First though I had to find my way back from Niseko to civilisation. I hadn't realised how remote it is. Apparently the Japanese only began to colonise it in the 1860s and that there used to be a native people called the Ainu living there. I didn't see any. And I don't know what the Japanese did with them.
I jumped back on the sleeper train to Tokyo - this time going for a bottom bunk, having learned my lesson from the journey up. Those four-man cabins aren't really built for gai-jin.
When I got to Tokyo I had the usual Japanese hostel-finding experience - an hour of wandering around trying to read maps without the benefit of road names while looking for somewhere whose sign you can't read - but eventually found it. I'm pretty sure it was a Love Hotel, anywhere you can rent rooms by the three hours has to be, right?
I'd stupidly told Jude I'd meet her at Tokyo station, which is a bit like saying you'll meet someone in Manchester and then just hoping you'll bump into each other. I beagn to panic when it occurred to me that Jude's phone might not work in Japan either.
Cue an hour of us both wandering around the station looking for each other until Jude found a pay phone and we hooked up.
I think I was probably a bit of a tongue-tied idiot, not having spoken to anyone for a while - the ship-wrecked mariner being discovered by an officer after going native - but after a couple of shochus I remembered how to be a normal human being again!
It has to be said we got pretty drunk that night, catching up on all the news of home and just having a cool time eating strange food. It was great to have my buddy with me. Consequently the next day was a bit of a right-off.
When we'd recovered enough to face the world, we headed off to Meiji-jinja, the really minimalist Shinto shrine that ended up being my favourite when I saw it with my folks. But given Jude hadn't had a week of gaudy red and gold Buddhist temples behind her to contrast it with, like I'd had the last time I visited it, I think she was a bit underwhelmed.
And it was raining.
So we quickly headed off down the backstreets of Hirajuku for a bit of modern Tokyo.
We came across a pretty cool gallery/artists' collective in a weird spray-painted block of flats. The art wasn't that interesting, but it felt like our own cool little discovery.
Fortunately, the next day it stopped raining so we headed to the ornamental gardens in Shinjuku just round the corner from the hotel and they were gorgeous. The blossom that was so abundant when Mum and Dad were here had begun to fall, and while it wasn't on the branch it was all over the floor like so many pink floormats.
The azaleas (?) were in full bloom though and looked as stunning as the blossom had a fortnight before.
We had came up with a rough idea of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see in the next two weeks over a shochu and a guide book the night before, so we headed back to Tokyo station and got all our Shinkansen tickets booked.
First stop was Shiogoma, a little port town a couple of hours north of Tokyo, where you could catch a ferry to Matsushima Bay - one of Japan's three most beautiful places apparently. I'd actually forgotten Jude isn't very good on/in/around water and she did look a little bit nervous as we prepared to get on the ferry!
Matsushima Bay was stunning though - lots of tiny islands dotted around the bay - and I think that kept Jude's mind off her imminent death by drowning.
The town of Matsushima itself wasn't that interesting excepting the view of it as the ferry approached.
But we did stumble across a pretty cool temple buried in a pine grove. All limestone cliffs, little caves, buddhas and graves. And with the wind rustling the trees around us it was very atmospheric.
But Matsushima wasn't our actual destination, that was a little hostel on an island in the bay called Nobiru, so we hopped on a train, which ran all along the bay's edge giving yet more beautiful views of the islands.
We had a lovely tramp through the woods at Nobiru trying to find the hostel. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, I was with my pal. Brilliant. We'd gone looking for rural Japan and certainly found it!
Eventually the hostel appeared through the trees and a little Japanese fella appeared bleary eyed at reception - obviously not used to having guests!
The only other guest was a little Japanese lady who didn't speak a word of English, but was put in a dorm with Jude. Which was weird given there must have been room for over a hundred people there. Still, they had a great Japanese shared bath which I took the plunge in and went Japanese style - ie naked!
Just over the road from the hostel was a beautiful beach with not a soul on it. It was so isolated and rural here - very existential and Murakami.
The walk back to Nobiru station the next morning was not quite as nice as when we'd arrived - these things never are on the return leg - but we had to catch a Shinkansen to Tokyo and then on to Kyoto so couldn't hang about. Only about 1,000 miles, but less than five hours travelling on the bullet trains.
We had the usual find-the-hostel fun and games when we arrived in Kyoto that evening, but we did eventually find the place thanks to a little old man on a bicycle whose directions we (by we, I mean I) at first ignored. Doh!
After dumping our bags, we headed out for Gion, Kyoto's famous geisha district. If you want the authentic geisha and tea house experience then this is where you come, but given it was about na hundred quid a head for the cheapest meal we just had a look at the cool little tea houses and left.
We did see one geisha crossing the road ahead of us, but so many people were staring and taking pictures of the poor girl that I was too embarassed to do the same. Sorry!
The rain returned the next day and spoilt what vague plans we had for seeing the city's main temples etc, so we headed to the station to enjoy a bit of modern architecture and a coffee and cake.
There's only so much time you can spend in a station, however architecturally interesting it is. It's still a station, and we began to lose the plot a bit.
A friend of Jude's had recommended Kyoto's bamboo forest which we thought might offer a bit of cover from the rain, so we caught a tram to the little town of Arashiyama having read there was a bamboo grove there.
And boy were we glad we did. It was a beautiful town at the foot of the cloud-capped mountains with a stunning shrine and gardens - so stunning we forgot the rain and just wandered around in amazement at the beauty of it all.
I have to admit to being a bit sceptical about the bamboo forest - a forest of bamboo. Whoopy do. But I'm so glad Jude stuck to her guns, it was a truly unique place. So otherworldly, spooky, quiet, and so Japanese. A wonderful place, I've never seen anywhere like it.
The pictures don't really do the atmosphere of the place justice - ask Jude to show you her video.
Not being the kind of people who can ignore such an alleyway, particularly if it might sell alcohol somewhere along it, we turned round and had an explore.
It turned out to house about half a dozen little nobiyas, I think they're called - tiny bars with just a narrow bar top and room for maybe four or five people at a push. Behind the bar is a collection of bottles of shochu, each individually labelled with the name of the regular who it belongs to.
It was a very sweet place and we sat and had a beer while the only other customer in the bar sang karaoke and the nice lady behind the bar posed for pictures with us.
I think she was only so cheerful because she knew how much she was going to stiff us for those two beers - seven quid each. Cheeky cow.
I'd asked Jude for some thought about improving my blog and she said to make it shorter! Well I've tried, which is why I've divided this entry in two, but it was such a packed week it's still really long - sorry! Only one more day to go for this entry though, so it's nearly over.
After a fairly damp time in Kyoto we hoped the weather in nearby Nara would be a bit better as it is probably the most important historical site in Japan.
The Japanese are not afraid of doing up their historial buildings, it seems they think it more important that the building look like it did when it was built rather than as it would now, weathered by the centuries. The complete opposite of our approach to antiquity, but understandable given that most of their buildings at some point over the years have been flattened by earthquakes or American bombers.
Nara though, was the real deal. Everything was original, or as original as could be. It has eight World Heritage sites in it, and it's not a big place.
This is one...(Kofuku-ji)
This is another... (Todai-ji)
This is another...(Kasuga shrine)
And this one...(Kasuga primevil forest)
And this one is 1,200 years old...(Gango-ji)
This isn't one, but it is pretty...
And this is a monk/beggar/ninja fella who look likes Raiden from Mortal Kombat...
With so much incredible history and beauty around us, it was difficult not to become blase about the whole thing. Oh that's only a thousand years old, rubbish etc.
The one thing that will always stick out in my mind about Nara though was the Big Buddha (or Daibutsu, to give him his proper name). He's the biggest in Japan, and incredibly he was cast in 751. More incredibly, he is made of almost all the bronze Japan had at the time and nearly bankrupted the country. Even more incredibly, the brush the priest used to paint his eyes on in 751 is still in the museum nearby.
You get the idea about the incredibility of the place, but just one more - he's so big, the Todai-ji which houses him and was also built 1,200 years ago, is STILL the biggest wooden building in the world.
And he had some pretty cool friends in there with him too.
Inside the temple, they were 'selling' roof tiles to help pay for restoration of the Todai-ji's roof. They let you write a message on them for Buddha to read, so Jude did her best calligraphy and we handed it over.
I'm not sure the ink will last another 1,200 years, but it was worth it to be part of such an awesome place.
