Articles from this Category
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 […]
7 July 2023
Wall Museum We woke earlier than yesterday but with a less “full-on” day ahead, we took it easy and had breakfast later. We headed out to the nearby City Wall Museum to take a look at the history of the city’s wall. The displays were very well done, showing the scale of the wall and […]
6 July 2023
Hanok Bukchon Sunrise in Seoul now is about 0500. I stirred around 0600 and fell back asleep till 0740. We ventured downstairs to the good hotel breakfast around 0800. I had hoped to have an early start to avoid the expected 33 deg C heat but it wasn’t mean to be. We left around 0900 […]
5 July 2023
Above: Dongdaemun Design Plaza. Flying on the Airbus A220 We have an 1145 departure from Naha airport to Incheon today. We left by monorail after 0800 and got to the airport 3h before the flight. As today’s flight on a small plane, an A220, I didn’t expect check-in to be open that early. I did […]
4 July 2023
Mass suicide bunker The mall in which Banana Car Rental is located opens at 1000. But they had set up a desk outside for our 0930 collection in a highly professional and organised manner. We turned up a little earlier and managed to hit the road in our Suzuki Solio at 0930 heading to the […]