1st April...How lucky are we # 2

As per previous post we started the day with a big Japanese breakfast. We planned to leave Tsumago early but wanted to have another wander around town first.
Here are a few pics to set the scene, but it is hard to do it justice. The little guys with the red hats and bibs were about 50cm tall and each were a head stone at a grave in the town cemetary. The stone path led up to the cemetary.



We left Tsumago by taxi to the train station at Nagiso. The town sits next to the river, which is very wide and has very large boulders and rocks sitting in it. Some are the size of small houses. We knew which trains we needed to catch and had previously paid by Mastercard for our train tickets. Imagine our surprise when our Mastercard was not accepted!!!!! We went to pay by cash, but as our night at the inn was a cash only establishment, we were short by 3000 Yen (about $30 bucks)

We were directed to the local bank only a couple of hundred metres down the hill to use the ATM. Imagine our futher surprise to find not only the machine wouldn't give us money neither would the bank inside. After battling a small communication barrier, the ever patient bank teller directed us to the local post office 400 metres back up the hill past the train station. On arrival at the post office we found another ATM which happily accepted our card and spat out the YEN.

With our new found wealth we then ran back to the train station with only two minutes to spare!!!!!

We chose to go back to Toyko a different way so we could see different countryside. We were enjoying traveeling through the central alps area. We passed many little towns which still had a light coverage of snow.Mountain tops that had ski fields with people skiing on them.

Then unexpectedly in the distance we sighted Mt Fuji. 'How lucky are we'!!! We traveled towards it for at least half an hour before leaving the mountain area to head down to Toyko. Besides seeing Mt Fuji,(which we wanted to see but didn't think we would have the time) there was beautiful scenery all the way. Everywhere we go we see hundreds of cherry blossom trees.

We are now back in Tokyo and are staying at a hotel that offers western and Japanese rooms. We chose the Japanese room with a view to a small garden.

I have found Tokyo and Japan to be very clean and well organised and the people are very friendly...I want to come back here again and spend a lot more time seeing the whole country.

I'm definately enjoying my holidays and relaxing. I am already losing track of what day it is!!!!

Time to go and find somehere for dinner after the big blogging session.

Bye for now, Mark