Author archive
25 November 2023
Peace Memorial Park Many people know Hiroshima for only one thing: the atom bomb that was dropped during WWII. It’s such a big part of the city’s history I decided we would start our visit there and work north towards the castle. Alice and I left the hotel at 0915 by bus. Arriving at the […]
24 November 2023
Above: View of Mount Fuji on the shinkansen from Tokyo to Hiroshima. Leaving Tokyo Today we say goodbye to Jacqueline as she flies home to Vancouver. On the other hand, Alice and I take the shinkansen south to Hiroshima, about 4h away. All three of us left the hotel around 0930 to give ourselves plenty […]
23 November 2023
Chureito Pagoda Today we make an excursion by organised day-tour to the Chureito Pagoda and other points in the Mount Fuji area. I had checked the weather forecast about 10 days in advance before selecting today’s date. With long-range forecasts not being accurate and a cancellation deadline of one-week beforehand, there’s a lot dependent on […]
22 November 2023
Cup Noodle Museum The plan for the day was go to Yokohama, which has a Chinatown. As with previous days, we left the hotel around 0930 so as to avoid the rush hour in the rail and metro. Our hotel is connected to a station which served Yokohama directly. At Yokohama station, we had trouble […]
21 November 2023
Gotokuji Temple The target for the day was Gotokuji Temple, famous for its numerous maneki-neko or happy cat statuettes. We left the hotel at 0930 by train and arrived about an hour later. The forecast sunny weather appeared to be a lie when we arrived. Fortunately, the skies brightened up considerably towards the end of […]
20 November 2023
Smoke protection This morning, I noticed that the inside of my hotel room door had a plastic bag attached to it. Instructions suggested that it is to be used over the had, puffed out with air, during fire evacuation as protection from smoke. It really goes against all the things we’ve been taught with plastic […]
19 November 2023
Moving to Tokyo I woke around 0530 and met Alice for breakfast at 0700. We wanted to have a somewhat early start so we could get to Tokyo to meet Jacqueline who had come from Vancouver, so she wouldn’t be alone all day. We hopped on the 0917 JR train to the city and got […]
18 November 2023
As we descended into Tokyo Narita, I thought I caught a glimpse of a large white peak from the port side window. Fuji, I thought? Sunset was around 1630 in the area and it was pretty dark already. The pilot came on to give his landing announcement, partially in Japanese. We landed around 1725, some […]
18 November 2023
Flying out I got to Auckland airport around 2h30 before my 0955 flight to Tokyo. Kiosk check-in was not available for this flight, so I had to join the long queue which fortunately moved quite quickly. There were 10 counters for four flights. I was given a boarding pass straight away by the check-in agent […]
16 August 2023
It didn’t feel like I had slept after my inflight dinner but because time didn’t drag on, I must have dozed slightly. My slight sinus and cough from the previous days appear to have eased but the dry cabin air had given me a sore throat. I appear to have come a full circle as […]