Tuesday morning in Hakone and breakfast carried on from where last night's meal left off.  A light knock on the door and we were escorted to our private dining room by our familiar hostess and presented with…well, again, just LOOK at it! And while you're looking at it, keep reminding yourself that that is BREAKFAST. For JUST ONE PERSON!

As before, I make no apologies for oversharing photos of this particular food. At home Tracey has cereal for breakfast and I have coffee. That’s about it. The scale and quality we had here was just off the charts. Oh Lord we couldn't move afterward.

Heartfelt thanks from us to our hostess (and the chef) for another amazing meal. Further giggling and another round of “Where’s the fishy” from our hostess, this time with some of the other hotel staff as an appreciative audience. Great!

No choice but to have another bath for an hour or so to let the meal digest. Did I say how much I liked the bath? No? Fairly sure I might have mentioned it once or twice.

We eventually had to check out of the lovely Suimesou hotel (said tearful farewell to the bath: couldn't get it in the case!) and went for a few hours’ worth of toddling about the town.

Bought some more souvenirs including some more from the nice man in the woodwork showroom and some from the old man who runs the tourist information. His English was impeccable and he was really enthusiastic about the crafts of the local area. Who knew there were so many colours of wood and yes we would like to try the (increasingly difficult) puzzle boxes お願いします。

Discovered a bit of the town we'd not seen yesterday including a rather impressive “Off Licence” with a huge range of sake. Then we spotted signs leading to the waterfalls. Ooooh waterfalls – we like those. And we nearly got there too until some dopey Scottish tit discovered he'd left a bag behind somewhere. Swearing.

Backtracked through a few shops we’d been in without success until we got to the nice man in the woodwork shop. He seemed very relieved to see us. Apparently he'd tried to chase after us to return the bag we’d left there but couldn't find us! Really lovely man. Lots of どうもありがとうございます from the Scottish eejit!

Back to the trail of the waterfalls (which are behind a hotel and shopping arcade of sorts) and they were worth the double trek. Not huge but really genuinely pretty. Wish we'd found them earlier.... But there were baths to be had and meals to be eaten. By the way, if anyone can enlighten me why there was the opportunity to have your photo taken like Sadako from the Ring I'd be very appreciative! 

Next trip to Japan we really do need another visit and for two days this time to Hakone and the Suimeisou. There really isn’t enough time to do everything in a one night stay and we would have liked to have gone up through the National Park. Unfortunately, arriving in the afternoon and wombling round the streets/checking in etc. didn’t leave enough time to fit it in and still have the wonderful meal. And we’d booked early afternoon tickets back to Tokyo too which didn’t help. Perhaps a much later train would have been better. Ah well – hindsight wins again.

Caught the Romancecar back to Tokyo (didn’t manage to see Mount Fuji this time despite sitting on the correct side of the train) and retrieved our left luggage from the station coin locker after the usual Shinjuku station fun time adventure trail. Some rather intense swearing but only a minor divorce.

Trek across town on the tube down to Ginza (thank God we’d not got our suitcases – it was heaving!) and quite a bit of walking about grumbling at Google Maps to find out hotel. Turns out that we’d have been better getting off at Ginza-itchome rather than Ginza station itself. Never mind – it all helped get the steps in!

We found the Sunroute Ginza eventually, checked in and then more relief but considerably less disbelief this time that our Takkyubin'd bags had turned up. Not only that but they were actually waiting up in our room! That is genuinely one brilliant service, both from Yamato Transport and the hotel staff. Highly, highly recommended. 

Dumped the carrier bags and then mooched around Ginza. Obviously we felt very much at home among stores like Louis Vuitton, Cartier and Tiffany. However, having left our Bulgari loyalty card in the house, we decided to give them a body swerve and look for one of the few types of restaurant we hadn’t yet frequented - a kaitenzushi restaurant. Did we find one? No. Primarily down to Google maps again being as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.

We did find an amazing bakery not far away from the hotel but there was a queue outside long enough to be seen from space so that got binned. I think it's one of those places where you book a place in the queue then hand your ticket down for generations until it's finally the turn of your many times great grandchildren to get a slice of cake. We had no chance.

Bumbled about looking for an eatery in which didn't require an heirloom ticket or a third mortgage to get a seat. In Ginza and its environs. That'll be a ramen shop then. Again. Ah well, when in Rome/Tokyo. The (non-Japanese) staff were a bit on the sulky side but the food was bloody good and washing everything down with the usual copious amounts of beer and sake helps lift any atmosphere.

Stuffed to the gunwales we rolled back to the hotel like weebles, this time via a 7-11 combini to check out two more 'things to try in Japan': Pocari Sweat and Calpis Soda. To be fair you can get them in the Japan Centre in London but they are quite expensive in the UK. I genuinely thought they'd be tried and immediately chucked down the sink but the first tastes like lemon squash and the second like…well, fizzy lemon squash. Surprisingly nice! Not melon soda nice. But nice all the same.

Back in the hotel room we drank several bottles of the sake that we’d bought from Hiroshima as it was obvious by this point that we wouldn’t have enough luggage space to bring them all home. Shame really but there you go. Reserved the Kamoizumi Golden Sake to bring back to the UK as a special souvenir bottle from our tour of the brewery. And it was a good choice as it is honestly the best sake on the planet. The pink Kamoizumi kokun sake was especially good (they all were really) and very like a light rosé wine. Couldn’t have drunk more than, oh say five or six pints of the stuff. A night. For the rest of my life. Nom!

Relatively early bed then after all the walking today. Getting tired now and my feet are royally screwed. Tried watching Japanese TV but after an endless conveyor belt of baseball (couldn’t understand the rules), panel shows (couldn’t understand the dialog) and middle aged enka singers (couldn’t understand any aspect of it whatsoever) it got firmly turned off!

Last day tomorrow.

Genuinely tearing up already.