Well, today marked a much-needed change of pace from the last few frenetic days, with a day trip out of the city and into nature at Hakone – a volcanic spa resort about 90 minutes outside of Tokyo, with views out onto Mount Fuji (on a good day). Which – unfortunately for me – it wasn’t. I had been monitoring the weather apps even up to this morning before setting off, but for whatever reason in the end it remained stubbornly hazy and overcast all day – just the usual unpredictability of mountain weather, I suppose…

In essence, this meant that I ended up taking a train from Tokyo (a normal one, not a bullet, that is), a zig zag (switch back) train up a mountain, a funicular railway up further still, and final a cable car – all to visit a mountain resort in decidedly iffy visibility and with a distinct chill in the air too… On the upside, this did give my poor beleaguered feet a rest at least – I’ve been averaging about 30,000 steps a day since I first got here, and they both bloody hurt at this point!

From the cable car, I did get to see voluminous plumes of sulphurous smoke rising from the craters at Owadukani’s appropriately named ‘Hell’s Valley’ (a decidedly eggy whiff in the air here – and don’t be looking at me on this one either… 😉 ). I also managed to catch a glimpse of Mount Fuji – albeit a way off in the distance and with visibility not particularly great on this occasion either… Still counts in my book though!

On the food front, Hakone apparently specialises in two things: Japanese sweets (mochi) and black eggs – and when in Rome and all that… Black eggs are essentially just normal eggs, but which have been boiled in the aforementioned local sulfurous waters to give the shells and albumen a distinctive color (but no dead bird’s foetus fermenting in there or anything like that…). It was quite nice actually, as eggs go that is. Plus apparently eating one will extend your life by seven years – which in my case will hopefully go some way towards counteracting all the booze and fags I’ve consumed over the last X many years (till recently, that is…!).

I’d also been intending to visit Takone’s local hot springs while I was here, but ended up inadvertently shooting myself in the foot on this one by taking the wrong bus back into town again (same end destination, but going via the loooong circuitous local route – an easy mistake to make when all the signage and timetables are in kanji…). By the time I got back to the centre again, I’d pretty much run out of both time and enthusiasm for Hakone (which in fairness really needs the weather on form to do it justice), so sensibly decided to call it a day and head back to Tokyo for a much needed matcha latte and a chill instead.

As it happens, while on the way back in again, I finally received my sleep report from the first night’s capsule hotel. Now, I personally have zero frame of reference here in knowing what ‘good’ looks like in sleep terms – but at first sight I read this as that I’m a complete nocturnal fidget with an irregular heart beat and a tendency to stop breathing intermittently (and 18 seconds is quite a long time in respiratory terms as well…). That being said, I’d have likely slept a lot better had it not been for the tracker device whirring over and over all night in the first place, so it’s probably a case of swings and roundabouts all round really… I won’t be losing any sleep over it at any rate (boom boom!).

Anyway, speaking of sleep, I now urgently need some – apparently the above was the one night in the last 5 where I’ve gotten in more than 4 hours in all night, and I’m failing fast at this point… So with that in mind, I’ll keep it short but sweet for tonight then, and will be sure as ever to check in again in a day or two’s time!

Thanks all for the comments in the meantime! I’m glad some of you are enjoying reading along; I’m certainly enjoying putting this all together… 🙂 xx