Arrival to Narita airport, inconvenient 60 kms out of Tokio..
Behind the corner lies a supercity of13 million population. One of the biggest, richest, fastest, most modern and most shaky cities of the world.
It's vastnes engulfs you, eats you up and spits you out chewed and shocked, but not petrified. Tokio is quite a friendly city.
We didn't stop in Toko at first. The shocks were to wait. After more than 24 full hours of travelling we ended up in Asakigawa, Hokkaido, amidst a winter so cold and harsh, that one could easily export cold for profit. Here we met Miwa Shiro, a Sapporo climber and our friendly contact.
Ice festival in Sounkyo Canyon! Ice town, lit in colourful floodlights, HongKong turists wearing mini skirts at -20°C, ice climbing, freezing during the day and heating the old bones up to 42 degrees in hot tubs in the evening.
Before the return trip south we travelled through japanese "Qeuebec" country side, passing through Sapporo before reaching Tokyo again.

Japan is a mixture of tradition and supertechnology, served on the floor in 15 small cups, tasting like fish.

You are eating, using chopsticks, while you seat barefeet on a heated toilet, and looking at landscape dashing away with 150 miles per hour, taking with it a distant voice of a stewardess explaining for which line we can change on the next station. We take the Yamanote line. I like Japan.

A milka for a snack and we are going ice climbing again.

Slovenian car in Tokyo.

If you happen to find yourself behind the wheel of a japanese car in Japan, plug your ears, turn on the autopilot and prepare your wallet.

Plugs are for voice messages of any kind that you won't understand anyway, navigational screen keeps you on the right track, because here they drive on the left, and wallet is needed for ultra expensive road tolls . . .

We opted for backseats. I was glad to leave the driving business to those with skills and valid licenses.

Japanese climbers and ice climbing competitors reflect in some way, a broader japanese society. They are modernized traditionlists, ready to face any challenge, while they train and learn hastily from others, in order to get better and better.

A foreigner that makes a business in Japan, is a good businessman. Cveto Podlogar is by the way also a great person, alpinist and the most slovene Slovenian in -japan. He lives in Tokio, doing mountain guiding business with his wife Chibo. He has earned a fairly good reputation both amongst clients and professionals by his skills, experience and work enthusiasm. .

Not to mention his constant and thorough representation of his home land Slovenia in Japanese media and his personal guidance of japanese tourists to the Land on the sunny side of the Alps.

Japanese railways have one of the best railway systems in the world. You can feel it, hear it and see it in many ways.Punctual schedules. And I mean P u n c t u a l. Modern coaches, good maintenance, high speed trains and constant development in a struggle with growing needs and competitive means of transport.. .