Away from the desk: Paul Clements in Tokyo Yes, I'd tick off a temple or two, but in the spiritual home of futuristic technology I had simpler ambitions: to gaze up at the Blade Runner neon skylines. To walk across the X-shaped pedestrian crossing at Hachiko Square. To play on the MiniDisc machines at the Sony Centre. And to ride the world's longest roller coaster, at the Fuji-Q Highland amusement park, an hour away by "super-express" train, at the foot of Mount Fuji. The jet lag that struck us before we'd checked in to our hotel and lingered like a sake hangover for the four-day trip could have ruined everything. Thanks to a particularly wrong-headed piece of post-war urban planning, Narita airport is more than 40 miles from downtown Tokyo, which in sterling translated as a three-figure taxi ride. Semi-delirious after the flight and dreading a packed shuttle bus, my friend and I took one look at the queue of uniformed cabbies and treated ourselves. We would worry about the expense later. Groggy, we were shown into a warm executive saloon, as our driver placed our luggage in the car boot, which he opened at the touch of a button (yes! Like something out of Blade Runner!). We were swept past miles of identical paddy fields, bamboo groves and the odd temple, and tried to stay awake, not wanting to miss a moment. We were rocked awake by the driver outside the Four Seasons Chinzan-so, a business hotel in the hills of central-ish Tokyo that was too good for a couple of budget travellers, but which had none the less agreed to put us up on the promise of a mention in my magazine. My friend dug deep and unfolded what we reckoned from a bleary reading of the meter to be the fare and, not wanting to look cheap, added a generous tip. We're still not sure whether the zeroes on the yen notes swam before our tired eyes and the decimal point slipped during the mental ready-reckoning of exchange. But we used the bulk of our spending money on that fare. In the hotel lobby we found a leaflet about an excursion that would help us work off the jet lag: a walking tour in Hakone, a national park in the foothills of Mount Fuji - the trail suggested on the leaflet made almost zero demand on shoe leather - and with the promise of a dip in a hot spring at the end. Hakone, a national park in the foothills of Mount Fuji Hakone is where nature meets theme park. Getting there required a trip on a bullet train, whose seats magically swivelled to face in the direction of travel. At our destination, we hopped on to the scenic narrow-gauge railway shunting tourists up steep forested mountainside, past flower-filled verges and, thrillingly, through treacherous switchbacks, to the most beautiful sculpture park I have ever visited. The rolling gardens were home to hundreds of works by 20th-century masters, from Moore to Miró. We got most of our body clock-resetting exercise here, dawdling around late-period Picasso ceramics and breathing in blossom-scented air. The trail then took us across a lake, on board a sightseeing ship decorated like a pirate galley, followed by a two-mile cable car ride over the smoking-hot caldera of an active volcano. Suspended above its steaming mouth, we lunched on blackened eggs coddled in the boiling springs. Eating kuro-tamago is said to extend your lifespan by seven years, but we were content to have re-energised enough to stay awake during daylight and go to sleep at night. My one regret? Not having bought a newfangled Handycam in the Sony Centre to capture anything of the journey. But with my wallet in recovery, I needed to get cheap thrills wherever I could. The seaweed rice triangles sold in 7-Eleven really are unexpectedly delicious, and far tastier than any slippery morsel I had to swallow in the tofu restaurant. Paul Clements is assistant features editor of The Daily Telegraph