Hello Hiroshima & Kyoto; farewell Tokyo...

Hiroshima was a bit of a surprise, albeit a pleasant one. It's a major tourist destination, known mainly for The Peace Park, The Peace Memorial Museum and the world heritage listed Atomic Bomb Dome. So we were a bit taken aback, to find the majority of buildings were so unattractive - lots of ugly 60's concrete high rise blocks.

However, after some thought we realised they probably had to construct a lot of buildings, very quickly after the devastation of the war, so possibly, it was function over form.

Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition building that became Atomic Bomb Dome.

Atomic Bomb Dome, Hiroshima.

We caught a Willer bus from Osaka to Hiroshima. And yes, I'm still loving the bus travel....maybe I'll get a camper van one of these days..... Anyway the bus was fabulous, and they had these funny canopies you could pull over your head! I promptly fell asleep for the first couple of hours. 

Willer Express - the only way to travel.

Zzzzzzzzz

We found our luuuurvvv Hotel, The Hagoroma, fairly easily, by catching a tram from the main train station. I really like luuurrvvv hotels (as well as buses). They are so corny and cute. Whilst Japanese luuurrvvv hotels don't have free condoms & lotions, like their Korean cousins, it did have a massive spa bath and a fabulous massage chair. Once again, there was far too much furniture in the room but we are getting used to that.

It's exhausting catching the tram, Hiroshima

enjoying the lurrrrvvvv hotel

oh baby!!!

We had breakfast included in our room rate - wow what a breakfast! It was served in our room - because this was a llluuuurrrvv hotel and you don't want to see anyone else staying in the hotel. It was a really good breakfast - the whole shebang - eggs, bacon, sausages, potato salad, toast, cakes, yoghurt , fruit, ice cream and cookies!

We spent our first afternoon visiting the Peace Museum. We got there quite late and it was packed, even so, it was a really moving place. The museum displays are really effective - it's such an horrific event - the museum is very factual without being either overly emotive or political. The pictures and effects speak for themselves. It left us contemplating for a couple of days. 

Memorials around Hiroshima, before and below, after........

Hiroshima has many left over bombed buildings and memorials, you come across them in all sorts of unexpected places. We often found people had left bottles of water at these sights - this is for the spirits of the people who died because they were all desperately thirsty after the bombing.

Apart from that big dose of history and horrible reality, we had a really fun time in Hiroshima. We decided to duck into one of the local drinking places one night. There was not an English word in sight - so we thought - yes this is the place for us. What a fun night - it was like being in a Japanese version of Cheers.  It's amazing how much you can communicate with sign language and the odd google translated word. 

our new best friends...

Sam san and Carla san.......everyone knew our name... eventually!

We spent the whole evening drinking, eating fabulous food and when it was time to leave they wouldn't let us pay!

We had a day off from our holiday on the Sunday and spent the whole day in our luurrrvvv hotel - it was lovely. I was starving (as usual) so I dragged Richie out to the local Lawsons (7-11) and we bought all kind of frozen delights and heated them up in the microwave in our room.

Pick me, pick me, Shukkein Gardens

Next day we visited the Shukkein Gardens. Shukkein is a beautiful Japanese Garden that was rebuilt after the war. My favourite part of the garden was feeding the HUGE Koi fish - best entertainment ever for 100 yen! (the cost of a bag of fish food) greedy gobblers they were - it was a fish frenzy - the power of controlling all those fish was quite intoxicating !  

Shukkein Gardens, after the bomb and now

Hmm, I wonder how Western Security is doing...NOT?

Whilst in the park we met two old ladies, we chatted for about two minutes, when they promptly invited us to join them for dinner. They instructed us to meet them at 7.30pm, at Laba Shopping Mall. We got picked up in a park! 

We ummed and ahhed, but eventually we did meet them. They took us for okonomiyaki - which is a Hiroshima speciality (although we also ate it in Osaka) - great fun as we cooked it ourselves on grills at our table. 

Our okonomiyaki date!

As soon as we ate the last mouthful and downed chopsticks, they announced we were going to Karaoke. Turns out, one of them was a gold card member of local Karoake place, so off we went. It was one of those places where you have your own room - so much better then the usual public torture we are used to! Anyway we had a lovely evening with our new friends and when it was over they said good bye and wandered off to the cold Hiroshima night. No exchange of emails, no Facebook links - just so long and thanks for the company.

Our first Karoake club, love at first song...

Karaoke Kings!

We caught yet another festival - this time it was the Hiroshima food festival. It was a great opportunity to try all kinds of weird and wonderful foods - it's great fun when you can just point and say "Yes please, I'll have one of those ". We also caught a bit of culture and visited the Hiroshima Castle.

Hiroshima  Castle

Hiroshima food festival, nom nom!

Our last day we spent wondering the shopping district. We were a bit tired so we had a brain wave - a coffee cost about $3 to $4 in Japan - however a one hour session of karaoke cost $6 - with all the free tea, coffee and soft drink you can guzzle - so that's what we did - too much fun.

Next day we were back on the trusty Willer bus to Kyoto.  We stayed at the Unizo Hotel in central Kyoto,  a very nice and new hotel - but OMG the rooms were even smaller than usual - in fact so small we put some of our furniture into the hallway - just so we could move in the room!

We moved some of our furniture out into the hall way!

Kyoto was as beautiful as expected but also a bit more crowded than expected, although it was mainly Japanese tourists. The countryside is spectacular, especially at this time of year when all the leaves are changing colour - although I imagine it's also pretty fabulous in winter and I hear cherry blossom season is not too shabby either!

Colours of Kyoto

The street markets in Kyoto, were excellent - they had a lot of touristy stuff - but also lots of second hand stores (horribly expensive compared to the Good Sami's) and brilliant food stalls. The only food we haven't really eaten do far is sushi - just because there's too much other exciting stuff to try.

Geisha, Gion district, Kyoto

The Geisha district of Gion was interesting. We stuck our heads into a Meiko school but just missed a performance (actually we probably wouldn't have watched for more than 5 minutes anyway, as we have quel horreur of cultural performances and still haven't recovered from the water puppet, theatre torture in Hanoi, from several years back!).

The public transport system was a bit difficult to work out in Kyoto. The info online didn't seem to work for us this time. For example we didn't find any mention on any sites, of the tram system. Also the major tourist attractions such as Golden Palace etc can only be reached by bus - maybe it was just us!

Gorgeous Arashiyama

messing around at Arashiyama

We spent a lovely day at Arashiyama, about 45ks from Kyoto. We caught the tram from the city centre. It was really crowded with tourists, but we hired bikes and managed to get away from the maddening crowds. The scenery was amazing - our camera skills really couldn't do it justice. Arashiyama is a really pretty place, but just too many tourists - it was quite difficult to move around. We rode our bikes to the Bamboo Grove, which would have been spectacular if it wasn't full of people!

Bamboo Grove, Arashiyama

Temple, Arashiyama

After a pleasant week, we said fond farewell to Kyoto and caught the bullet train to Tokyo, only took two and a half hours, but it was pretty expensive. We just rocked up to Tokyo central station and it was too easy, to buy tickets and jump on the next train (they leave every six minutes). It was just like catching a subway train, albeit a little more expensive!

The bullet train, Kyoto

Tokyo will be our last stop in Japan, I think we definitely would plan to come back to Korea and Japan, now we have an understanding of the countries. Might plan to do some shopping next time :-)

The Shinkassen express was a pleasant and very fast ride, although I'm not sure why people make a fuss - I suppose 'cos it's so bloody fast.

We arrived in Tokyo, with our hair slightly blown back from the train ride. The Tokyo metro was our first hurdle. I think Osaka prepared us a bit - but man, it's one crazy system! Tokyo has about twenty or so, different systems - metro, railway,  monorail all mixed up. 

Confused yet?

However, as long as you read the signs (all of which are in English) carefully, it all works. But you can easily walk one or two kilometres underground, between platforms! We caught the train at rush hour a few times and it wasn't nearly as crowded as we'd expected - maybe we were going in the wrong direction?

Waiting for the man with the white gloves to push me onto the train?

Out first hotel, The Asia centre of Japan, which was close to Roppongi, was quite basic but adequate. The hotel we'd chosen was not available on the Saturday night when we arrived, so we stayed one night at the Asia Centre and then moved hotels.

Weeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

Our second hotel, The Richmond Hotel was in a great area, just near the Tokyo Dome and next to a massive fun park, with the biggest roller coaster ever. Every now and then we hear a great shouts of delight from the people whizzing by...... Wwweeeeeeeee. It was a very nice hotel, that only opened in August, so everything was shiny and new. It had a weird check-in however, via a machine in the lobby. Plus you could go directly from the ground floor to your room and bypass the reception.

Although we were really knackered, we rallied ourselves to make the most of Tokyo. It was a surprising city - not nearly as hard or gritty as we'd expected.

Hello, hello - I think we've seen this somewhere before?

Our first stop was Roppongi, which is the main expatriate area in Tokyo and I found it a bit disappointing, but that was due to my expectations. It was really a lot like Soho in London. It did however, have a giant spider sculpture - the same as the one we saw in Bilbao, Spain.

Shibuya crossing, didn't disappoint!

Shibuya, with the very famous crossing, delivered and was as fabulous, as expected. It was fun to see such a sea of humanity and dazzling lights. I think the film "Lost in Translation" with the gorgeous Scarlett Johansen, had really informed my preconceptions of Tokyo. The reality, we found,  was a much friendlier and more relaxed city than expected.

Tokyo Harbour, Asakusa, by day

by night

We spent an afternoon by the waterfront, near Asakusa. It was pretty cold and windy but we found a very cool cafe on the waterfront to watch the world go by. We also enjoyed our only sushi meal in Japan - we even queued to get in!

The Ajayi's never queue - except in Japan - where it's pretty standard! Oh well, when in Rome.......Not only was the food fabulous, it was really entertaining watching the chefs preparing the food with such skill.

After 4 months, a chopstick expert!

We caught the monorail out to Odaiba Island, a man made island in Tokyo Bay. It was worth the journey for the view of the bridge alone...... and so the Statue of Liberty was an added bonus. It was pretty cold again so we decided to pop into the Science and Future Innovation museum. 

Me and the Sushi King!

Umm, seen that somewhere before as well!

ASIMO,  Tokyo Science and Innovation Museum

Hubot?

We watched an interesting 3 D film about how the universe was formed (well I watched it and Richie fell asleep)! We had enormous amounts of fun with the robots or androids or whatever they are called. Richie went into the control, box and I held an android, as it spoke to me in Richies voice and gave me a cuddle - it was very weird and just a bit creepy!

dinner with Seriji

We were fortunate to catch up with an old friend of Richies, Seriji,  from Table Tennis. I had a day of Skype sessions for Curtin (all of which were cancelled) so Richie spent the day with Serjii. They went to the Fish market and ogled the octopus, went to Akihabara and ogled the maid/hostesses in their school uniforms, looked at endless electronic stores (I dodged a bullet there!) and came back and collected me at 5pm. Seriji then took us for a wonderful Okinawan meal, slightly different flavours to usual Japanese food.

Fish market Tokyo

Our last day, we finally visited Yogyogi gardens - very beautiful with all the autumn leaves. We took our own little picnic and soaked up the lovely views. We had some time to kill before our flight, so we spent a hugely enjoyable afternoon drinking red wine and beer and singing Karaoke. We've discovered we a have a bit of a thing for Karoake! We really, really suck at singing and it's too much fun!

Karoake monster....

We flew from Hameda airport to Lombok. It was pretty painless, we left Hameda at midnight and arrived in Lombok about 2pm (via KL). The first thing we noticed was how disorganised and dirty Lombok is. I mean, we love the place and have been there about a million times, but visiting directly after Japan, a nation that is obsessed with good manners and cleanliness - sort of showed Lombok in a different light.

We had a lovely few days in Lombok, back at the good ol' Sheraton. The $6 massages are as fabulous as ever, The Office was the same, The Square was as good as ever. Lombok is a good R&R spot!

Now we are finally home, Yodi is headbutting me as I write this. She wasn't nearly as annoyed with us this time.

It was another fabulous holiday, we have started discussing which was the best food (Penang), which country had the best public transport (Korea), which country had the worst table manners (OMG Vietnam!), which was the prettiest country (oh torn between Japan and Korea); which country was the most surprising (Korea)....

Japan is a marvellous country to visit, I can understand why people are very passionate about the place.

Things I love about Japan:

• Politest people ever!
• The magic toilets - the music, the warm seats that greet you, and the delicate water sprays to refresh your tired, nether regions.
• Don Quixote - just discovered this fabulous store - next time I come to Japan - I'm shopping up a storm.
• Okonomiyaki - delicious, ditto Taki Yaki balls.
• All the free lotions and potions and face masks etc - supplied by the hotels
• 100 Yen shops - ditto, shopping us a storm next time
• Politest people ever
• Aki wine (red wine) starts at $3 and is in all the 7/11's!
• Enormous welcome and farewell at all restaurants and shops.
• Everything works
• Cleanliness - Japanese are obsessed with cleanliness
• ICOCA travel card - so convenient
• Endless convenience stores with lots of yummy food, and brilliant ice creams!
• Politest people ever - oh and they eat really quietly - Vietnam take note!
• The fabulous ramen noodles - well all the noodles actually!
• Willer buses, brilliant!
• The pork - delicious!
• The Autumn colours.
• and did I mention the politest people ever!

I was however very disappointed with the vending machines - we'd heard you could get all sorts of exciting things in the vending machines - we was swizzled - all they had was drinks, cigarettes, ice creams. The most exciting thing we saw in a vending machine was umbrellas - were all those stories of school girls underpants a myth?

Still, vending machines aside, Japan is a marvellous country and we look forward to our next visit. Maybe next time we'll focus on the smaller cities. I think we could easily do two month in Japan and Korea, sometime in the future.

But for now its sayonara til we meet again.