Day 18 - Nara - 11 April 2009

Before I start this let me just tell you that we were idiots. Tonight, we missed our plane home.  No real reason.  Went on memory, Jetstar had changed the flight details on us three times and neither of us were bright enough to double check the details today. So we missed check-in by 10 minutes.  Really pissed because I was all geared up to come home. Now we have had to book into a hotel, although they were nice enough to upgrade us to a suite, wash clothes and now we need to find something to do for 6 hours tomorrow between hotel kick-out time and us getting on the plane.  Don't worry we will be at the airport 3 hours before tomorrow's flight.  Alan would have added his comments in red but he really isn't in the mood.

 

We got up reasonably early this morning and prepared to be out of the hotel by 11am.  We checked out, stored our bags at the hotel and made our way to the train station to catch the express train to Nara, about 45 minutes.  As we got off the train, we ran into the American couple we had met at the Italian restaurant two days before, Sam & Becky.  So the four of us headed off to explore Nara.  It made a nice change having someone else to talk to.  We walked around the Kofukuji Temple and the three and five storey pagodas and came across some deer.  There are 1200 tame deer in the area.  They get pretty hungry and will run to anyone who seems to have food.

 

We then walked to the Todaiji Temple.  It is the largest wooden building in the world. It houses a giant Buddha which is made of 440kg gold and 499mg of copper.  His total height is 30 metres with a sitting height of 14.98 metres and weighs 500 metric tonnes.

 

By this stage we had to think about getting back to our hotel so we could make our plane (ha right) so we bid farewell to Sam & Becky and returned to the train station.  In all we walked over 7 kilometres today.

 

We had everything timed perfectly, or so we thought.  We had a lovely Japanese dinner before returning to our hotel to get our bags and make our way to the station. It wasn't until we got to the airport did we realise what idiots we were.  Thankfully our train tickets are still valid for a few more days so they will get another work out from us tomorrow, if we can find something around here do to. The hotel we're in tonight appears to be in a very dodgy area of town so I don't think we'll be going out for a midnight stroll.

 

Tomorrow night we will be at the airport well and truly in time for our flight.

 

Day 17 – Kyoto – 10 April 2009

Sarah = Black, Alan = Red

After a nightmare free night, we got up reasonably early this morning and left the hotel before 11am. I probably had one but Sarah just didn’t bother to wake me up this time. One subway stop to Kyoto Station and then we were out on the train to Saga-Arashiyama Station.

After obtaining an English map, we left the station only to discover we’ve left the wrong side. Don’t blame me, the map was clearly wrong. Back up to the station and down the other side and we were on our way to Sagano Bamboo Grove. On the way we passed someone’s yard which had piles of stones balanced on top of each other.  We had seen them at other places but not so many.  Alan thought they must be stuck down so he picked one up.  Nope, not stuck down so what did he do, tried another one.  When he went to put them down again, they fell over.  He tried to rebuild but it wasn’t happening so we quickly made our escape.  Chances are he has angered some sort of god. I’m sure most of them were stuck together but I just happened to get unlucky and knock over the ones that weren’t.

Before reaching the Bamboo Grove, we stopped for a bit of morning tea, fresh mini donuts and freshly squeezed lemonade.  Very refreshing. Not sure if Sarah mentioned, but they were fresh.

I had been looking forward to the Bamboo Grove as photos I had seen were very impressive but as we started walking through I thought that this looked no better than the forest my Dad’s neighbours are growing. Then we turned another bend and it was spectacular.  The bamboo is so thick and tall.  We couldn’t get our hands around them. Alan was hoping to see a panda but as there appeared to be none around, he decided to take a bite of the bamboo himself. Now there was a cheap lunch. Well what am I supposed to think when I see a brochure with pandas on it at the train station.

We then returned to the train and went back a few stations in the hope of getting a bus to Rokuon-Ji Temple, or as better known, The Golden Pavilion. We are getting pretty good at navigating the Kyoto bus system and after only a few minutes, we were on our way. Thanks to my skill and perfect sense of direction.

Most of the guide books advise to get there either early morning or late afternoon to avoid the crowds. We arrived at 1pm and it wasn’t that bad. Although it is Good Friday at home, it isn’t a holiday day here.

The place is beautiful and the grounds are so lovely and so Japanese. Handy hey! Sarah commented that the whole place is made of gold but I think she may have been joking because it’s quite obviously made of gold painted wood or gold foil or something of that nature. Easy to say that now after I told you it wasn’t paint but gold leafing.

After we walked around the grounds for a while we returned to the bus.  It is a flat fee of ¥220 whenever you get off the bus so we thought we would ride it all the way to Kyoto Station.  Bad idea.  It took forever. We did get to see a lot of Kyoto but it was hot and packed and very very slow. Some of us had to stand the entire way and it was a very long ride.

It was after 3pm so no Italian lunch for us today.  Instead we ended up with a Japanese burger. They were huge, with a meat patty, mustard, bacon, cheese, egg, lettuce, tomato, tomato sauce and mayonnaise. Check out the photos of Alan trying to get one in his mouth.

We returned to the hotel just after 4pm. Alan had himself a little nap (well it is Friday after all).

Tomorrow we check out of the hotel by 11am and are heading to Nara, about 45 minutes out of Kyoto. I was hoping to visit Nara Dreamland which was an alternate universe Disneyland and by all accounts the strangest, most lame amusement park ever built, but unfortunately it closed back in 2006 due to lack of patronage. We will then return to the hotel to pick up our bags and have reserved tickets on the train to the airport at 6.45pm which will get us in at a little after 8pm.  Then at 10.55pm we will be homeward bound.

There will be a blog for tomorrow, just unsure whether we will have internet access to upload it. If not, it will be on, with photos, by lunchtime Sunday. 

Day 16 – Still Kyoto – 9 April 2009

Sarah here again and I know Alan will want to have his say in red.

After Alan’s nightmare during the night that he was being attacked by a kitten (hee hee) which woke me and half the hotel, we had a bit of a lie in again this morning. It was more like a big ferocious monster with huge sharp claws and fangs attacking me thankyou very much! That is not what you said when I asked you what the nightmare was about.

We got ourselves prepared and left the hotel a little before noon. There was a quick trip on the subway before we headed to the Kyoto Imperial Palace.  The layout of the public transport, as previously mentioned, is not at all like we have found in other cities. After walking 40 minutes, we still hadn’t made it around to the entrance to the Palace. It is in an enclosure 1.3 km north to south and 0.7 km east to west. Not to mention the rest of the grounds which are huge and you have to walk through to get there. We came across a number of gates, none of which were open, and still to this time we are unsure whether in fact it was actually open today.

Strangely, we relied on our map and when it suggested the Nijojo Castle wasn’t too far away, we decided to believe it. We really need to stop looking at this map and saying oh well it’s only a couple of centimetres on the map so it surely can’t be too far can it. On the way we passed the Go’o Shrine which, for some reason, Alan found funny. Another 40 minutes and we were finally at the entrance to the Castle, only to discover that unlike Osaka Castle, they don’t allow you to walk around the grounds without paying.  As we have really seen enough in the way of Temples, Castles, Shrines etc, and the fact that today is a really hot day, we decided to give it a miss and go and get some lunch.  The map again indicated that the JR rail station, where we can use our rail tickets, wasn’t too far away and another 30 minutes or so we finally made it to the station.  We looked for some lunch places on the way but they were all Japanese and none of them had an English menu.

We returned to Kyoto Station for lunch. There was a couple from Portland, Oregon on the next table who had just arrived in Kyoto although had been in Tokyo for the past 5 days.  They are vegetarians and were saying how hard it was to find vegetarian food here.  We were a little surprised considering most places we pass all seem to have vegetarian food.

The only options we have for dinner around our hotel are a very expensive (about $130 a head) restaurant at the hotel, McDonald’s, two Japanese restaurants and one curry restaurant. Although the curry one smells nice, when we had a look it was all the same brown sauce and rice with your choice of meat. We chose one Japanese over the other tonight as it was less crowded. Again, there was no English menu but prices which indicated it was reasonably inexpensive. It was a strange set up in that you go in, put money in the ticket machine and choose your meal, give it to the waitress and find a seat. As we were trying to decide what to have, from the pictures on the menu, the waitress came up with an English menu. However, she didn’t know what they were and they didn’t come with pictures so choosing something in English didn’t mean it could ever be translated into Japanese. It’s a traditional Japanese restaurant and it seemed that nobody there spoke a word of English so it was a case of not really knowing what food we may end up with.

The meal came and not only did we get the dish we ordered but also rice, a cabbage salad with a strange sauce and miso soup. What we ended up ordering was like hamburger mince made into two patties topped with something that was cold and not very nice, three little roast potatoes, five green beans and two shrimp sticks with sauce.  All in all it was a nice meal and only cost $11.

Tomorrow’s plans are to visit Saga Arashiyama where there is a beautiful bamboo forest and,of course, a temple.  We are still hopeful of getting to the Golden Pavilion although we are yet to work out the exact way to get there. Based on experience with our map, it will take us 2 days to walk there.

Day 15 – Kyoto – 8 April 2009

Sarah blogging again.  Alan will undoubtedly add his 2 cents worth in red.

This morning we had a nice sleep in.  I stayed up last night and then Alan got up to watch soccer during the night so we didn’t actually leave the hotel until midday.

After yesterday’s walking fiasco, we decided not to trust the map and asked at reception about a bus to the Kiyomizu-dera Temple.  We were told that the No. 80 bus just outside the hotel would take us there.  The sign at the bus stop also said that the bus would take us there. So when we got on the bus we assumed it would take us to the Temple.  It didn’t. Well it took us a heck of a lot closer than if we had to walk there from our hotel. The bus driver told us where to get off and which direction to walk.  When the sign said the Temple was 500 metres we took it with a grain of salt.  It would appear everything is 500 metres in Japan.  The walk, all uphill was more like 1km. Of course, when it comes to anything numerically related, Sarah always grossly exaggerates. I vaguely recall you also saying that it was a lot more than 500 metres.

However, it is spectacular once you get there.  Kiyomizu-dera is famous for its giant wooden Butai (stage) overlooking panoramic views of Kyoto and its main hall is purely constructed of wood and supported by huge columns and beams without the use of a single nail, screw or bolt.

Just below the stage is a natural spring where visitors drink sacred waters believed to have therapeutic properties.  I don’t know about that, but I do know the water tasted pretty good.  It was a reasonably warm day today. The crowds were queueing up behind Sarah while she stood there hogging all the spring water as she drank about 15 cups. I took one, unlike a lot of others who also washed their hands in it.

After walking around there for 90 minutes, we decided to hit the large shopping (and food) complex above Kyoto Station. The place is huge.  There are 11 floors.  I’m sure you can get to the Sky Plaza Observation Deck by lift, although we couldn’t find it, so we took the many, many escalators to get up there. While riding the escalators to the 11th floor, we cold look back down into the station building. It was quite daunting how high we appeared to be. The view of Kyoto wasn’t that wonderful once we made it.  They have used a heavy tint to cover the glass and most of it was fairly scratched up. I guess we can’t complain as we had the view for free. As for being a “Sky Garden” it was more like a little patch of grass.

Inside the shopping centre we started looking for food and again found ourselves at an Italian restaurant.  Unlike last night’s meal, there was more enough food and it was a lot cheaper. We didn’t realise when we ordered a pizza, pasta and salad that we also got as much bread as we wanted plus soup and a dodgy looking tomato thingy to which we said no thanks.  There was no going hungry today.  Also, a first for us in 15 days, we actually got a knife and a decent sized napkin. We haven’t seen a knife since we got off the plane.  You either live with chopsticks or a fork and spoon combo.  We were so happy to see an actual knife.

By this stage we had been out over four hours so we caught the subway back to the hotel for a nice afternoon lie in.

As lunch was more like linner (lunch/dinner) we opted for a little McDonalds for dinner. The thickshakes are great of course but the rest of it is just as bad as in Australia.

Day 14 – Kyoto – 7 April 2009

It is Sarah back writing the blog today.  Alan has taken himself in for a shower and as it is already late, if I leave it to him, it will be 2am before we get any sleep. I may take a while, but at least my blogs are entertaining. He will comment in red.  I don’t need him to write in any other colour.

This morning we left the sleepy little town of Hakone-Yumoto, a bit sad.  It has been so nice and quiet.  We made our way back to Odawara Station and then on the Shinkansen for 2 hours to Kyoto. We sure are getting used to riding on trains. I can’t see us continuing this back in Sydney though. Where we were the only westerners in Hakone-Yumoto, Kyoto station was filled with them.  We hardly saw a Japanese person.

A few days ago I changed where we would be staying in Kyoto.  Osaka relied mainly on the JR (Japan Rail) system, Tokyo had some JR lines but mainly subway stations but here in Kyoto there are very few JR lines and only two main subway lines.  Instead of relying on the expensive subway, especially as we have our JR rail tickets, we moved to a hotel close to Kyoto Station.  I usually have thoroughly scrutinised the hotels but I only had about 20 minutes to do it the other morning before we left Tokyo so I really wasn’t sure what to expect.  It is a 15 minute walk to the station which is fine, the pillows are nice but the beds are terribly hard.  We’ll learn to live with them. It doesn’t worry me at all, I can sleep on anything.

After checking into the hotel we spent the afternoon lying around and watching stuff we bought with us.  At about 6.20pm we left the hotel in search of food.  We had a map given to us by Information at the station and we very quickly learned that it is nowhere near to scale. We took a walk to the Gion district famous for its Geishas and supposedly restaurants.  After just over an hour of walking we arrived.  Thankfully it is a very mild night.  We did see two Geishas but were unable to get the camera out fast enough to get a photo.

We took a walk around the Yasaka-jinja Shrine which as all lit up. We then walked the Gion Shopping Street which was packed.  We took a side street and realised we had found ourselves amongst all the girly shows and seedy bars and clubs.  Just as we were about to give up and head back to McDonalds, we found a little Italian restaurant.  The food portions were small but it was enough to make us feel like we weren’t going to die of starvation. They were small but still pretty good.

We took a different route back to the hotel which was a lot quieter and only took us just on 50 minutes to get here. It’s much better when we have a set target to aim for rather than just wandering the streets aimlessly looking for something edible.

Tomorrow we will look at the map and try and work out how best to get around this city.

 

Day 13 – Fujikyu Highland – 6 April 2009

Alan is blogging once again today. Sarah can make her sad contribution in pansy purple. He is so rude.  If it wasn’t for me he wouldn’t even know how to get to Fujikyu! In fact, he’d still be sitting in the airport in Sydney wondering how to get on a plane.

We were up bright and early this morning as we knew we had a big day ahead of us. We left the hotel at about 8am and began the long drive to Fujikyu Highland amusement park which is very close to Mt Fuji.

We had basic directions both off the net and from the hotel staff so we were confident that we’d be able to find the place without too much of a problem. After winding our way along Route 1 through the mountains we then changed onto Route 138 and continued down the other side. A short time later we got our first glimpse of Mt Fuji for the day although it was partly obscured by low cloud. We were super excited when we first saw it.

There was an interchange that the hotel staff had advised us to take but since we didn’t know whether to go left or right we chose to stay on 138 instead just to be safe. But after driving for some distance up another mountain we both had the feeling that maybe we were going the wrong way. We turned around and went back to a 7-11 store where the guy there said that we were in fact heading the right way and we should keep going.

So back on the road again and we found ourselves around the other side of Mt Fuji, near Lake Yakanako. Another stop at a petrol station for more directions told us that we were now very close to the park and shortly thereafter we spotted a big rollercoaster ahead of us.

The signs to get into the place were a bit confusing so it took me a while to figure out how to get into the car park but I managed it eventually. Into the park and I bought my usual 1 day pass while Sarah bought the entrance pass only as she wouldn’t be going on the rides. After getting my ticket I then had to insert it into a machine which takes your photo and prints out your ride pass ticket for the day. Unfortunately the directions weren’t in English and since the Japanese are generally very short people, I was presented with a photo of my jacket. It completely missed my face altogether. A rather sheepish apology to a girl at the gate followed and she gave me another ticket and this time I managed to get the photo right. Hooray for me. Those instructions were very much in English, he just chose not to read them.  The girl laughed at him and he turned to me and said “she’s laughing at me” and I was laughing at him too. I read him the instructions and that’s how he finally got it right!

It was not at all busy there today which was good. One of the big coasters wasn’t operating today due to maintenance which was a bit of a bummer though. First up I went on the Fuijyama coaster which is an absolute monster. The first hill rises to a height of 79 metres followed by a plunge of 70 metres and then lots more hills, plunges, turns, helixes and all that cool coasterish type stuff.

After that I proceeded to go on lots of other little rides while Sarah watched, took photos of me on them, took photos of Mt Fuji and read her book. The park is very close to the base of Mt Fuji. By the end of the day it was like “yawn, there’s Mt Fuji again”. Unfortunately it never was totally uncovered during the day.

One of the best things in the park was the Haunted Hospital, their version of a haunted house. It was really well done and quite spooky. Sarah would no doubt have crapped her pants if she had been in there with me. That’s why I had no intention of going in. I’d read the reviews. They have real people inside the building to scare the bejeebies out of you while you’re walking all through this place which is done up to look and feel very much as though you really are in an old abandoned mental hospital. It was done very well and is definitely the best haunted house I’ve ever been in. You’re given a lecture by a girl for a few minutes before entering, not a word of which I understood of course.

He left out the Tondemina, this spinney type thing that goes really high in the air. Also, the park has some of the strangest signage. You’ll see from our photos.

One more ride on the big Fujiyama coaster and then we decided we’d had enough for the day and left the park behind. By that time it was about 3.30pm and it was starting to get bitterly cold anyway. I think icicles formed on my nose and ears on that last coaster ride. But it was still fun.  It was 10 degrees at this point and very little sun around.

Back in the car and we were keen to stop at Dennys for a late lunch/early dinner. We’ve been to Dennys plenty of times in America before but hadn’t tried it here yet. We were both feeling very hungry having hardly eaten all day so we ordered a cobb salad to start, garlic bread, a meatloaf with salad and shrimp each plus Sarah’s had a poached egg. Alan, do you even know what a poached egg looks like? The egg was fried! We didn’t know it was meatloaf when we ordered it since the menu was in Japanese and the waitress spoke no English, but the picture looked pretty good so we gave it a try. Then we still had room for desert so Sarah got something which looked like a crepe with strawberries and actually turned out to be creme brulee YUM my favourite and the second I’ve had here in Japan and I had a triple stack of pancakes with cream, ice cream and caramel syrup. What an awesome meal that was!  We actually saw another Dennys a train station stop away from where we are.  He seems to think that we are going back for a late dinner at 10pm.  He’s dreamin’.

Then we had the long drive back to Odawara to return our rental car. We had to stop for petrol before returning it. The petrol station had no ordinary petrol bowsers. Instead the hoses hang from the ceiling and the attendants guide you in and then fill your tank for you. That’s something new for us. I guess it was to save space.

We dropped our car back and were happy that the dude didn’t notice the scratch and ding on the right front quarter panel which had happened sometime overnight. No I did not smash into something. After that we jumped on the train and made our way back to our hotel and I think we’ll be staying in for the evening now. Tomorrow we’re making our last long train trip when we travel to Kyoto. If anyone is interested, I finished my 617 page book that I started four days ago. I now have nothing to read.

Day 12 – Sightseeing around Hakone – 5 April 2009

For once Sarah has relinquished control of the blog and Alan is writing it tonight. Woohoo!!! If she wishes to add anything it will be in poofy pink.

After a late night and being woken up constantly by Sarah’s deafening snoring, we were up at mid morning for a day of touring around the local mountains area. Yeah, yeah, you can go on.  Maybe I wouldn’t be so tired had you not kept me up until 1.45am making me sit in the foyer with you as you watched the silly English soccer scores flick over. I’m sure you were hearing yourself snore anyway.

We walked the short distance from our hotel down to Hakone-Yumoto train station where we caught the train heading up the mountain. It was a journey of about 40 minutes, winding our way up the mountain in an old creaky 3 car train which felt and sounded like it could fall apart at any second. But we made it to Gora safely at which time we got off to continue the next part of our journey. There is only one track so at times we had to pull up into a different area so the one coming down could continue its travel.

From Gora to Sounzan was a relatively short stretch by cable car; only 6 stations, but it was amazingly steep. When we arrived at Sounzan station and walked up the platform it was an effort not to fall over that’s how steep this area is. They say it is handicap accessible but I don’t know how anyone in a wheelchair could get themselves up the platform.

From Sounzan we then boarded the ropeway (gondola) high above the countryside to Owakudani. There were a couple from Melbourne in our ropeway car and they had hired a tour guide for the day so we got to listen in while he was talking to them on the gondola. We saw the guide again about 5 hours later at Hakone-Yumoto station.  He waved at us and we waved back but it took a few seconds for me to realise who he was.  I’m sorry but all Japanese look the same to me. After reaching one particular peak, the terrain below changed from forest to “Hell Valley”, which is a volcanic crater. You have an amazing view from your ropeway car as there is sulphur coming out of the ground. If you didn’t know better you would think the volcano was about to erupt.

At that point you have to change ropeway cars to get onto another line, so we took the opportunity to have some lunch at one of the food places up there. Sarah had noodles. I don’t know what it was that I ordered, but by gosh it did not taste good.

After lunch we were back on the ropeway and heading downhill toward Lake Ashinoki which is 724 metres above sea level and was created by the last volcanic eruption there some 3000 years ago.

Upon arriving at the port at Lake Ashi, our pirate ship transport was already waiting for us so we boarded for the crossing from one end of the lake to the other. It was very cold outside so we spent most of the trek inside. My Fuji is clearly visible from several points along the ropeway and Lake Ashi but unfortunately for us it was completely obscured by low thick cloud today and we didn’t see it at all. Hopefully tomorrow.

Our boat docked in Hakonemachi and we then had the choice of either a 2 kilometre walk to Motohakone or to stay on the boat which takes about 7 minutes. we chose the boat and were joined on our seats by some German tourists, one of which was using a film camera. Film! Why would you bother these days?  He owned a very expensive Canon EOS 5 camera with an amazing lens on it. But still, digital is the only way to go these days.

So after arriving at Motohakone the next part of our journey was by bus back to our starting point in Hakone-Yumoto. It took about 40 minutes of driving on very narrow, winding mountain roads which got a bit hairy at times but we made it back safely. Alan fell asleep on the bus but in his scary sleep pose; eyes partly open together with his mouth.

Later in the afternoon we caught the train down to Odawara where we had booked a car rental. We bought some really really yummy dinner to bring back to our room before going to the car rental place and picking up our almost brand new Nissan March (only 811 kilometres on the odometer). We very skilfully managed to find our way back to our hotel without any problems whatsoever. The big test will be tomorrow when we have to drive about an hour and a half to Fujikyu Highland amusement park. The car has a GPS. No help there though, it’s only in Japanese. The people at the hotel have given us a map and directions. Some of the staff were laughing and we are not sure why. Is it because we hired a car, is it because we only have it for one day or is it because we’ve hired a car JUST to go to an amusement park? I think it is the latter.

Trivia for the day…. Pedestrians need to be extremely careful when crossing the road here. You should never step onto a pedestrian crossing if there is a car anywhere in sight as they simply will not stop for you. We’ve been almost run down numerous times. We even had a bus drive on the wrong side of the road to get around us.  There was no way he was slowing down for anyone.

Day 11 – Hakone-Yumoto – 4 April 2009

Today, like every other day, Sarah is blogging.  Alan is commenting in red.

We had a nice sleep in this morning, enjoying the last of our really nice bed in our really nice hotel.  It was sad to say goodbye to the king size bed, soft pillows, the spa bath and the view of the tower, but by midday we were on our way to the station. 

We could choose three ways to get here; local train for 80 minutes, Romancecar (which is another form of train) for 60 minutes or fast Shinkansen for 30 minutes.  We took the Shinkansen. Luckily we didn’t have any problems with train crashes or track work like we experienced yesterday. After arriving in Odawara,, we bought our three day passes to get around the transport in the area and then boarded the very slow train to Hakone-Yumoto. Thankfully we only had to go 4 stations so it didn’t take too long.

After stepping off the train we wondered what on earth we were doing here.  The Hakone / Mt Fuji area is huge and I chose to put us in an area close to the main train station.  However, it is obviously not where other people stay as after walking around for 90 minutes this afternoon, we realised we are the only westerners here.

We took a small local shuttle from the train station to the hotel for 100 yen each and I’m glad we did.  Hakone-Yumoto is not a flat place and there is a very large incline up to the hotel we would have had to drag our bags had we taken the 10 minute walk to the hotel. Hakone-Yumoto is a tiny little country town nestled in the mountains. There is a train station, hotels, one street of shops which mostly sell Japanese sweets or fish, Japanese restaurants, a 7-11 convenience store and not too much else from what we can tell. They’re obviously not used to seeing white people around here.

The hotel is nice and they knew us by name when we walked through the door, again, obviously they don’t get westerners staying here.  This is the only place on the trip that I booked direct with the hotel and I had been emailing Ken.  It was Ken who met us at check-in.  Japanese born but from the accent, American educated.  It was actually the best English we’ve found our entire trip. 

The room, although not as nice as Tokyo, is reasonably spacious, the beds are comfortable and unlike Osaka and Hiroshima, we have two pillows each AND they aren’t filled with rocks. We don’t have a spa here either of course, but the shower was pretty nice anyway. And apparently there are hot springs somewhere closeby which you can bathe in. Yes, they are one floor down.

After dropping our bags in the room we decided to go looking for some food.  We asked Ken if he had a map and said we were off to look for some food. He seemed a little shocked. Once we started wandering around, we could see why.  Before leaving the hotel Alan had picked up a brochure for the Toy Museum, not for the museum itself but for a picture of a hamburger on the front for the Museum’s cafe. After walking to the station wondering if our dinner tonight would be from 7-11, Alan saw the sign for the Museum and after a very very very steep climb up a road, we found Go Go Wimpy.  A delicious hamburger, fries, onion rings and a drink each was had for a very reasonable price. From what we could see, Go Go Wimpy is the only non-Japanese restaurant in all of Hakone-Yumoto, so we were glad to have found it. The walk to it was extremely steep though and it was hard enough for me to get up there let alone Sarah. The guy at the counter spoke not a word of English so there was a bit of a language barrier happening but the chef did speak some English so we got our message across.

By the time we had finished eating, it had started to drizzle and we walked back to the hotel in the rain. My dad would refer to it as “mountain weather”. The afternoon was cool, the sky was grey and there was light misty rain in the air. We’re surrounded by steep mountains on both sides here and I thought we could stumble across Closeburn at any point during our afternoon walk. Only my family will know what that means.

There is no internet in our room and Ken wasn’t sure whether it actually worked in the lobby but suggested we bring the laptop down and try.  No, it didn’t work but then he managed to find another cable for us, obviously running off their own computer system, for us to use.  After a quick check that it indeed did work, we returned to the room.  Alan had a quick nap as he intends on camping out in the lobby tonight to watch the soccer. I’ve been having soccer withdrawals so being Saturday I’ll see what I can find on the net later tonight. I am so glad I came to Japan prepared with enough tv shows on the laptop to watch otherwise we’d be going stir crazy with no internet in the room, no English speaking TV and nothing to go out and see. 

The area here is very quiet.  Tomorrow we hit the very large Hakone tourist area.  Hopefully the rain, which is still falling, will stop overnight and we might get a nice close up view of Mt Fuji.

Trivia for the day…. Our hotel here has a French name and there were big movie posters hanging in the Go Go Wimpy restaurant with their titles written in French. It’s odd as there certainly doesn’t appear to be any French people here or French restaurants or anything of that nature.

Day 10 - Most frustrating day ever, but it got better - 3 April 2009

Sarah again. Alan's complaining will be in red.  Honestly, there will be today. Understandable given the day we've had.

 

Today was a BAD day.  It started with us having a bad night.  One neighbour, and we never did work out which one, didn't shut up until after 3am.  They kept turning their TV up loud, banging their balcony door and overflushing the toilet.  If it happens tonight we will get up and go and find out who it is and make them stop.

 

We had an early start this morning as Alan wanted to visit Yomiuriland (herein after called Lame-o Land).  We got to the station at 8.45am for the over 1 hour trip to the park.  It was sunny and reasonably warm and we were optimistic of a good day. That lasted about 2 minutes. It was the warmest day we'll have for our entire trip, so a good day for an amusement park. One train line from our station had had a train accident and they had shut it down.  Alan said it was lucky that they have so many other lines in Tokyo that you'd never notice.  In fact it had the opposite effect.  All the other lines went into chaos.  We went from one station to another trying to get to the one we needed to get the subway line out to Lame-o and after an hour, we had gone about four stops, including back past the one we started from.  Finally, we manoevoured around and got our way out to the park. It was utter chaos and to happen during morning peak with squillions of people trying to get to work just made it beyond ridiculous. We went to Oimachi station to try to change to another subway line but couldn't even get down to the platform as there were just so many people there. And for a country in which it seems every second vehicle is a taxi, do you think there's one around when you really want one? When we did manage to get onto a train it was packed so tightly that you didn't need to hang on as there was no room to breath let alone fall over.

 

We arrived at Yomuiriland and finally found a place in Japan that wasn't busy, and there is a reason for that, and hence the name Lame-o Land. They have different pricing tickets; one just to get into the park (me) and one for park entry and all rides (Alan).  We started by having a nice lunch since we had been travelling over 2.5 hours to get there.  We choose the Indian food which was really good.  Then on to the park (here Alan will step in).

 

When you get off the train at Yomiurilandmae Station you're forced to ride the gondola to the park entrance unless you want to walk up a massive, very steep hill. It's basically a kids amusement park with a few big rides thrown in for good measure. I went on a stand-up coaster which was ridiculously short. There was a haunted house and a house of terror, both of which were laughable at how unscarifying they were. The one redeeming ride in the park is the Bandit, a steel coaster with a very high first climb and drop. Without that ride the entire park should definitely be bulldozed. The park is in serious need of someone to teach the staff how to run an amusement park. They should go to America to get tips on how it should be done properly.

 

So we left the park at about 2.15pm and got on the train and sat there, for 45 minutes!  Another train accident or some such nuisance, it was so NOT our day. Finally we crawled to the station where we needed to change trains and some nice lady stopped to let us know what had happened and where we should go from there. It was actually emergency work being carried out on a bridge this time.

 

We decided to try and do the stop we didn't do yesterday and where I have wanted to go, Nekobukuro.  In Tokyo where apartments are tiny and lives are busy, adopting a pet is impossible for most people but at Nekobukuro visitors can play with kitties.  It's basically a petting zoo for people / luxury apartment for 20 odd resident cats. It was nice to have some furry time as we've been missing our babies while we are here. It's on the 8th floor of a department store. There were some strange cats in there. One maine coon was the size of a small lion and there was a little tabby who had the shortest, stumpiest legs we've ever seen. They honestly must have been no more than 2 inches long. Unfortunately it was hard to get a decent photo of her since there was a big black boy cat constantly chasing her around trying to stick his willy in her.

 

After getting a milkshake for Alan from McDonalds we queued up for ages to get tickets for tomorrow's train to Hakone.  We returned to the hotel and then walked around to Tokyo Tower to see the night view.  We first walked through the busy park which was overflowing with picnickers tonight.  After our trip to the top of the Tower we picked up dinner from the a couple of the vendors in the park and returned to our room to eat it. I had what passes as a doner kebab over here and it was really good. I would have gone back down for another one if I didn't have to fight my way through all the drunken revelers. After dinner we went to cash in our two free drink vouchers before returning to the room. We got our free drinks at one of the hotels bars on the ground floor. We had a couple of delicious non-alcoholic cocktails. Thank goodness we didn't have to pay for them. A simple glass of orange juice cost A$17 there. Unbelievable! Now it is time for the final spa before we leave here tomorrow.

 

We are unsure whether we will have internet access in Hakone.  We will write the blog but it may not be posted until Tuesday afternoon. Keep checking each day as we'll try our best to post our blog each day.

 

Day 9 - Still Touring Tokyo - 2 April 2009

Sarah blogging again, because I almost killed Alan today.  Everything he says is 2 minutes from the station.  He will comment in blood, oh I mean red. I just repeat what the signs say. It's not my fault if that makes Sarah grumpy.  Could it possibly be the fact that you say it every 2 seconds even when there is no sign around?

 

Today started cloudy but looked like it would clear quickly and it did, although it was extremely windy.  We had four places on the agenda today but only got three done, although it took 5 hours.

 

Our first stop was Shibuya Crossing.  It is the world's busiest pedestrian intersection crossing.  We were there around 11.30am and although there were a lot of people, it wasn't jam packed.  Apparently on weekends you can feel like you're getting crushed as everyone tries to cross the street at the same time. It would probably be quite scary in morning peak I would imagine.

 

Right next to the crossing is a Hachiko Statue.  In the 1920s a professor who lived near the station kept a small Akita dog who would come to the station every afternoon to await his master's return.  The professor died in 1925 but the dog continued to show up and wait at the station every afternoon in the hope that his master would return, until his own death 11 years later.

 

Second stop was Harajuku to see the Meiji Shrine.  Before getting there, we saw the strangest Japanese girl all dressed up.  She was standing by the station refusing photos but we managed to sneak a few of her. The photos aren't great, but we had to be very subtle about what we were doing. We're good at being sneaky like that.

 

Although we thought we had seen enough shines that weren't as impressive as they were made out to be, we went anyway as it was only a few train stops.  This is apparently Japans most famous Shinto shrine.  Again the book said 2 minutes walk from the station.  OK, the gate may have been 2 minutes walk but there was another 20 minutes after that.  We thought the gate was very impressive but it wasn't as impressive as the Shrine.  So much wood, so much detail, it was worth the walk. The gate is the biggest wooden one in Japan. The Meiji Shrine was built in 1920, after Emperor Meiji died in 1912 and his soul is said to be present in the shrine. It was destroyed in World War 2 but rebuilt in 1958. It's on a 247 acre site and we were about to give up looking for it when we eventually came across it.

 

The next stop was the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office Building at Shinjuku which has free views from its 45th story observation deck.  Before getting there Alan was hungry and wanted some western food. Just lucky for him we found a Sizzler and after a burger each, we were back on our road to the building. That was a pretty darn good burger I have to say. Just what we both needed. The view was pretty spectacular.  We thought with it being such a clear day we might see Mt Fuji but it was still a little hazy.  We could just make it out but we had a better view from the train on the way to Tokyo. We could just barely see the outline of Mt Fuji off in the distance if you stared at it hard enough.

 

By this stage the trains were packed and people were everywhere. We contemplated making our last stop although it was going to be another long walk from the station.  Maybe tomorrow we will get to see the one thing I have marked off in the guide book for about five months.

 

After returning to the room, we had a quick afternoon nap before venturing out to dinner.  We stopped at a nice looking pizza place and although they had two seats left we were told "we have no room for you".  Can't help but take it personally.  So we tried the Yakatori House where the lady has been trying to pull us in all week.  Strange things on the menu but Alan managed to order some pretty decent food.  I was skeptical about the lobster and rightly so as we had small fried prawns still in their shells, with legs, heads and eyes.  Yes, I ate prawn eyes for dinner. It's better than it sounds. They are soft shell shrimp so although you eat the entire thing, head, shell, feelers and all, it really is quite nice. We simply had no idea what we were ordering but I suppose that's half the fun of eating in a foreign country. The woman serving us was not happy that we only asked to drink water. It's just that drinks are so expensive here.

 

Back to the hotel on the free shuttle we passed the park on the corner which is standing room only picnicing tonight.  Must have double the people for all those who missed out last night due to the rain.  And, might I add, tonight is FREEZING.  About 5 degrees and blowing a gale.

 

Tomorrow is forecast to be 17 degrees which will be positively boiling compared to what we've experienced thus far. We're off to Yomiuriland, an amusement park about an hour away by train. Fun fun fun!

 

We're hoping to meet up with our friend Janet who is flying into Tokyo tomorrow night but given that we leave Tokyo on Saturday morning I don't know if we'll have time. I'm sure we can catch up at home. We only live 10 minutes apart.

 

Right then, time for our nightly spa. We'll miss it when we leave Tokyo.

 

Alan also forgot to mention that there were a number of train delays around Tokyo today due to the wind including one Shinkansen accident.  Glad it wasn't on Saturday!

 

 

Day 8 - Various around Tokyo - 1 April 2009

Who else but Sarah doing the blog.  I am starting this while Alan is out exploring the Tokyo Electronics District (yawn). He will comment later in Red.

 

For all those who wanted to know, yes we did get in the spa last night.  It was lovely.  Don't forget to check out our photos.  There is a lovely one of Alan relaxing in the spa with the lavender bath salts. Luckily the spa jets were on when Sarah came in and took my photo so you can't actually see my man bits.  There isn't that much to see anyway.

 

It rained overnight but it was dry when we ventured out this morning, although heavily overcast.

 

We had booked the free shuttle last night to get us to the station and then boarded the train for Ueno Park. This is one of Japan’s most crowded, noisy and popular cherry blossom viewing locations with over 1000+ cherry trees. Here they were blooming but hadn't yet turned to the shade of pink which should be happening now, had it not been for the weather having been so cool.  Here we found a large number of people again setting up for picnics.  I don't know about you but sitting in the cold, on a tarp on a concrete path, doesn't sound like a lot of fun. When we came out of Ueno train station there were people absolutely everywhere. It was unbelievably crowded.

 

We had planned while we were here to visit Ueno Zoo, Japan's most famous zoo, helped by the fact that they have a giant panda, or should I say HAD a giant panda.  The sign on the entrance said "Ueno zoo do not have a giant panda".  When I enquired as to what happened to their panda, we found out she had died. I checked the internet when I got back to the room and yes, in fact she had died of heart failure almost a year ago.  That was pretty sad. I had been looking forward to visiting the panda. So, we didn't end up visiting the zoo. It's about time they updated all their signs etc throughtout Ueno Park to take off all the panda pictures and logos.

 

We continued our walk around the park towards the large pond area.  We walked past several food vendors and I saw some noodles that I liked the look of and Alan saw they were selling kebabs.  We walked around the Benten Hall Shrine and stopped to look at the pond.  It wasn't very impressive but they had some really cute ducks. We were expecting lovely big ponds but they were full of reeds mostly. We returned to the food vendor and Alan decided to have noodles with me after learning that he couldn't get cheese on his kebab.  Japanese don't like cheese apparently. How can you possibly have a kebab without cheese? That's just ridiculous! He then had a chocolate coated banana. We then walked to what was called "frog fountain" and that's what it was, a frog fountain.

 

We then walked to one of the many Tokyo subway stations.  Our rail tickets don't include subways so we had to purchase a ticket. Thankfully the machines have an English button. One thing I learned about the Tokyo subway, it is way too hot.  It was about 15 degrees warmer on their subway trains.  I thought I'd pass out.

 

A few stations later, we exited the subway to visit the Sensoji Temple, Tokyo’s oldest, said to have been founded in the 7th century. It was supposed to be very impressive but right now it is surrounded by a lot of scaffolding.  Nakamise Dori, is a colourful,and may I add, packed, shopping promenade, which extends from Kaminarimon Gate to Hozoamon Gate.  We walked the promenade on the way down to the Temple but took the back street to get back.  Much faster that way. 

Alan was excited when he saw a sign for Denny's, his favourite place in the USA. 2nd favourite actually. My favourite would have to be Olive Garden, the most awesome chain of Italian restaurants where you can overload on cheese to your hearts content. We walked up there but didn't go in ... we were still full from the noodles.

 

Then it was back to the boiling subway and then on the train again.  I choose to come back here to the room and Alan went on to the Electronics District.

 

He returned about two hours later thankfully without having bought anything.  It is always a little scary leaving him with money.  You never know how many Game & Watches he will want to buy. I spent a good hour and a half wandering through the Akihabara Electronics Town, which is the Tokyo quivalent of Den-Den Town which I previously visited while in Osaka. It's less dangerous and seedy than it's Osaka counterpart, but still has all the same mix of electronics and porn. I found a few obsolete 80s games which were very close to worth buying but I managed to refrain. All the shops are multi-storey so when I finished looking at a particular level I go up to the next. More than once I came back down in a hurry after inadvertently stumbling into the Japanese naughties section. Well, I don't read Japanese so I can't tell what the signs say about what's upstairs.

 

We spent the rest of the rainy afternoon watching things we had brought with us on the laptop to watch.  Alan was hoping to see Australia play in the soccer but after flicking around for a while, it looked like he had missed out but then, on it came about 10 minutes later so he got his Australia fix for the night. The commentary was in Japanese but I was more than happy to just watch with no sound. Australia are now all but through to the World Cup finals.

 

We rushed to get to the 8pm shuttle to look for dinner down by the station, as there is no food places around our hotel, unless you want to spend A$100 each on room service.  What we didn't know was that it was pouring with rain. They don't believe in shop awnings over here so there is very little in the way of shelter.  We ended back at Miami Gardens for dinner, with a pepperoni pizza and a spaghetti ....  We don't buy drinks if we don't have to as they are very expensive.  Tonight we had dessert (which are cheaper than a soft drink).  I had a very nice creme brulee and Alan had a tiramisu.  We made the 9.15pm shuttle back to the hotel, the second last for the night and now, I think, it is spa time again. We have an umbrella in our luggage but since we didn't know it was raining before we left our room we didn't take it. And if we had gone back up to get it we would have missed our shuttle bus. So we were the only doofuses out there tonight without an umbrella.  Actually, we weren't the only doofuses.  People were still picnicing in the park around the corner from the hotel.  They were on their tarp, on the concrete but now under umbrellas.

 

Hopefully the weather will improve tomorrow.