Monday 24th April 2017 to Tuesday 25th April 2017
Well, the day had arrived for us to head to Japan on our very first TripaDeal tour. For several weeks prior it was doubtful that we would actually be going, given my knee replacement operation. But thanks to lots of physio, exercise and positive thinking we were on our way.
Ah, valet parking, you've got to love it. I managed to get us a great bargain online so it was just a matter of driving to the Brisbane International Airport (twice actually, seeing as how we missed the car park turnoff the first time and had to circle back and around - fortunately we were early!), driving up to the Valet Parking area, handing over our keys and heading to the terminal.
Our Singapore Airlines flight departed at 2.30pm and was pretty uneventful until we were close to landing in Singapore. A mighty storm was brewing in the distance and from way up in the air it was absolutely spectacular. The lightening was amazing, but I was very glad that we were not going to be flying through it.
We had a couple of hours wait in Singapore Changi Airport, but it's just so lovely that we spent most of the time wandering around and checking out the various shops and gardens
The next flight from Singapore to Tokyo's Narita Airport took a little over 7 hours, and a real highlight was when we were coming into land we could see the peak of Mount Fuji from our plane window.
As I never use airplane toilets I did need to make a pit stop as soon as I disembarked the aircraft. Well...that began my first experience with Japanese toilets. They are just awesome and I would dearly love to have one at home. When I walked into the cubicle, the friendly little toilet seat actually lifted up to welcome me - and inside the bowl lit up! And...the seat was heated! When came time for me to flush, I began pressing buttons in an endeavour to find the right one. Well, I had warm water spouts spraying up from various positions inside the toilet, and even music playing, but no flush. Finally I located a small handle around the side of the toilet which did the trick and I was out of there with a big smile on my face.
A very sweet little guide from TripaDeal was waiting to meet us and our fellow passengers at the airport to transport us by bus to our hotel for the next couple of nights, the Hotel JAL City Tamachi, a very nice well located hotel.
As we couldn't check in until after 2pm and at that stage it was only around 10am we decided to explore the general area. And in our own inimitable style we covered a fair amount of Tokyo. Our first impression was that it was so CLEAN and the flowers everywhere were just gorgeous
There are convenience stores everywhere, so when lunchtime came around we decided to buy ourselves a Bento Box from one of them and enjoy it while sitting on a seat by a canal. Around 3 o'clock we started sagging so made our way back to the hotel, where we checked in to our room, had a shower, did a bit of unpacking and preparing for the next day or so...and were in bed, asleep by 4.30pm!
Wednesday 26th April 2017
After a brilliant night's sleep we woke up ready and raring to go. We headed down to the breakfast buffet which had a range of foods from both cultures, but I decided to try out the Japanese vegetable curry with sticky rice. Oh my goodness, what a taste thrill that was. And so it turned out that this was my staple breakfast fare for the duration of the trip.
The tour bus left around 8.30am for a morning tour of Tokyo with our guide Yoko. First up we visited the Meiji Shrine, Tokyo's most famous Shinto shrine dedicated to the late 19th-century emperor who opened Japan to the West.
The 12 metre high tori gate at the entrance to the 200 acre park is made of 1500 year old cypress
Before entering the park itself we had to stop at the cleansing station to purify our hands and mouth
We spent about an hour here all up, wandering around the beautiful grounds before getting back on to the bus for our next stop - Tokyo Tower. This tower is modelled on Paris' Eiffel Tower and acts as a symbol for Japan's rebirth as a major economic power. We got to travel up to the observatory, where we had some great views out over Tokyo
Our next stop...the Imperial Palace, residence of Japan's Imperial Family. The gardens are beautiful and so is the setting for the Palace, which is not open to the public except on two days a year, December 23rd (the Emperor's birthday) and January 2nd (New Year's Greeting). As we were here on neither of those days we had to be content with lurking around the outside.
At lunchtime our Tokyo city tour ended and we were dropped off at Ginza Street, Tokyo's very upmarket shopping district. We wandered around for several hours and even managed to tackle the very busy 4-Chrome intersection...and make it to the other side unscathed!
In mid afternoon we were in need of a sit down and a coffee so we went into a coffee shop on Ginza Street. We did actually try a genuine Japanese green tea when we first arrived in Tokyo and it was 'interesting'. Suffice to say today we ordered two flat whites, and I must say that the Japanese make a really good coffee. We were sitting at one of the inside tables just chatting when an Asian couple next to us leaned over and asked where we were from. When we told them we were from Brisbane, Australia, they were so excited...they were from Sydney! And so we chatted with these lovely people for at least half an hour, and as we have found in so many of our travels - we will probably never see them again, but they made an everlasting impression on us and added to the enjoyment of the day. Thank you random couple.
Finally we could walk no more and were totally shopped out (not that we bought anything of significance) so we decided to catch a taxi back to our hotel. Taxis in Japan are very reasonably priced and, as with everything else in Japan, are pristine clean. The doors open automatically and the seats are lined with beautiful crocheted covers (which I am sure must be laundered and starched daily). And all the taxi drivers wear a uniform which includes hat and white gloves. A real treat.
All we could manage that night was a salad for dinner which we purchased from a nearby Lawson's convenience store and took back to our room to enjoy.
Thursday 27th April 2017
Today was a designated Free Day, but we decided to go on an optional tour to Mt Fuji. I mean how could we come to Tokyo and not see this iconic mountain? One funny thing we saw as we made our way out of Tokyo was a man standing outside a shop wearing a face mask. Many Japanese people opt to wear masks so it's not a rare site, but what was funny was when he pulled down his mask so that he could take an almighty drag of his cigarette!
The first stop on today's tour was Lake Kawaguchi, one of the five lakes that lie at the base of Mt Fuji. Here we got the most magnificent view of Mt Fuji as well as our first view of the cherry blossoms that Japan is renowned for
Next we moved on to Oshino Hakkai ("Eight Ponds"), a small village in the Five Lake Region located on the site of a former sixth lake that dried out several hundred years ago.
There are lots of small stalls where villagers are selling vegetables, sweets, handicrafts and other local products (like handmade mugwort dumplings)... 
Our time here went too quickly - we both would have loved to have a few more hours. But alas we were on a strict timetable and so we reluctantly boarded the bus bound for our next stop, Oshino Shinobi no Sato "Oshino Ninja Village".
Situated in the foothills of Mt Fuji, this Ninja theme park is designed to give you the opportunity to go back to old Japanese times - the times of ninja and samurai and of old Japanese houses with hidden doors and traps. It was a real hoot and we were so excited about telling the little ones about it. We just had to buy Jack a 'genuine' ninja hood, headband, sword (plastic of course, as we dearly love our little granddaughter Lucy and know that she would have been in danger had we got him something more lethal) and socks. We sent Jack and Lucy and Oscar and Olivia an ecard with our 'ninja photo' on it
When Olivia saw it she said to Ang “Cool,
Nanna’s doing a gun. Since that ninja’s not
died she must be a good one. Nanna must know all about ninjas, I'm going to ask
her next time I have a sleepover”.
After lunch we went to an amusement park which housed Fuji Airways 4D experience. Here we got to go on an awesome 4D ride, which was very similar to one of our favourite rides at Disneyworld, "Soarin". Just brilliant!
And finally, for the pièce de résistance of our whole day, we went to the 5th Station of Mt Fuji. Located 2300 metres above sea level, it is the gateway for climbing the northern slopes of the mountain. The scenery was just breathtaking but holy smokes, was it freezing!
On our way up and back we travelled along "Melody Road", a 250m stretch of road that plays music. There are actually thirty such roads in Japan, and this one plays "Fuji-san", a Japanese folk song. How it works is that grooves are cut at very specific internals in the road surface. The melody road uses the spaces between to create different notes and depending on how far apart the grooves are, a car moving over them will produce a series of high or low notes. It was pretty amazing.
Friday 28th April 2017
This morning we said farewell to Tokyo...and to our large suitcases which would be meeting us in Kyoto...and headed to Tokyo train station to catch the bullet train to Nagoya.
Tokyo Station was busy, busy, busy, but in true Japanese style, very clean and ordered.
Everything that you hear about bullet trains is absolutely true. They are fast! So fast that you really see nothing outside but a blur.
However, after reaching Nagoya in record time, we boarded an express train which would take us to our destination for today...Takayama. This two hour journey was an absolute delight. The scenery was spectacular and very interesting
Once we arrived in Takayama a shuttle bus was waiting to take us to our hotel, the Route Inn Grantia Hida, nestled up in the mountains overlooking the town and the snow covered Japanese Alps in the distance. And lots of cherry blossoms outside our window
As there was a complimentary shuttle service to take guests to and from the hotel into the town we decided to check out what looked like a very lovely city. There was a full day planned for us the next day starting with a walking tour, so we just ambled about the area for a couple of hours, checking out the lovely little houses, shops and gardens before catching the shuttle bus back to our hotel for the night.
As with many of the hotels we stayed at on this trip, we were provided with Japanese night attire to wear. It was actually really comfortable and I couldn't resist getting a photo in the obligatory pose...
Saturday 29th April 2017
After a night sleeping on a mattress not unlike sleeping on a block of wood, we awoke to the sound of birds chirping and a view of snow on top of the Japanese Alps.
Following another wonderful buffet breakfast we met our group in the lobby around 8.30am for a visit to Takayama's morning markets, one of the biggest in Japan. Located along the banks of the Miyagawa River, there were so many shops selling everything from unrecognisable comestibles to candles.
We wandered the whole length of the markets before meeting up with our group for a walk to Takayama Jinya and an inside tour. Takayama Jinya was the former Government office which has been open to the public as a museum since 1969. The most memorable feature of this building was the Nightingale Floor, a special wooden floor designed to make the sound of a nightingale when walked on. Its purpose was to act as an alarm against attackers.
After our tour of the Takayama Jinya, the rest of our day was free, and as the Takayama Festival was on, there were gorgeous floats everywhere to look at
Sunday 30th April
After breakfast the coach arrived to take us to the next stop on our adventure, Kanazawa. On the way we stopped at Shirakawa-go Village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the remote mountains. Fortunately we were able to spend a few hours here - a fascinating and beautiful place, famous for the traditional gassho-zukuri farmhouses, some of which are more than 250 years old.
We arrived in Kanazawa around 1.30pm, where we had a couple of hours to wander through Kenroku-en Garden set in 11 glorious hectares next to Kanazawa Castle. This is said to be one of Japan's three most beautiful gardens
We checked into our hotel around 4pm and as soon as we had settled in we set out to explore this huge shopping/restaurant complex close to the hotel.
At this point I would like to talk about the window displays outside all Japanese restaurants...in every city that we went to. They are absolute works of art - replicas of the dishes available to order made from resin, plastic or wax...
When we got back to our hotel we had our showers and dressed in the kimonos that had been left on the end of our bed for us
Monday 1st May
We enjoyed a very welcome sleep in this morning as our train to Kyoto didn't leave until 12.15pm. Although we did have plans to explore more of Kanazawa by loop bus, we were hit by a terrible storm so we decided to just stay put in the hotel.
Fortunately the storm had cleared by the time we had to walk to the train station to catch "The Thunderbird" express train to Kyoto, a very pleasant and interesting 2 1/2 hour journey where we saw loads of rice paddies, huge factories and little villages
And to make matters worse, our room smelled of cigarette smoke...EWW! But every hotel room in Japan is also equipped with a humidifier, so we cranked that little sucker up and left it to do its job while we went for a lovely long walk. The train station, which was only about a 10 minute walk from our hotel, was another marvellous place. Not just for train travel, but a shopping, cinema and restaurant mecca. And it was here that we had our first experience of Ramen - OMG! We ordered one bowl between us, and still couldn't finish it all. For approximately $7 Australian we feasted on this delicious concoction of bone broth, finely sliced tender pieces of meat, wheat noodles, green onions, mushrooms and bamboo shoots. The most memorable meal of our holiday.
Tuesday 2nd May
After the usual breakfast fare of Japanese vegetable curry and sticky rice (John's favourite breakfast was the grilled herring or mackerel) we left for a Kyoto City Tour around 9am. Our first stop was the Kinkaku-ji Golden Temple, another of our favourite places on this trip.
Kinkaku-ji is a Zen Buddhist temple whose top two floors are completely covered in gold leaf. Formally the retirement villa of the shogun, he willed it to the sect after his death in 1408. The temple is built overlooking a large pond, but unfortunately it is not the original one as it has burned down numerous times, most recently in 1950 when it was set on fire by a fanatic monk. The present structure was rebuilt in 1955.
Next stop, Nijo Castle, built in 1603 as the Kyoto residence of the first shogun of the Edo Period (1603-1867). After that time it was used as an imperial palace before being donated to the city and opened up to the public as a historic site. In 1994 it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Our tour ended in the Nishiki Market (also known as "Kyoto's Kitchen"), a narrow, five block long shopping street lined by more than one hundred shops and restaurants. What an incredible place - although some of the foods being sold were totally unrecognisable to us
After wandering around this market for a couple of hours, we found ourselves looking for a nice quiet place for a sit. And what better place than a Buddhist temple - not inside, but in the lovely quiet garden outside. Here we sat and people watched for quite a while until we decided to walk some more...10kms more to be exact. We finally found the way back to our hotel, stopping along the way for dinner. We slept very well that night.
Wednesday 3rd May
Up an at 'em early this morning as we had a quick breakfast and then walked down to Nijo Station to catch a train to Kyoto Station (about 3 stops in all). Once at Kyoto Station, which is absolutely enormous
a guide to met us at the station to get us on the train which we were catching for this morning's walking tour of Nara. And once we were on the train it was a very pleasant 40 minute journey to Nara. Due to its past history as the first permanent capital of Japan, it remains full of historic treasures, including some of Japan's oldest and largest temples. But the main reason that I wanted to go there was to see the deer. Most of them are concentrated in Nara Park, but they can also be seen wandering through the marketplace and on the roadways. According to legend, the god of the Kasuga Taisha came riding a white deer in the old days, so the deer enjoy protected status as envoys of the god.
But of course, we also saw ABT (another bloody temple)...two actually. The first was Todajii Temple ("Great Eastern Temple), one of Japan's most famous and historically significant and a landmark of Nara. The temple was constructed in 752 as the head temple of all provincial Buddhist temples of Japan and grew so powerful that the capital was moved from Nara to Nagaoka in 784 in order to lower the temple's influence on government affairs. So as temples go, this was pretty important.
Next we had to walk through the busy street market to reach Kofukuji Temple, which used to be the family temple of one of the most powerful clans in the early 700s
At lunchtime our walking tour ended and we trudged back to Nara Station for our return train journey to Kyoto, where we had the remainder of the day free. When we got back to Kyoto we went down underneath the station itself, where there is a huge shopping and dining complex. We were spoilt for choice on where to dine, but as it was lunchtime it was pretty busy so we chose the one with the shortest line. And as usual the food, or the price of said food, didn't disappoint - we enjoyed a shared plate of curry & rice; lobster bisque and an iced tea for the bargain basement price of around $A6.
Around 3pm we hit a proverbial brick wall and decided to take the train back to our hotel for a bit of a rest. The Japanese train system is amazing and quite easy to follow, except the huge crowds can be a bit daunting. We had to find our way to Platform 33 to catch a train to Nijo Station, the closest to our hotel. And of course, as this is not QR, we didn't have to wait any longer than 2 minutes between available trains. And, of course, again as this is not QR, the trains run on time and are absolutely pristine.
We chilled out in our cupboard...er, room, for an hour or so and also packed an overnight bag to take to tomorrow night's stop while our main suitcases were transported to Osaka. Around 6pm we set out again for a quick meal and then an early night.
Thursday 4th May - "May the Forth Be With Us"
Farewell Kyoto - it was another great experience - next stop Mt Koya and our night in the Buddhist Monastery. Mt Koya is the centre of Shingon Buddhism, an important Buddhist sect which was introduced to Japan in 805 by Kobo Daishi (also known as Kukai), one of Japan's most significant religious figures. A small, secluded temple town has developed around the sect's headquarters that Kobo Daishi built on the wooded mountaintop.
The journey here was really lovely as we climbed into the mountains
Once we reached our destination we headed straight down to Okunoin's cemetery, the largest in Japan, with over 200,000 tombstones lining the almost two kilometre long approach to Kobo Daishi's mausoleum. Wishing to be close to Kobo Daishi in death to receive salvation, many people, including prominent monks and feudal lords, have had their tombstones erected here. It was absolutely fascinating to walk through here
Finally it was time to check in to our accommodation for the night, Eko-Inn, a Buddhist temple lodging. There are about 50 of this type of accommodation which give you a taste of a monk's lifestyle, eating vegetarian monk's cuisine (shojin ryori) and attending the morning prayers. This was another of the highlights of our Japan trip. Our room was surprisingly large and comfortable
Dinner was also an interesting experience. Of course we knew that it was going to be vegetarian, but some of the things on our tray were totally foreign to us. Still we gave everything a try
Friday, 5th May 2017
Our night's sleep on the futon was actually extremely comfortable, except that the paper thin walls could not disguise the incredibly loud snoring emanating from our next door neighbours!We were all invited to attend the Monks' morning ceremony at 6.30am but only four of us from our tour ended up going. They really missed something very special and I'm glad that we got up early to attend.
Breakfast was served at 7.30am and it was just terrible! Pretty much the only thing that we could eat was the sticky rice, so as soon as we left the dining room we went over the road to the coffee shop. As we had a few hours before we were to be picked up and taken to the cable car station, we decided to take a nice quiet walk through the town before it got too crowded
Our hotel, Hotel Monterey Grasmere, was just gorgeous and located right next door to the subway. The hotel Reception was located on the 22nd floor of the hotel, but what was truly extraordinary was that on that same floor was the All Saints Church Brock Hampton. This chapel is surrounded by green grass and vivid flowers and illuminated from above by the extensive glass roof. It was designed to imitate the churches of the Cotswolds. As there were pretty much back-to-back weddings in there, we couldn't go inside, but we did manage to snap a quick picture in between ceremonies
Saturday, 6th May 2017
As breakfast wasn't until 9am, we had a delightful sleep in. However, as this was the last day of our holiday we wanted to see as much of Osaka as we could. I had done some research on TripAdvisor and the recommended place to visit was Osaka Castle. So, after navigating the vast train system, we caught a couple of trains there.The grounds are quite extensive but, thanks to a very cute little tourist train, we made our way to the Castle itself
As we had checked out earlier that morning we couldn't go to our room, however the hotel had provided all of our tour group with a lounge area. They provided us with refreshments and food until we were picked up at 7.40pm and taken to the airport for our flight home. It was great to be able to chill out for the last time with the people we had spent the last fortnight with.
After checking in at Osaka airport we put our brains into neutral and prepared for the long journey back home, declaring our trip to Japan a great success. Hopefully we will get back again one day.
