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Yokohama and back

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 […]

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Cat temple

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 […]

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Autumn leaves & window shopping

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 […]

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Meeting up in Tokyo

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 […]

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Time in hometown

I’m approaching the end of my stay in Kuching.  This time it is a little different as I’ve given my up my apartment for eight of the ten nights to family visiting from Birmingham.  I’m camping with my brother, sleeping on the mattress in the living room without aircon and having cold showers. During the […]

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Back to Valletta

Above:  Decorations for the festivities.   It’s an easy day today, moving ourselves from Gozo back to Valletta.  First up was the 1000 bus to Victoria, followed the 1045 ferry to Valletta.  That tight connection was very easy and there was no stress at all. Once in Valletta, we were going to take the lift from […]

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Blue Lagoon

Our accommodation came with breakfast supplied at the café opposite, ordered from an extensive menu.  We ordered the most complete version, a very big English breakfast and we will not repeat it tomorrow! Today, we have an excursion to Blue Lagoon which is between Comino and Cominotto Islands, which is in turn between Malta and […]

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Victoria & Xlendi

Moving to Gozo Today we head to Gozo, the smaller island off the main island of Malta.  This had been on our plans six years ago when we had a rental car and the queue to get across with the car ferry (from Cirkewwa) was far too long. Since about 2 years ago, a passenger […]

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Exploring by car

Getting a rental car We managed to get a rental car online at short notice for the day, from Sicily By Car.  The price was only EUR18, picking up from its airport location whereas whatever available in the old city was far pricier.  The downside was that we had to get to and from the […]

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Valletta and the Three Cities

St John’s Co-Cathedral Despite the one-hour time change from Larnaca, we had a lazy start to the day, making our way to the St John’s Co-Cathedral at 0900 when it opened.  I had pre-booked the tickets online but there wasn’t much of a queue, so it was really unnecessary. For me, this church packs such […]

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