Hotel Bornholm Atami

Today we visited a nice area very near yokosuka called hase   (kamakura). This is an area of lots of temples and shrines. Our first   stop was the so-called "giant buddha" - the second biggest in Japan (I   believe the largest is in nara). Anyway, it was really big! I believe   it was made of out bronze and you could even tour the inside. It was...

Once again, I haven't posted in a long, long time... This adventure actually happened last August, and I haven't yet decided how (if!) I'm going to backdate entries at all, so please bear with me.

Last summer, I was delighted to discover that my new friend Emily was not averse to the idea of climbing Mount Fuji with me. We also recruite...

Day 167 - Decided the best thing was to head to the tourist information place and ask them to book me accommodation in Odawara or Hakone. Unfortunately they were shut when i arrived but opened later. I headed off to the Imperial Palace which i was looking forward too - it was closed. There were a few bemused westerners milling around shrugging t...

Day 162 - Not the greatest day in my travels, but worked out OK in the end. The day started fine and i had arranged to travel South to Hakone to see Mt Fuji up close. Unfortunately, and not for the first time, the weather was against me and there was no visibility. I decided then to head to Lake Ashi, but when i got there it started snowing heav...

I moved to a new house June 1, 2009. Actually, it's 80 years old, so not exactly new, but new to me. It sits next to a community garden. It's so nice to have green space and see things growing year round. There's a small garden in my yard and I grow flowers as my time allows. I have found that stocks, which I thought were a summer flower, still ...

December 15, 2009



So I did decorate my apartment, just a little. You can see my cute little tree and some mirror decorations…not much but it's festive enough for me. And I had to get some stuff up before Jeff arrived. He’s here!!! It’s great to have him with me again – five weeks is long enough!
Hakone, Kanto, Japan mark820

On Monday we wanted to go to see (or at least get close to) Mount Fuji. Apparently the warm sunny weather we experienced the previous day was unusual for this time of year. As a result the day was freezing, overcast and we had occasional rain. After a subway journey to Shinjuku station to figure out how to catch the train to Hakone, we bought th...

Museo del kimono de Itchiko Kubota - vale la pena.

Fuji-san: subida hasta la septima estacion. Me gusto que todo el mundo se saludase "Konichiwa!". Mucha niebla y mucha subida pero me gusto la excursion. Al bajar, perdimos el autobus de las 6 e hicimos auto-stop con un par de japonesas majisimas.

Day 6 of our two week trip to Japan we packed up and boarded the "Romance Train" to Hakone. Other than the train being pink, I'm not sure what was supposed to be romantic about it.
We stayed at Yoshiike Ryokan, which is a traditional style onsen (hot springs) located about ten minutes from the main station at Hakone. All around were beaut...

So, the trip to Mount Fuji... it almost didn't happen. The previous week, if you recall, we had made plans to head down to Mt. Fuji only to be thwarted by the threat of a little drizzle and soft breeze. Then, when this weekend rolled around, I was faced with a reluctant climbing partner (aka: Frank), and other members of our group changing their...