The Rolling Stone

This is the final post for the trip, and apologies that it’s a little delayed. I didn’t quite get it finished before our flights home, and now that I’m back, the business of normal life resumes. But I’m staying up a bit to cover off our final day. On our last full day in Japan,…

Yesterday we said farewell to Kyoto. We had a fairly leisurely start to catch our 11:30 bullet train. Packing up, breakfast at the hotel, and then checking out and taxi to the station. Complications along the way (such as Xavi leaving his bag in the hotel room – fortunately he realised before we left the…

This morning Hayley had a headspa session booked, so after breakfast she went off to that. I took the opportunity to sneak out and get her an early birthday cake, since we are travelling back to Tokyo on her actual birthday tomorrow and I may not get the opportunity. After I found a lovely little…

As another experiment I’m trying a mostly photos-only blog to show yesterday’s adventures. While walking through Kyoto: At the Kyoto Railway museum: At Ninjo Castle: I’m trying to make this a mostly photos-only post, but I can’t help adding some context here. This castle is the residence of the Edo period Shoguns in the imperial…

Just a brief post today as there’s not much to report. We had a late start and then headed to Tokyo Station to catch the bullet train. The ticket system was very confusing at both ends, but the ride itself was what I wanted. Looking out the window is a little like a tour through…

A brief and largely text-only blog for today as it was fun, but not very photogenic. It is Xavier’s birthday and so he got to choose his activities for the day. He wanted an indoor amusement park and a cat cafe , with MacDonald’s for dinner 🙂 Hayley and I split this with me taking…

You may have noticed that I’m experimenting with different styles and approaches in these blog posts. As I mentioned at the outset I haven’t done this before, so part of the fun of it for me is finding my feet in a new medium. Since I managed to get caught up with my posts (by…

Today tested both my physical and psychological resilience with a hike to the top of a mountain and an open chairlift all the way down with no seatbelt. The views were fantastic and no doubt worth the physio and psychological therapy I will now require. The day started easily enough with a hour-long train ride…

Yesterday we decided to split up in the morning. Hayley took Xavier to a zoo while Felix and I went to a museum. We headed as a family to the Ueno Zoo entrance and parted ways. Felix and I wandered through Ueno Park to the Tokyo National Museum. The park is lovely and, since it…

Yesterday we ventured out of Tokyo to see a certain famous volcano. Hayley had booked a tour that would take us both to the mountain itself and also to a good place for viewing it. We had a 6am start to make our way to the tour pickup point and there we boarded a coach.…

First up I’ll skip you straight to yesterday’s highlight, this giant animated robot statue: It’s from the anime series Gundam and it was genuinely impressive to have the series brought to life in this way. I skipped to that because yesterday was fun but, apart from the robot, not a very photogenic day. We went…

An action-packed day! This morning we awoke at the crack of 8am and by skipping breakfast entirely we managed to leave the hotel by 9:15. We were heading for the Harajuku district. We had a yen go shopping. Well, more than one fortunately, as a single yen does not get you very much. Thanks to…

Having collapsed in our hotel beds at about 2am, we slept in and decided to have a fairly quiet and relaxed day. We took the subway (very easy to navigate) to the Shibuya area to do a bit of shopping. It was fun just wandering around and experiencing a different streetscape. It was a public…

Dad drove us to the airport (thanks Dad!) and we got there in good time. The queue for checking luggage took forever, but we were still at the gate a few minutes before they started boarding. We flew Philippine Airlines (‘the heart of the Philippine’ as the jingles kept telling us every 15 minutes), with…

If you’re reading this it’s most likely because you’re one of my friends and family who have been given the link so you can follow our travels in Japan. I’ve never done a blog like this before, so hopefully it works as way to give everyone updates. I’ll try to do a post every day,…