​Sleeping at a michi no eki or roadstation is a great way to see a side of Japanese life that you won't get on a package holiday, the interesting thing is that the  Japanese are prepared to overnight in the family saloon car, and not necessarily a big one either. Some of the bigger people carriers have been adapted to create a sleeping platform but in other cases people seem to sleep on reclined seats. Maybe it's because of these sleeping arrangements these people tend to get moving pretty early with all the usual door slamming that usually involves. This means that today we were up (reluctantly) at 5.45 am breakfasted by 6.30 and on the road soon after eight.
Not surprisingly we were starving by 11.30 and stopped at another roadside station for lunch . For about £4 we got a big bowl of vegetable soup containing lots of udon noodles. You order your food by machine, if you're lucky there's a picture on the buttons because the descriptions are only in Japanese but we've got pretty good at ordering this way now and had no nasty surprises. Once your order is made the machine prints out a ticket that you hand in at the kitchen counter. When your order is ready your number is called out, fortunately we are such  an unusual sight that the ladies in the kitchen give us a nod as well as shouting out our number, we do not know Japanese numbers. These cafes are really popular and the food is quick delicious and cheap and you can usually help yourself to free Japanese tea and iced water.

So having had our early lunch we continued our journey but decided to stop at the next roadside station half an hour further on as its location beside a river running along side a big cliff looked rather picturesque. Once there we discovered that there was the village mushroom festival, temporary awnings had been erected and tables and chairs all laid out. Lots of truly exotic and rather dangerous looking mushrooms were on display. The festival meant food and we were pressed to try mushroom soup that was bubbling away in a large vat. Despite the first bowl of soup still swilling in our bellies it would have been rude to decline it as people seemed pleased to see us and were insistent.

The soup was rather good but then the next stage of this event was the beating of cooked rice to make a traditional Japanese food called mochi and we were encouraged to join in and beat the rice with large wooden sledgehammers. All great fun and we got to eat the rice cakes afterwards, these were a bit of an acquired taste as they were very gelatinous and took a while to get down. So, it was cooked rice beaten to a sticky thick paste heaped into little round balls and covered in very tasty toasted soy-bean flour.

This event only takes place once a year so we're thrilled to have caught it even if it did mean two lunches in the space of an hour.

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IThe mountainous ski area of Nagano is famous for its macaques which like to use the hot thermal waters to keep warm in winter, and there are lots of famous photos of monkeys doing just that.
right now there is no snow and it's not particularly cold so the monkeys are not in the water.
There are plenty of them and they studiously ignore you no matter how close you get.
​it was an interesting area, high mountains, very low cloud and steam from the thermal waters - very atmospheric.

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Rough Guide gets a bit short on info the further north you are in Honshū so we were much more reliant on tourist leaflets we found along the way - often in Japanese. So the pictures for Goshado  made it look like a must see place
​...and indeed it is, five pavilions side by side on a mountainside is a sight to see. What we hadn't appreciated was the difficult access so we found ourselves with inappropriate footwear as we were faced with the challenge of 999 steps up a steep hillside.

The path is made of boulders of all shapes and sizes so climbing up is like balancing on vertical stepping stones. Utterly exhausting but worth it at the end of the day.

Legend has it that 5 ogres attacked the area, stealing crops and abducting young women from the villages. So the villagers made a proposal to the ogres - if they could build a 1000 step path up to the shrine in only one night then the village maidens would be offered to them. If they failed  the ogres would leave the area for good. The ogres accepted the challenge and were making good progress when the villagers cheated and one of them mimicked a crowing cockerel and the ogres, having completed 999 steps fled, thinking it was morning and that they had failed the challenge. 

It seemed pretty clear to us that no improvements  had been made to the path since the ogres first built it.

If you go, wear something more substantial than flip flops or Crocs and take a drink and a seat towel.

In Japan we have been making good use of the onsen which are something like a spa crossed with a public bath house. Japanese use them as very much a social occasion, you would go with friends or the family. However as you are required to be naked there are separate baths for men and women.
Onsen vary but they all have great communal washing facilities with plenty of hot water, soap and shampoo and several pools with warm or hot water. Most have an outdoor pool too.

They cost between £4-5 a person and there are often cafes small shops and tatami matted relaxation areas. The one we are in now has a masseur too.
They are great places to relax. Obviously we can't take our cameras in so these photos are from the roadside station we are currently at.

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It's worth doing a bit of prep before arrival. In doing so we were able to buy tickets for the Keisei Skytrain at special rates for foreigners. You are given a code which you exchange at the Keisei booth at the airport, all very smooth.

It works out about £22 each for the 50 minute high speed train to Ueno which is where our hotel is located. The Skytrain also stops at Nippori and Tokyo stations.

Needless to say, the train and the station is spotless and our seats are reserved and the train is on time.