It’s our last day here in Japan, we have so many more adventures and sights seen since day 7, I will have to update this blog and photo gallery once I get home later this week.
Our stay in Kyoto and Tenri City have been huge, and the 4+ hour return from Tenri to Tokyo has really taken it’s toll.
We are ready to come home, but we all will miss our time here, as Marek said earlier this evening “it’s our last night in paradise”
Keep moving Forward
The Coleman Clan
Well we had Day 6 all planned to go to Mt Fuji, what an adventure!
We ended up taking 7 trains to get there, as the trains we got on anly went part of the way to the final stop before shooting off nowhere near where we wanted, it only took 3 hours on local and express trains 
In the end we got to where we wanted to be, but Mt Fuji was covered in cloud, we did see it while we travelled there, but barely anything when we got off the train.
As it was lunchtime we went and got some curry from a local restuarant, and checked out the timetable to go back home, as we wanted to go down to a nearby lake and check it out.
Near the lake was a cable car up the hill to 1000m to a lookout across the valley to Mt Fuji, even though it was in cloud we decided to take a ride, see the Gallery for some pictures.
It was a great ride and a great view, we (Vic and I) saw some snow monkeys on a track from the gondala. When we got to the top some of Fuji-San was peeking out.
We had a short time to stay up at the lookout, as we needed to get back to the station to catch the 3 trains back home, so we hoofed it back in shortorder, by the time we got to the station Fuji-San had cleared right up, it was marvelous.
We had a nice ride back home, but we almost missed our connection halfway on the changeover to the JR line at Otsuki, as we had all dozed off we got off in time though
The next day saw us off to the snow, on the Bullet train, almost to Nagano, we were dissapointed as there really wasn’t anywhere for the kids to play, so we decided to go back, and we went to the big Buddhist temple near Ueno in Asakusa, it was great, we threw some coins, did some claps and got some great bargains and photos, it was Coming of Age day holiday so we got a nice photos of some girls in their Kimonos.
We are off to Kyoto on Day 9, more entries to come.
Osu
Mark, Vic, Beth, Marek, and Brittany
I have posted photos from Day 6 and 7 to the Gallery.
Day 3 and 4 were big days for us, we attacked DisneyLand on Thursday and DisneySea on Friday, and overall we all agreed DisneySea was the pick for enjoyment, but DisneyLand was uniquely Disney and hence it was good on it’s own.
Let’s face it, if as a kid you said “I went to DisneyLand in Tokyo”, compared to “I went to DisneySea in Tokyo” DisneyLand has way more Cred
We arrived at DisneyLand at around 11am, we weren’t that quick getting sorted that day and went clockwise around the park, we easily didn’t see everything, and we went back to those attractions we really enjoyed, The best ride by far would of been the rollercoaster in Tomorrowland, it was a full blown rollercoaster in the traditional sense, except for a loop, but inside a building in the dark.
DisneySea had a heap more rides, and had two fantastic shows on the main water area, I got some great videos I will upload to Youtube.
Both days really hit our feet hard, but we are coping, today was also a bit walking day as we went all over Tokyo to different shopping centres and the like to buy bits and pieces we still needed to get, mostly clothing.
We hit on a great noodle dish that had Soba (buckweat) noodles with tempura seafood (prawns, calamari/octopus) and tempura vegetables in a rich broth, all of us agreed it was great, and along with our other favourite of Katsu Curry, we have all our meal choices sorted.
I didn’t get any photos of significance taken today, but I will upload a couple for the record, as it was drizzling all day, and bitterly cold. One great sight was outside Shibuyu station, the crossing was awash with umbrellas going across the street, you couldn’t see the peolle, just a mass of umbrellas.
Time to get the washing out of the dryer, give Vic’s feet a rub, and savour another different japanese beer from the local 24hr convienience store.
Keep moving forward,
Mark, Vic, Beth, Marek and Brittany
I have posted photos from the last few days, in a new album in the gallery at http://www.mvbmb.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=88
I’ll do further posts on what we did when we get some breathing space, hopefully Saturday, we have had two huge days.
Osu
Well we made it to Japan, albeit adventure packed.
The flight to Hong Kong went well at first but then the pilot made an announcement that we would be landing in Cairns due to a “technical error”.
I could tell they thought it was serious, as you could here the pilot breathing in air via a mask that made him sound like Darth Vader when he breathed in.
We ended up in Cairns for 2 hours in transit, and found out that one of the systems in the control panels was shorting causing fumes to enter the cockpit.
They fixed it and we were on our way.
All of this meant that we didn’t get to the hotel in Hong Kong until after 11:30pm, and that made us too late for going to The Peak.
To make it all the more interesting Marek informed us as we were checking in at the hotel that he didn’t have his napsack on him, he had left it in the bus from the airport, even though he was told to get it as we were leaving. My fault I guess for not double-checking.
We had the concierge chase down the tour bus driver and the driver said it wasn’t there, so we left our contact details in the vain hope it’d turn up before we went to the airport.
But alas we weren’t so lucky.
As I’m on the top level for frequent flyers we have been able to gain access to all of the business class lounges in Brisbane and Hong Kong, so we had breakfast in the lounge at Hong Kong before we flew to Tokyo.
We flew in low enough on the way in to see a wide expanse of Japan as we came into land and see some of the rural areas along the coast.
Immigration took over an hour of queuing before we were able to get to the train station to catch the train to Nippori. it was a very nice ride from Narita airport to Nippori and we got in just after dusk. After finding our way out of the station we walked down to the Ryokan, on the way is a pedestrian mall with shops and food outlets, Yanaka Ginza is it’s name.
It’s very cute and a nice introduction to Japan for us, we found a Bento box and curry/noodle shop at the end of the mall, that we have eaten at both nights now, food is great.
Well the first day had was set aside for going into a main JR station to validate the 14 day rail passes for the rest of our time, we had to catch the Keisei Sykliner (electric express train) on the first day when we landed as we are in Japan for 15 days, and JR Narita Express would of been 3 times as much. After a nice morning walk to Ueno station we booked Shinkansen (bullet train) tickets to the snow, and to Kyoto, and bought Disneyland/sea 2 day passes as well. We also sussed out how to get to Mt Fuji, but as it’s winter we can’t go up, but we will have some great views from ground level they tell us, I’ll let you know in a later post/email.
As Marek lost his napsack, Vic was very keen to find a replacement thermal t-shirt for him, as he really feels the cold.
It took ages and lots of walking around the shopping centres near Tokyo station to find one, and as it turns out the shopping centre we found it in was very good, it has a huge range of stuff that Vic liked
All in all we spent around 8+ hours wandering around Nippori, Ueno and Tokyo stations and the environs, but we did manage to get some photos of the imperial palace from the outside before the police moved everyone along at 4pm when area near the gates to the palace is cleared every day, I’ll post the photos soon I hope to my Gallery site via http://www.mvbmb.com
Oyasumi Nasai/Good Night,
Mark, Vic, Beth, Marek and Brittany
I have done a lot of travelling in 2007, relatively speaking, and with the kids all going to be in high school in 2008 I thought it would be a good time to go on a BIG holiday.
So we are off to Japan for 15 days with travel via Hong Kong on the way there and back, the following posts will be my comments on what we did and how it went.
Cheers.
Whew, system is now live and other than some hiccups here and there, it has been successful, some stuff to tidy up before month end, but Scotty is here now so they’ll get sorted our new CorVu god.
Still having long days, I’ll be glad to go home on Friday night.
Well, it’s been over a year, and I’m back.
I have turned off comments for unregistered users and changed the theme.
I start updates shortly, as I will have some head-space free next week.
I am currently in Chile; Antofagasta in Northern Chile to be exact.
This is the third and last trip for this project, it’s been hard yakka, lots of 15hour days, late night dinners and early mornings.
As I type this I am in the middle of the Go Live for the site, so fingers crossed we will have a converted system in 12 hours time
Until next Post.
Buenas Noches
Chao Chao
This should be where I stay, now that I have somewhere stable I’ll be ble to dedicate to writing entries more often.
The current theme isn’t as good as what I was using at http://intarsia.wordpress.com
I’ll be updating it soon with one that uses widgets.
Cheers, Mark