Christina here, continuing the tale of my recent travels in Japan. While Tokyo is great, we wanted to see a few other places as well. Travelling around is easiest by train and the famous Shinkansen high-speed railway runs very efficiently and quickly.
I love the way it looks a bit like a haughty snake at the front! (See also this little cartoon). There are quite a few different routes now and they all run exactly on time. Very well organised, as is everything in Japan.
First, we headed to Hakone, which is about an hour south of Tokyo up in the mountains. It’s a place famous for its natural hot springs and it was a very pretty area. We stayed in a ryokan (a traditional Japanese inn) that dated from 1630, a great joy to a history buff like me. When we arrived, our name had been written on a board hanging outside, along with those of other guests for that evening. It looked very odd as everyone else’s name was in Japanese writing.
