The last port of call was to see my old school friend Paul who is based in Singapore for the next few years. After the humidity and heat of Japan, I can say with pride I did not even crack a sweat in Singapore. It was relative bliss! Paul took me out for a very swish meal at the Fullerton Hotel, recommended to him by a good food guide, as well as by some friends of mine, who had also lived in Singapore for a while. We followed this up with the obligatory Singapore Sling...

I may as well own up now. I failed in my major ambition to climb this damned thing. I made it to the new 7th station with a pounding headache and slight dizziness. The weather was threatening and I was progressing at a slower rate than an asthmatic ant carrying shopping (thankyou Blackadder). The going was really rough. Volcanic rubble and sand made slipping easy and we all had sticks purchased at the bottom, for branding at every station achieved. The summit-makers...

Hiroshima is the stepping off point for this island. It is most famous for its massive ‘floating’ torii gate seen on countless brochures for Japan. Spectacular at sunset and floodlit at night, it is a beautiful sight. People walk out to it at low tide and attempt to throw a stone up on to the top. If you can get it to stay up there, your wish will come true.

The other spectacular site is the shrine behind this, which also appears to float when the tide comes in. It has...

This cute little town just south of Beppu is home to Mt Yufu, which we climbed in a fit of utter madness, as a precursor to Mt Fuji. Although not really a genuine preview as the top is 800m below the starting point of the 5th station! Still, the view down to the valley was lovely when we could see it through mist and cloud. Unfortunately I did not have time to go to Beppu and get buried up to my neck in hot sand - the reviews I read made it sound wonderfully...

Nagasaki is very cosmopolitan, as you'd expect. It was really the only city that had any foreigner interaction for all those years Japan was locked away. The Dutch even had their own little island from which to base their trade. Funny, as it's now landlocked, thanks to reclaimed land, but the European-style buildings are open as tourist attractions. Quite bizarre.

The Peace Park and the A-Bomb museum were the obvious places to visit and they were informative,...

This stunning monument is on the way to Nagasaki. It is Japan's castle-to-beat-all-castles. It is said to resemble an egret in flight with its white wings spread on its mountain perch. Impressive like Nijo, it has multiple rooms and lookouts, sometimes with mannequins to show scenes of daily life. It did have something that Nijo didn't however: a hari kari yard.

A day was never going to be enough in this famous place. At 7am I was already up and ready to catch a local bus out to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. If you have seen Memoirs of a Geisha, the little girl runs through what looks like an orange tunnel. This shrine has about 11,000 torii gates, one next to the other, all the way up the hill. I can recommend it to even the shrined-out. All along the way are lots of little shrines, many dedicated to foxes, who feature in Shinto,...