My alarm went off at 5.30.  No surprise – Kaoru was out (in the onsen).  She came back just as I was getting out of bed.  I had a shower to wake me up and we went downstairs.

On the bus to the ropeway (cable car) I ate the breakfast I had bought last night.  It wasn’t much but kept me going.  It was quite cool – I had 2 t shirts, a long sleeve T shirt, and my jumper on.  I was OK but wouldn’t have wanted it to be any cooler.

We caught the ropeway up looking at the autumn colors, covered by cloud.  It was quite pretty.  There was a very light hint of rain and as we left the ropeway building we were able to grab a light waterproof overcoat and umbrella.  We walked around for a bit and enjoyed the scenery.  Then we went on top of the ropeway building.  This view was amazing!  in the 10 minutes we were up there it changed from foggy to clear to a white out!  I played around with the hyperlapse mode of my camera and got some good effects.

We caught the next cable car down and had to walk back to the hotel.  Luckily it wasn’t raining.  We walked through the village which was closed but quite quaint.  And then it was breakfast time.  Another buffet, but we didn’t go overboard today.  After breakfast I decided to have another onsen (I was the only person in there) and then we finished packing and went downstairs to check out just after 9.

I had a hot chocolate and we met Michael and Leila downstairs, and we boarded the bus at 9.30.  We drove for about an hour through some beautiful countryside, which took us to a spot where we had an hour to walk around.  We had a short hike but the view at the bottom was better than the top due to the fog / cloud.  It was also a few degrees cooler here than back at the hotel / ropeway we had been at earlier.  I’m glad I didn’t bring a jacket just for this but also glad it wasn’t any cooler.  Hard to believe I would have been fine in shorts back in Sapporo yesterday.

We were all back on the bus early so we left about 10 minutes ahead of schedule.  This meant we were going to be at lunch before they were ready for us so we made a slight detour to see a waterfall.  We weren’t allowed out of the bus because we would have been late but it was an impressive waterfall.

Lunch was at the same place as our second stop yesterday.  It was pretty average unfortunately.  It had tempura which I would have been happy to skip. But a beer helped wsh it down.  We had a look in the shop again and then reboarded the bus.

We all had a bit of a sleep on the next leg.  Our stop was the same as our first stop yesterday.  We bought a profiterole which was gigantic – famous in this area, apparently.  We also bought an ice cream which was very creamy and delicious, plus a beer for our final leg.

Finally, after a very enjoyable trip, we returned to Sapporo.  We said goodbye to our guide and walked back to our hotel to check in. I set up my computer to address a couple of quick things and we went to Michael and Leila’s room, to plan our next day.

For dinner we went to Bikkuri Donkey, which translates to “Surprise Donkey”.  We had a meals worth of jokes going about that!  It was a cheaper place where kids go after school, to get hamburg steak.  I had one with cheese and potato salad mixed through the mince.  It was quite nice!

We then went to a shopping centre for Leila to do some shopping.  Michael saw a label in the complex for a gaming centre so we had a look through there.  We couldn’t understand most of the games.  I had a go of the Japanese drums game, choosing a couple of classical tunes so I knew them.  It was fun and killed some time.

Back at the hotel (via 7-11, of course) we went to Michael and Leila’s room for some sake and sweets.  We went back to our room about 10.00 and went to bed.