Wednesday – part two and au revoir dear jgontour

Well, it was only a year ago that this actually happened… In fact if you didn’t pay much attention to the date, and omitted to notice 2009, you might think this was all wrapped up in good time.

Our last day in Tokyo was rainy. We borrowed clear, flimsy umbrellas from the hotel which protected us to some degree. I can’t quite remember where we went, but we sought out a material shop for me and a tshirt shop for MM and then had lunch – more of those dumplings and noodles. Yum.

Getting to the airport was slightly hairy – bloody Japan and their credit cardless society! We didn’t have enough cash for the train tickets and then had a panic trying to find a bank with an ATM that would give us money… eeek! Anyway, finally on the train, and to the airport in plenty of time. Even got a few postcards sent last minute like.

Of course the weather had been getting worse and worse and by the time we were taking off they were warning us that it could be very bumpy the whole way etc etc. Just what you want to hear as a worry wart flyer. And it was damn bumpy. Enough for me to say to myself ‘I am never flying again’. The stewardess was very kind and stopped serving dinner to explain to me that no plane ever crashed from turbulence and that planes wings are designed to almost touch they are so flexible. This helped a bit, but only actually touching down relieved the symptoms. We had a little time in Cairns airport (hee hee, Australia again) and then a very smooth (thank goodness) flight to Sydeney, Australia where we were met by MM’s parents to drive us home.

What a trip! So many fantastic things, so many beautiful places, so many great people. What a year. Would I do it all again? With this one year’s thinking time, absolutely yes. With kiddies in tow? Definitely yes. I am so glad I kept this record so that we can look back (as we already have) to see details, directions, places, chronologies. Fan-freaking-tastic. Happy sigh. Thanks for reading along!

xxx 

Two little bescarfed statues. In a back alley.

Rainy day in downtown Shinjuku (?)

Such neat, clean taxis. Did I mention they are spotless inside and have lacey covered head rests? And automatically opening doors? That the driver has a cow about when you inadvertently open the wrong side yourself into oncoming traffic?

Mmm, lunch. Dumplingy things to the left. Tasty.

Plastic food displays in restaurant windows. So appetising!

Wednesday – part one

Well we are just about packed up and ready to check out. Our flight home (yes, HOME) doesn’t leave til 9.15 tonight, so we’ll leave our bags here and see what we can see on our last day in Tokyo.

And you won’t find out all about it until… we are back in Australia! Can you believe after all this time, that day has come.

Wish us well for the flight, and see you after touchdown, 10.45am Thursday Sydney time.

xxx

Tuesday – Asakusa and Ueno

We were up early early again, but waited around to miss the peak hour subway crush. Not sure that’s something I need to experience. Then we headed for Asakusa – one of the older parts of Tokyo with old wooden buildings etc. After getting a local map from a tourist info place, we wandered in to what turned out to be a hectic little tourist shopping street. Plenty of tourists, stalls and tat. Yeah baby! hehehe. We had a bit of a look and steeled ourselves with some hot-off-the-press bean paste pastries (mmm). And some hot sweet sake which… we didn’t finish.

There is huge temple – Senso-ji which is apparently the second tallest in Japan. More of the incense, prayer boards, fountain for cleansing. Plenty of people, tourist and not. Not as nice as the other temple I think, but maybe the wedding and surroundings swayed it for me.

After a fair bit of walking it was back to the subway to get to Ueno – a huge park. There is a big pond there, that must be incredible in springtime, parts of it were just covered in dead water lilies. A little reminiscent of the apocolypse photos from sunflower France! We stopped for a while to listen to a busking drummer – quite amazing how many drums, xylophones, bells, clappers etc he managed to bang, tap, ring at one time.

Then we ventured into the Ameyoko Arcade, which is one of the only old fashioned outdoor markets in Tokyo apparently. A little like the fish market of Saturday, lots of fish, fruit, veg, fish, fishy things, fish etc. And sneakers etc. Very busy. Kinda cool that it wriggles around the area.

From there, M wanted to visit ‘electric town’ (where all the electric stuff is sold) and ‘sporting goods neighbourhood’ (speaks for itself non?) but I was exhausted and had a headache, so I came home and he went to check it out.

We had really, really, REALLY planned to go out again that evening to Shibuya, but once again, both asleep by 5pm and just too painful when the alarm went off, so we ignored it. We were both awake again by 11 or 12 and my headache was even worse, so I did what I could to get over that. SO over stupid sleeping patterns. Really.

Shopping street, wooden buildings

Painting on closed shopfront

Temple

Tall temple

Sneaky kimono shot

Blossom manhole cover!

Dead lotus flowers with ducks

The cycling-gear-clad drummer

Ameyoko Arcade entrance

Monday – lost in translation

1am: both awake

5am: M asleep, me awake awake awake

10am: both asleep

12pm: M awake, out to buy lunch (breakfast? dinner??)

12.30: both awake, eating

1pm: me just resting eyes before we go out

1.05: both asleep

6pm: me awake, M asleep, when he wakes up we’ll get up

6.05: both asleep

11pm: both awake…

And so Monday was entirely lost. And the jet lag drama continues…

Sunday – Omote-sando, Harajuku and Ikebukuro

A rainy, rainy day. Fortunately one of the hotel boys offered us umbrellas as we were leaving, we sure made use of em.

We got breakfast from a very, very tasty bakery down the road and got the subway to Omote-sando. There is a quite European wide boulevard there, full of expensive shops. Also some chic, if extortionate cafes, we stopped at one for second breakfast (well, for a coffee for Martin anyway.) Across the road from our window vantage point we spotted a huge toy shop, so we crossed over and went in. Lots of people and LOTS of stuff. All the possible variations of hello Kitty, Miffy, Snoopy, Madeleine etc etc etc you can imagine. Plus other cooler stuff like Star Wars things to keep MM amused.

Once we came out of there, the streets were quite full, streams of people all with their umbrellas (clear umbrellas are very popular here). We walked up, through some of the little side street shops, to Meiji-jingu, a beautiful temple in a big park.

Generally, Sunday’s here bring out “the flamboyant and outrageously-clad cosplay-zoku (costume-play gang)… mostly teenage girls, often those who are bullied in school. By inhabiting alter egos, they find freedom and acceptance in subcultures whose ‘official’ garb is wildly creative…” Only not in the rain. None at all. So we slooshed our way into the park and found the temple.

It is very beautiful, maybe even moreso in the rain. And to intensify the fairytale quality, we arrived just as a couple were being married. They came right past where we were standing and I missed a photo of the girl absolutely beaming, as some of the other guests jumped right in front of me to snap it. Fair enough! But it was all lovely to watch, plenty of kimonos and thongs, even in the rain.

In a different corner of the park, were a group of Japanese rockers – leather and quiff clad and all earnestly rocking to the classics, in a big circle. Very funny. Hey, at least they’re out there doing their thing, right?

From there we caught the subway to Ikebukuro, where, as it started to get dark, all the advertising lights shone out. At least it had stopped raining by now, though my shoes and bottom of my jeans were sodden. Again, lots and lots of people, all cruising on a Sunday afternoon. We checked out some shops and then eventually found a place for dinner. More dumplings,  chicken and beef dishes and perfect, perfect boiled rice.

We made our way home on weary legs and I was so tired I fell asleep in the bath. Then transferred to bed and slept some more.

One of the shrine gates at the edge of the park.

 

Maple tree, bridge and MM.

At the bottom of the path.

The temple.

Wishes left by the hopeful. They get offered up by the monks.

The wedding.

The groovers.

Oh yeah. And the air band. Well, apart from the guitarist...

The lights (and clouds) of Ikebukuro.

Saturday – Fish markets and Roppongi

Awake early again, but feeling like we might be getting on top of the time change (hah!) we decided to make the most of it and head out to the early morning fish markets – full of drama and fish throwing as well as plenty of food stalls.

Funny to be up and about so early – we both kept saying ‘wow, can you believe its only… 9.05′ etc when it felt like midday. The markets were great. We didn’t see any of the auctions, but all the people and carts, and flying buggies and stalls selling all sorts of sea-y things. We got breakfast of some fried stuff at one of the stalls, and then walked around gawking at everything. No great photos of it, must have been the early hour.

After that we walked and walked up to another part of town, through the quiet Saturday morning streets. We were looking for a bank – can you believe that in this country not many business take credit cards?? And only two types of banks take foreign ATM cards??? Crazy huh? I would have thought this was the hub of electronic finance. Just one of the interesting things.

We visited a beautiful paper shop – lots of handmade paper (washi I think) and cards etc. And then went into a fabled department store basements – they are the food areas and sell ALL sorts of things – many pastries and chocolatey things as well as salads, noodles etc etc. All very pristine and beautiful. After that it was to the Kite Museum (once we found it that is, the book could have said the entrance was up a lift inside a restaurant!!) which was tiny but packed to the rafters with kites and kiting paraphenalia of all kinds. Great place. Then, exhausted, it was home for a rest before heading out for the evening to Roppongi.

Roppongi is one of the ritzy areas, maybe a little too ritzy for us, we were hoping for something a bit more buzzing, but it was interesting enough – saw a giant spider statue, and got ourselves some tasty dinner in a cramped little place. Eating is on the hard side here, just because you need the place to either have English on the menu or at least pictures, to have any chance of knowing what you are ordering (and let’s face it, with abalone, pig’s ear and other such delicacies so common, I for one am keen to know).

[By the way, I have remembered what we had for dinner on Friday - weak with hunger we had... hamburgers!! No wonder I couldn't remember. It was a nice place though, and the chips were a bit tempura vegetable-like, very tasty. Not overly Japanese, but what can you do when your blood sugar is in your shoes??]

The bustling fish markets

A building along the way

Kite Museum

Er... wha??

The lights and the Spider at Roppongi

Dinner - noodle soup, dumplings and rice.

Friday – Shibuya

So we both slept quite a bit more, and didn’t get out til late afternoon. Jet lag, what a joy.

The Tokyo subway is amazingly clean and trains run often and exactly on time. The map looks like a plate of spaghetti though, and bizarrely, some lines are owned by different organisations, so you need different tickets for these. A bit hard to get your befuddled head around, but all the signs are also in English and we’re getting there.

We got the subway to Shibuya and got out to a mass of lights and buildings and people. Shibuya is one of the ‘downtown’ areas, so it all goes on. We went into a huge crafty/hardwarey shop – over 6 floors with all sorts of fantastic things for sale – stationery, bikes, sewing/jewelery making/leathercraft etc etc stuff. Then we went to find the statue of a Good Dog:

“In the 1920s a professor who taught at what is now Tokyo University kept a small Akita dog named Hachiko. Hachiko accompanied the porfessor to Shibuya Station every morning, then returned in the afternoons to await the professor’s arrival. One spring day in 1925, the professor died of a stroke while at the university and never came home. Hachiko continued to turn up at the station daily to wait for his master, until Hachiko’s own death 10 years later. The dog’s faithfulness touched the locals, who built a statue to honour his memory in the place where he died. Nowadays, Hachiko’s statue is a favourite meeting spot, so fittingly, he’s usually surrounded by people waiting for their someones.” (from our Lonely Planet guidebook)

What a good boy.

Then we just walked through all the crowds, past the shops and lights and restaurants. The young people out and about are all immaculately (if sometimes a litle over the top-ly) dressed. We probably got dinner somewhere, but neither of us can remember. Subway home and back to bed.

That doggy

Obviously didn't take a photo of the building lights, but here are the christmas lights.

Is that really what they mean??

In transit

Tube from North Greenwich to Green Park, change to Picadilly line and out to Heathrow. Nice and easy. We checked in - the luggage just squeezed in for weight (not sure what this means for purchases in Japan…), spent our last pounds on reading material and sat back to wait.

We flew to Frankfurt and changed with very little time to spare for the flight to Tokyo. We must be charmed – on both flights we had emergency exit or bulkhead, so plenty of leg room and less of that ‘crammed in’ feeling.

10 or 11 long, looong hours later we were passing over the amazing snow covered mountains of Japan, and then landing in Tokyo. We were both absolutely wrecked – it being 3am for our bodies and having had basically no sleep.

Pocari Sweat - a sports drink. Not sure I'd be going there... Look how tired that boy is, post flight.

We got the train into the city (slept most of the way, dreaming of our hotel, despite the opportunity to see the scenery) and then a taxi to the hotel. We went to check in, but check in being at 3 and it being only midday… it was going to cost an extra $50 to get in early. Now Japan, what with the current crappy exchange rate, is not cheap. Not much you can do about that. But 50 bucks to get in early? As torturously tired as we were, we figured we had already paid more than enough for our accommodation and couldn’t come at coughing up that much, so we left our luggage and went to the supermarket next door for some nori lunch and went to eat it and sleep like hobos in a nearby park. A 2pm, drunk with exhaustion and also cold, we figured it would now be cheap enough relative to our desperation to check in. So we went back to the hotel. Someone new was on the desk, and just gave us our key without question.

Our hotel room! Heaven! Martin went straight to bed, but I had a fantastic, non-piddly hot shower first. And then luxurious bed. Ahhhh.

We only slept til about 10pm, and were then up for ages. I got back to sleep about 5am, but Martin didn’t sleep much more. He picked up a cold/cough in London and so the flight and not sleeping have been pretty hard for him, poor sausage, coughing all the time. At about 7am we went down to the am/pm supermarket down the road for some fresh nori boxes for breakfast and then back to our room. Then, finally M fell back asleep and I caught up on some blogging! Come on bodies, we’re in Tokyo!

Absolute heaven on earth.

Complete with stripey-walled bathroom.

And fully kitted, seat-heated, spray and bidet optioned toilet.

Allo, allo, allo! (Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye…)

Can you believe it took longer to get from Gatwick airport to Christina and Jonathan’s than it did to get from Morocco to England??! We made it there in the early evening, had plenty of chat and a light dinner, and dragged ourselves to bed.

Sunday was our Christmas lunch day! (already a week ago now!! I’m getting there…) After putting on some of our stacks of washing, Martin went out to buy wine and flowers and an internet voucher, and I helped a little with the chopping and preparations. Rob, Kerstin and Olly arrived and lunch was delicious. Roast pork (with perfect crackling), sliced potato bake, cabbage with prosciutto and a beetroot puree. Yum! And excellent, light christmas pud and mince pies for dessert. A lovely lunch, so good to have such a nice family occasion before we go, to wrap up our trip in these parts.

Christmas Luncheon, 2008.

Monday was a very lazy day. I packed a bit and read a lot and any rumours of an afternoon nap are completely without concrete evidence.

On Tuesday we spent half the day with Thaid and Meg, Martin’s uncle and aunt. We had lunch at theirs (including a flute of champagne once they heard about our engagement! Come to think of it, there was celebratory champagne on Sunday too!) and then went for a very muddy walk in the countryside near their place. We also visited the churchyard where Martin’s mum’s parents are buried. It was lovely to spend time with T & M and get lots of fresh air, clodden shoes not withstanding.

Out on a muddy path with Thaid and Meg.

Christina made us a delicious shepherd’s pie  as our last English supper and after a relaxed dinner we spent most of the evening packing, organising our Tokyo accomodation (last minute dot com! Us, not the accomodation!) and trying to dry the last of our washing.

Early the next morning, after patchy sleep, we farewelled a sleepy Christina (sniff!) and Jonathan dropped us to North Greenwich tube. We’ll see them next year, that’s all there is to it.

Au revoir Morocco. Thanks for the memories.

Tiles in our room

We were up early again on our last day. There was lots of food at the buffet breakfast, and no-one else in sight. We ate and went back up stairs to finish packing. As we were ahead of schedule, we had one last turn round the Fna, and then came back to get our taxi – which was there and waiting, early. Good man. Off to the airport. A last peppermint tea while we waited and eventually a flight to Londres.

Morocco. What a place! We had been hankering for something ‘different’, no H&M, no Starbucks. And we found it. Such a glorious whelm of colours and activity. People. Animals. Vehicles. Shops. Fruit. Dates. Leather. Fabric. Jewelery. Ceramics. Sunshine. Oranges. Palm trees. Peppermint tea. Honking horns. Spices. Smoke. Calls to prayer. Sharing laughter over the give and take between tourist/host. Tearing hair over the give and take between tourist/host. Love it.

Terrible photo, but this is the dining room. Check the tiles on the walls, the lights, the stone carvings over the door...

More tiles. And pep tea.