Backpacking

of the mountain - apart from the most snow I've ever seen - but it was an incredibly peaceful place with beautifully clean air. Apart from one Japanese tour group that came and went pretty quickly, there were only a handful of people up there with me.

had a beer in the cafe up there, as it was the only thing I could positively identify - and the organiser/owner (a person of authority anyway, he carried a radio) came over to chat to me. With an anguished expressions, he dredged out English from his school days. I think he initally mistook me for a guidebook writer, with me writing in my diary with my guidebook on the table. News seemed to get around pretty quickly that there was a gaijin in town, as the bus driver knew where I was staying and stopped outside there for me.

I spent the rest of the day catching up: my first load of washing (in the hotel bath), recharging batteries etc. I had a lovely donburi set meal with slices of pork, egg, rice, pickles and green tea for the equivalent of 3 quid in the restaurant across from the Ryokan. After wandering around Tsuruoka in the evening looking for signs of life - negative, Captain - I took an early night. These Japanese country towns in Winter make Keynsham look like a thriving metropolis!

Day 8: 7th February Kenji, Zaks and the Alien Prince

Sendai, Japan

I awoke to the sound of the people of Tsuruoka shovelling. I got underway early to Sendai, where I would be catching the overnight sleeper train to Sapporo. At Amarume, the frist of two changes required, a display of pictures in the station showed the town's sunflower fields and rice paddys in the summer. In Winter all the town had to offer was a bizarre structure outside the station resembling a UFO.

At the station a friendly young Japanese chap called Kenji appraoched me. He spoke good English, and was going the same direction as me, so we took the next 2 trains together. He was a keen traveller and had spent 1 year in Australia and travelled throughout South-East Asia working as a masseur (he carried a painful looking wooden implement to prove it), he had quit his job and is setting off on the road again to India and Tibet next week.

I had 6 hours to kill in Sendai, so I decided to take a train to Matsushima, a mearby bay of islands. The small outcrops of rock sprouting trees and the long red bridge stretching to the