Backpacking

Day 7: 6th February Earth to Tsuruoka...

Tsuruoka, Japan

I took the overnight sleeper to Sakata. It took 7 hours, and I was able to sleep for pretty much all of it, despite the train lurching about all over the place. When I got to Tsuruoka it was

snowing heavily, and even the snow shovellers appeared to have taken a day off. Fair play, it was Sunday after all - at least I think it was - it's easy to lose track of the days. I can't believe I've only been here a week, and have seen, done and learnt so much. The only place that seemed to be open was a Japanese western-style fast food place called Mister Donut. Normally I would refuse point blank to go in a place so named, aside from the fact it was fast food and western-style, but I was hungry and there was nowhere else. So I ate some questionable noodles there, and some "donuts" and drank, enjoyably, two cups of (assume yank accent) "American style coffee" - my first caffeine injection of the week (much needed). I'm thinking I should have packed some PG Tips - regrettably Japanese green tea doesn't do much for me.

The lady at the tourist office sorted me out with maps, bus timetables and tourist parephenalia. Again, she spoke to me mainly in Japanese, with a key English word thrown in at the end, but I managed to understand her fine.

I took a long and winding bus journey up to Haguro-san, the only accessible mountain in the winter of the three sacred mountains of Dewa Sanzan. Halfway up we had to change buses to one with hardcore inch-thick tread to bite into the snow. There wasn't much at the top