be not used on Saturday and Sunday. It was Friday that day, and even the fact that we wouldn't be using the pass tomorrow (Saturday) would not allow us to get this pass. We settled for a single ticket to Gora.

This private railway was quite unusual. It was single-track, so the train often had to stop to let other trains pass through. Also, for some reason, the track was shaped such that the train did a "U-Turn". The driver would walk to the other end of the train and start driving again. The Japanese map we had seemed to call this procedure, "switchback". An hour later, we finally arrived at Gora.

On the train, we were wondering if we should visit Gora Park. The admission was quite expensive (although we had earlier found a coupon which would reduce the admission), and we weren’t sure if we had the time. The dilemma was solved in a most unfortunate way, when we discovered that because of extremely strong wind, the ropeway service up at Sounzan was suspended that day.

Matt, with a tree in a greenhouse in Gora Park

So, without hesitation, we headed for the Gora Park. It was a French-style garden, with lots of interesting plants. The most interesting exhibits included the greenhouse for tropical plants, the fountain in the middle of the park, and the Hakone Natural Museum. Not being biologists ourselves, we weren’t interested by the mundane plants, even if they were rare species. Some plants looked quite interesting and we had fun taking pictures.

Matt, by the fountain in Gora Park

We decided to have lunch here in Gora, hoping that the weather would turn better and that the ropeway service would resume. We found a small local restaurant and ordered udon. We headed back to the station after our meal.

Back at the station, we found that the funicular ride to Sounzan was still in service, and Matt said that he would very much like to try the "cable car". Matt, however, was a bit shocked, when the Japanese "cable car" turned out to be another funicular ride!

We reached Sounzan very quickly. Obviously, it would be a bit silly to go back down straight away, even though there wasn’t anything in particular to see. Matt suggested we left the station and had a stroll around. Matt then found a walking trail map that showed how one could walk to Owakudani, just a few kilometres away. I went one better by discovering a bus stop, and according to the timetable, a bus that would take us there should arrive soon. Matt was still thinking of walking there, but I suggested that we might get lost. Eventually, the bus arrived, and while Matt was still hesitating, I pushed him onto the bus and on we went.

Another picture at Gora Park

We were quite happy at this point, thinking that we were lucky to find a bus to go to Owakudani after all. We gradually discovered how wrong we were. As the bus climbed up the mountain, the visibility started to reduce. Matt was really glad he didn’t try to walk. What we didn't notice was that the biggest problem was not the visibility, but the extremely strong wind. When the bus arrived at Owakudani, everyone was shocked by just how strong the wind was. Coupled with the heavy rain, everyone needed to dash inside the souvenir shop for shelter.

We now felt a bit foolish to have come here, because with the prevailing weather, it would be impossible to take the 20-minute walk to the sulphurous vapour eruption area. We found out that the Owakudani Natural History Museum was nearby, and we decided to go there as soon as the rain stopped. We had a look around the souvenir shop, and bought some drinks in its rest area. There was a leaflet about the museum in the shop, and the map on the reverse showed it to be very nearby indeed. The rain didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to go away, so we decided to go outside and make a run for it.

It proved to be a terrible decision. Thirty seconds after leaving, we ran back inside again because we were lost and soaked. Our umbrellas had been totally useless on this occasion, and because of the low visibility, we couldn't see which way to go, however close it was. Matt decided to write some postcards while I walked around to buy some souvenirs. Matt joked that he had intended to write these postcards while sitting being inspired by a breathtaking volcano scene, not while sheltering in a stupid shop!

Half an hour later, Matt had finished most of his postcards, and we decided try going outside again. We doubly-redoubled our enthusiasm and set off determined to reach the museum, whatever the weather. The rain had softened slightly and we could see a little further. We spotted the museum quite close by, and only got a little bit wet.

At the museum, we found out lots of interesting facts about Owakudani and the Hakone region in general. For example, the Owakudani valley was formed by a major volcano eruption some 3000 years ago. The museum also showed the flora and fauna found in the Owakudani valley and some of them were quite interesting. One interesting incident was a video corner where visitors could press a button to see an information video. We found one about the four seasons of Owakudani, and as soon as I pressed the button, a few other people came to see the film as well. It was as if these people thought that a scheduled video was starting and everyone rushed to avoid missing it. Two minutes into the video, I looked behind, and I saw a crowd of almost 100 crowded into this small area!

Eventually, it was time to go. It was obvious that we couldn't make our visit to the eruption area because of the weather, and we were both disappointed. We went back to souvenir shop and we had a look at the bus timetable. Alarmingly, there was a special symbol besides the last bus, which was due to arrive in about 20 minutes. If we missed this last bus, we would be disastrously stuck here. Fortunately, the staff in the shop asked if we were waiting for the last bus in 20 minutes, which implied that there would indeed be a last bus coming. Phew!

Seeing that we had some time, we walked around the souvenir shop and bought some boxed foods as presents. When the bus eventually arrived, we started to panic when the driver told us that he wasn’t going to the railway station. Fortunately, the correct bus came a couple of minutes later. We found out that this bus was actually going all the way back to Odawara, which was good news for us, as it worked out cheaper than making the combined bus, funicular ride and private train journey.

It was a different world when we arrived at Odawara. The weather was so calm there that we couldn't imagine the weather could be so different one thousand metres up there at Owakudani. We took the shinkansen back to Tokyo, although we weren’t able to find seats at this time of day. At Tokyo, we decided to go to the Akihabara area for our dinner that night, and to browse its famous electronic shops afterwards.

We found a reasonable restaurant in a food court inside a shopping centre. Matt decided to have katsudon again, but when he ordered, the waiter could not understand whether Matt wanted their katsu-o-don (slightly different word). Feeling a bit deterred, Matt decided to have the nikudon (beef and rice) with me. When we were almost finished, we noticed that the restaurant, the food court, and the shopping centre were already closing, and it was only 7:45pm. A guard had to unlock the door to let us out. We then discovered that the shopping centre actually closed at 7:30pm!

We enjoyed Akihabara less than Den Den Town in Osaka. The shops seemed to close earlier and there wasn’t much still open. We found an enormous games store and went inside. Matt was very excited when he found the Japanese version of Theme Hospital, as he had spent a lot of time programming it. He couldn’t resist taking a picture of it, to prove that it was on sale in Japan!

Theme Hospital, in a computer games store in Akihabara

I was a bit tired afterwards and I decided to go back to our Ryokan. Matt came back about 90 minutes later after walking around some more. He told me that he had an unfortunate incident, when he inadvertently inhaled the mint he was eating! We talked about alternative choices if the weather became too bad the next day, but eventually we decided we just had to go and hope we would see Mount Fuji.

Today was our Mount Fuji trip. We weren’t planning to go to the mountain itself, but only the nearby lakes. This was the best place to see the mountain if the weather permitted.

The lake that was most easily accessible by public transport was Kawaguchiko. We first went to Tokyo station and took the JR Chuo Line to Otsuki station (a 90-minute journey). From there, we were supposed to take the private (i.e. not covered by JR pass) Fujikyu Line, which would take us on to Kawaguchiko in just less than one hour.

Matt, by the lake at Kawaguchiko

When we arrived at Kawaguchiko, we first paid a visit to the tourist information centre where we collected maps, leaflets and discount coupons. It was almost lunchtime, but we decided to make our way to the actual lake first, which was a 15-minute walk from the station. We found the lake quite easily, but Mount Fuji was nowhere to be seen. It then started to rain, so we decided to go to a restaurant nearby to have our lunch while sheltering.

We chose a window-seat, and we sat munching our udon with a beautiful view of the lake. After lunch, I had a look at the leaflets I collected, and from one of them, I found out that we could take the Kawaguchiko "Ropeway" (a funicular ride) to go to the observatory tower, to try and see Mount Fuji.

The elusive Mount Fuji

The 700-yen return turned out to be very worthwhile indeed. Although the weather wasn't at its best, we were still able to have a pretty reasonable view of Fuji-san. The very top was obscured by cloud, but we were glad to be able to see anything at all, after our terrible experiences the day before. From there, we could also have a good view of the whole lake, which was impressive. Matt suggested taking the boat trip when we came down, as "no trip would be complete without a boat cruise", to quote him. I was a bit reluctant at first, but when the staff of the boat decided to give us a discount even though we didn't have the discount coupon, I decided that it probably wasn't a bad idea after all.

A panoramic view of the lake

Our boat came in the shape of a dolphin (or was it a whale). This boat cruise was a terrific way to go around the lake, and we had some fun time trying to take pictures of each other. On the boat we decided that we would not go to the Fifth Step (the highest point in Mount Fuji you could go to by public transport). It was only a drop-off point for people who wanted to climb the mountain, and it would be of no great interest if we only wanted to see Mount Fuji as scenery. I managed to persuade Matt that we should spend our newly-acquired extra time going to the Fujikyu Highland park, which was famous for its Fujiyama roller coaster. Our guidebooks were being right about Mount Fuji being elusive. From our boat, we almost couldn't locate the mountain - it was almost completely obscured by the clouds.

Matt, by the lake, again.

We were having fun on the boat cruise

The Fujikyu Highland was a short one-station ride from Kawaguchiko, and we were lucky to come there on Saturday, because it closed at 7pm on weekends, as opposed to 5pm on weekdays. Seeing that we arrived there at 4:30pm, we decided against getting a day pass. We chose the admission-only ticket, which meant we had to pay for any rides we took.

The first ride that made a huge impression on us was the "Great Zaboon". It was a water ride - it made a huge splash 18 metres in height after plunging in a breathtaking drop of 30 metres. We hesitated too long before deciding to take it, and it was already closed (at 5pm) by the time we decided to try it.

The impressive Fujiyama roller coaster

I had wanted to come to this theme park to try the "Fujiyama" roller coaster. According to the Guinness Book of Records, it was the tallest (79 metres tall), the fastest (maximum speed of 130 km/h), and featured the biggest vertical drop (70 metres) in the world. It also had the longest track in Japan, stretching 2045 metres. I actively encouraged Matt to try it, but when Matt saw it in action, he exclaimed that the descent was too much for him! He was determined to refuse again, and nothing I said could change his opinion.

Since it was Saturday, there was a huge queue, and I had to wait 40 minutes for my turn. The wait was justified and the experience was unforgettable. After climbing up 70 metres slowly, where we had a good view of the whole park, the roller coaster started to descend in a horrible angle. Everyone was screaming, but the thrill didn't end there, as the ride made some horrific twists at an incredible speed. Everyone was simply stunned when it finished, and I now rank Fujiyama as my best experience of riding a roller coaster.

When I finished the ride, I asked Matt what he had done while I was trying out this thrilling ride. He told me that he played a few rounds of video games, including a skiing race (standing on virtual skis), a game where you flew a kind of "cycle helicopter" by peddling, and some jet-ski games. While no doubt interesting, I was sad that Matt missed the unforgettable experience of Fujiyama. [Matt says, "I wasn’t unhappy to miss my stomach being wrenched!"]

The park also featured two other interesting attractions. They had the world's largest ice skating surface, and built above it was the "Moonsault Scramble" - an impressive roller coaster ride that imposed a vertical force of 6.5g, the world's stiffest. It also featured four full spins and four lateral spins, along with some spine-tingling mid-air flips. Matt was just glad the ride has closed when we were there. It sounded very exciting, and no doubt I would have wanted to try it had it been open.

Before we left, we decided to try the Mad Mouse ride. While the lower admission reflected its lower level of excitement, it was still quite enjoyable. It featured lots of very abrupt turns and some rough bumps. They were, of course, not very scary, and I laughed all the way through it, while Matt shouted "my goodness"! He felt that we would fall off, because of the narrowness of the track. The cars were, of course, firmly secured, but it really looked like they were just riding along and could topple-over!

The park was arranged so that we had to pass through the gift-shop on exiting. I bought a fluffy Mount Fuji as a present for my sister. While we were waiting for the train to go back to Otsuki, Matt decided to rush back to the shop to buy one to give to his friend Aya the next day. At Otsuki we discovered there were super-express trains going to Shinjuku, which took 30-minutes less than our trip in the morning. This was great for us, as there were plenty of nice restaurants in Shinjuku.

Our very nice last dinner in Japan

After some careful selection, we decided to go to a rather upmarket restaurant, as it would be our last dinner together in Japan. We ordered some very nice food (no, not katsudon) and some beer, and we were quite pleased when the meal came - it looked very nice indeed. Matt decided to ask the waitress to take a picture of us with the meal. We had a very nice dinner. After dinner, we walked around and went to Times Square. Unfortunately, almost everything was already closed when we arrived, but we were no longer surprised by this phenomenon.

I was going to go back to Hong Kong this evening, while Matt would stay an extra night. As we thought Matt had to change to a single room, we packed our stuff, only to be told that Matt could have the same room for tonight.

It was therefore already a bit late when we arrived at Harajuku. Since it was Sunday that day, the street in front of the station was turned into a flea market. We had a look around before we made our way to the Meiji Jingu (Meiji Shrine) nearby. The Shrine was built in 1920, and on entering the shrine, we came across the sacred arch - the longest arch in Japan. The main shrine was very interesting, and we spent some time there taking pictures. We decided not to visit the treasure museum or Bunkaku.

Matt was planning to go to the Tokyo Tower that afternoon with his friend Aya, so he didn’t want to go. The Lonely Planet was not very complimentary about this attraction, but I decided that it could be wrong on this occasion and that it was worth a try.

Yours truly, near Tokyo Tower

Because of the lack of time, I only visited the main observatory at 150m, but I would have liked to go up to the special observatory at 250 m. Contrary to the advice of the LP, I think the panoramic view of Tokyo was quite impressive. If I had time, I would have wanted to visit the various interesting museums in the Tower building as well. We should have allocated a proper time to see something as exciting as the Tokyo Tower earlier in our visit to Tokyo.

Time was very tight, and I didn't even have time to have lunch. I rushed back to our ryokan to collect my luggage, and I said goodbye to Matt in Nippori station and shook his hand. We would have liked to stay around longer to have a chat before parting, but I had to rush quickly to catch the three o'clock Narita Express to the airport. Fortunately, I made it, and just as well, as there was a huge queue at the check-in desk of United Airlines.

My plane was supposed to arrive at Hong Kong at around 9:30pm. However, a huge thunderstorm in Hong Kong prevented any flights landing until two hour later, when the storm had almost gone. I was happy to arrive home safely after an enjoyable trip.

[Matt says, "I spent a wonderful afternoon and evening with my friend Aya, visiting the Tokyo Tower, the Imperial Palace (the home of the emperor), eating at an okonomiyaki restaurant (where diners need to cook a type of pancake themselves, using the hotplates in the centre of the table), and visiting a Japanese-style pub. I was really sad because I needed to say goodbye to two wonderful people in just one day. The next morning I needed to get up really early to get to Narita airport. I used the slightly cheaper private Keisei line, as my JR Pass had expired at midnight. I, too, had had a very enjoyable trip."]