And when do you take off your robe?

Japan has so many traditions and rules around things; slurp when you are eating noodles, take your shoes off when you go into a temple, bow to those you are speaking too, but when do you take your robe off heading to the hot springs?

There are so many things here that are so familiar, but your first experience at staying in a ryokan, a taste of the old Japan is one of slight bewilderment. In Nikko we stayed at a former shogun's house in the middle of the world heritage site of thousand year old temples.  

You firstly have to remove your shoes and then you ares shown to your suite, which was a series of rooms.  There's an eating area, balcony if lucky, and a main area, where at night your futon bed is laid down for you. You are given robes to wear, so you completely remove your western covers.  The amazing difference here is the bathing is communal, so you have to go to the washing area and then you can join your fellow female ryokan guests in the hot spring bath -this really does feel like you are so far from home!! Great for soaking your muscles after a hard day of walking. 

Nikko is an incredible world heritage site,within day trip distance from Tokyo, but we have left the bright lights and big city behind to stay over. Scattered among hilly woodlands temples and shrines are dotted around the area and its a breath taking experience after the modernness of Tokyo to really see some history.  In one of the main temples the priest sat, trance like, in front of a fire meditating, which was an incredible sight. 

So far all the travelling had been so easy (worried I've now jinxed the next journey), today we had to get four trains to travel from Nikko to Mount Fuji and it was absolutely fine. The bullet train was incredible and my favourite journey was on the small Fuji express train that weaves southward towards Mount Fuji, which remained constant in our sight the whole journey, which was amazing. 

So far everyone has been so friendly. Today's highlights were the guys who gave us sake in the restaurant, the driver from our hostel who picked us up from the train station and the train driver who pointed out the best place for me to take a photo of the mountain when the train stopped. Japan you are incredible.