Mountains, blossom and smalls.

I was instructed by a couple of crews to find a down and dirty steakhouse for dinner on our free night in Tokyo.  It is no lie to say that it is possible to spend an absolute fortune on your supper here. £500 per head is perfectly possible for somewhere swanky.  

After a bit of research, I found a small local steakhouse a 15 minute taxi ride away. We were dropped off on a road and told to go into a tangle of alleys left, right, left again - that sort of thing. On our way to the restaurant, Sophie saw a rat. We climbed a narrow flight of stairs and entered a tiny room with only around 12 covers. There was a fire in the corner and our chef was sitting on a stool cooking the steaks. The only choice was the size of you piece of meat. It was delicious and they loved having us there. A group of 9 foreigners would never have happened before, I'm sure. 

As we left, Scott saw another rat.  It had livened up somewhat whilst we were dining and we realised that we were in the red light district. Working girls were everywhere with large groups of male office workers roaming. We attempted to go into a club, but were firmly told "only Japanese". We gave up and went back to our luxury hotel having truly been down and dirty. Needless to say, we loved it. 

Leaving Tokyo was a breeze and we sped off towards the mountains. More great driving and some sensational views. We had lunch at the Hara ARC museum of contemporary art. Tremendous architecture and memorable installations made it yet another highlight. 

Our home for the night was overlooking a lake.  Well, I say that, but actually there were so many trees in front of it the view was obliterated. Cut them down please. They did have a sulphur onsen for our pleasure though. We were high up and very chilly so a smelly very hot outdoor bath was just the thing, for a few of us anyway. 

This morning, a long drive down, with almost 30 hairpins and tremendous vistas began the day. All perfectly lovely. Up and down some more, lots more, along the flat a bit, snow, farming and lots of blossom took us all the way to the western coast of Honshu, to Niigata, ready for the ferry to Sado Island tomorrow. 

Car 9 is behaving better I am pleased to say.  Although our friends, Gerd and Birgit had a fuel pump failure at the start of the morning. They were able to get a tow truck that took them to a vintage car restorer, he took a pump from another Mercedes he had there, fitted it to their car, provide tea and coffee, got them on the road again and all for no charge. He would accept nothing. Wonderful. 

Have I told you how much I love the vending machines here?  They are everywhere and dispense hot and cold drinks even in the middle of nowhere. A hot can of coffee mid morning has become a regular thing. At home, they'd all be vandalised and broken. 

Carol Pontin, in the E Type, is an artist. Her thing is photographing washing lines around the world in order to paint them. I cannot tell you how much I adored hearing that. You can tell a lot about a country by its underpinnings. There has to be a book in it. What a woman!