I'm afraid it's me again because I've just seen Craig off with Matthew Duncan and his girlfriend Ching Ching for a night out. Matt, son of friends of mine, has worked in a few places round the world and now teaches Engish as a foreign language here. Just as long as I get Craig back for 7.20am for our flight to Sapporo!

We had a trip to Mount Fuji today as far up as level 4, then a sail on Lake Ashi and a cablecar ride to the top of Mt Fuji - from where we saw absolutely nothing, since the weather had changed and the rain was coming in. We only have a few photos of white mist to show you! But the countryside was beautiful: rice fields, vineyards, forests, waterfalls.....Craig was faced with his first real Japanese lunch - and you'll see from the photo he didn't like it too much. We finished off with a trip on the Bullet Train back to Tokyo - amazing to feel the backdraft as a train shoots through thestation at 333mph! Japanese old technology - built in the 1960s - is still working really well - photos attached!

We also think Japanese people are just downright nice: our tour guide saw us all on to the train we needed to get to return to our hotels today and the travel rep, Hideko, who met us at the airport on Monday has been back twice to check we're ok and leave a card to wish us a good holiday in Hokkaido.

Time to pack!