Ashinomaki Grand Hotel Aizuwakamatsu

... castle...and nothing. The only thing you see is a sea of houses and one smoking object and that's a factory. Oh, how times have changed. Overall, though, Aizu's been a nice stopover on my way down to Matsumoto and the Japan Alps. Maybe nto a go here specifically place, but a pretty location with mountains all around and at least a good day of sightseeing and some good food and some history thrown in. What else are you looking for? Next up: Matsumoto, home of Crow castle. -mike

... with much trying to work out what on earth we were ordering, but it was quite nice really, and then thought we'd check out the Kurama temple before heading on to the Ryokan. There was supposed to be a cable car, but unfortunately we got directed away from it and ended up walking all the way up the very steep mountain side - it did us a power of good I'm sure and the views were magnificent. Rachel: We went to a Ryokan in ...

... and masses of overhead lines ... but VERY clean, no litter at all. Mt. Bandi, on the other hand, was fantastic! This volcano is 1800 m high (surrounding land is 300 m), backed by higher mountains. It erupted in 1888, destroying villages, damming rivers, forming lakes, and losing much of its north face and top (600 m) in the process. It makes for some impressive countryside ...

... Kyoto....the ony difference I suppose is the mountain back drop with its snow covering, although It was bloody hot walking around!!! The temples are pretty cool too, so didnt want the fact that they were similar to put me off.....in fact one shrine Taiyuin-Ryo was pretty damn impressive. I took again a good train on the way back, this was a fairly good price and really puts what we have ...

... the parents lounging around the onsen (hot spring) just taking it all in and the kids running havoc it is v funny. On the way out I saw two young monkies fighting, I had to take a video of a monkey fight...... but as I got a little bit closer one of the monkies jumped on me and turned the camera off ........ I couldn't stop laughing. And then the snow started ....... we headed for Tokyo

... built in the 1800's it is set up on a hil at the end of a winding driveway off of the main road in Nikko. It is right above the famous Sacred Bridge of Nikko, which is an important cultural area of Japan. We asked for the least expensive room which was a twin with a shower but no bath. The place could use a coat of pain, especially in the rooms, but the rooms were HUGE and very cute and clean. I get the impression that we were lucky to ...

... like a lot of fun, mostly because people were really taking to the positive messages. Just goes to show, despite all of our cultural differences, we are all just people learning how to cope with issues like cancer. It was a pretty quick train ride to the next city, Fukushima. Because it was so quick we had 1 hour before we needed to get the theater. I went on a search for a computer store, didn't find it, but I did find something else... a GIANT 6 ...

... got her another yet!)so we wanted to get one, the owner offered to drive us to get a new one which was really nice after we got the bag he then took us out for ramen his treat. the food at the hotel was great but even tho they had an english menu the waiter made a mistake on the second night and we had curry and rice two days in a row. we basically spent two days relaxing, we had a walk and saw a shrine, i got to know a japanese dentist in the outside bath (and no there was no gay love).

We travelled to Nikko via Shinkansen (bullet train) and then transferred to a local train, arriving about 8pm when most of the town was closed. Our leader brought out the origami paper when we were on the local train and had us making paper cranes - which had the locals in stitches and soon the whole car was involved in the process. I'm afraid they despaired of us ever having the ability to grasp the finer points, but at the same time were ...

... trees at the foothills of a snow capped Mt Toyama. I arrived in Nikko station around 11 am and began the 30 minute / 1.7 km walk from the station to Shinkyo Bridge. 200Y got me a short trek across the bridge and back again (for some unknown reason you can't just cross the river - you have to walk to the edge of the bridge and then turn around and backtrack to exit). On the ...