Japan 2023 - Day 12

The forecast for today is a maximum of about 4 degrees and we woke to snow drifting happily down from the sky. And we are going on a cycling tour of Kyoto. Winning. Apparently they sometimes cancel if there’s a lot of rain forecast but snow? Pfah! Toughen up.

So we all set out, appropriately rugged up (though me sans gloves because yep, they’re waiting for me in Shiga Kogen and Sam in his shorts of course) and set out on our cycle adventure. It was actually awesome. The guides had spare gloves and beanies so everyone was able to dress appropriately warmly as we cycled our way around.

Our first stop was Honganji Temple where I felt a little sorry for the family having some sort of ceremony while a bunch of tourists walk in behind them, kneel down, watch for a bit and leave, but at least we were quiet! 

We went from there to Kitano Tenmangu where we learned the shrine has a gate that is reserved exclusively for the emperor. Our guides weren’t aware of a time in recent history where that gate had actually been used, but it was quite ornate (I neglected to get a photo though).

Third stop on the tour was the Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji). Last time we visited it, it was raining and quite miserable, but this time we actually managed to get some sunshine amongst the snow that fell throughout the day which presented some spectacular views of the pavilion.

Next stop was the imperial palace where we’d hoped to lure at least one Rowland into posing for a photo up against the wall just to set off the proximity warning that Michael had found on our trip many years ago. Unfortunately, as it was a guided tour, we had to skip over that little joke.

One of the highlights of the tour had to be the lunch we were treated to. Despite it being our fourth trip to Japan, it was the first time as a family that we’d been to a sushi-train restaurant! We were escorted to our pre-booked table and watched as the sushi went by because our guide told us we were better off ordering fresh dishes from the tablet rather than taking them from the conveyor as it went past. He started ordering for us and when a dish was ready, a second conveyor delivered it straight to the table. It was awesome. To top it off, every five plates you ordered entitled you to a game of chance to win some crappy little random prize. Must be a good one to get the kids sucked in! We ate very well and were surprised at just how economical it was. There’s no way we’d be getting away with eating what we did in Adelaide without taking out another mortgage.

With our bellies full, we continued on to the last of our tour stops, cycling along the Kamo River and into Gion, the Geisha district where amongst all the tea houses we saw a restaurant that specialised in puffer fish. It wasn’t something I’d ever thought of putting on my list of things to try in Japan and I’m not about to either! Apparently there’s still a couple of deaths a year, usually from amateurs eating this ‘delicacy’ but failing to prepare it properly.

With the cycle tour over I suggested that we slip in a visit to Fushimi Inari, but Caroline wasn’t feeling a hundred percent so we shipped everyone else off while she rested up before dinner. That was something of a mixed bag with Caroline not really up to eating and a hodge-podge of choices by everyone else. In the end Emily and I ended up eating at a Yakotori restaurant that Jason and Bel had also chosen to eat at. There wasn’t enough seats for the rest of the young adults who ended up at an Okonomiyaki restaurant instead. With that all done it was time for bed!

Japan 2023 - Day 11

 With USJ our of the way, we’d decided to explore Osaka using the Amazing Osaka pass on day 2. Its something I’d thoroughly recommend to anyone considering a visit here. It get’s you onto all the cities public transport (excluding the JR lines) and into a massive range of the city’s attractions waaay too many for the single day we had, but there’s a 2-day pass available too if you’re here longer than we were).

First stop was the Umeda Sky Building. Quite simply a stunning piece of architecture and engineering. It’s one of those places that words don’t really do justice. It happened to be valentine’s day today and there was something of a Valentine’s theme going on up the top of the sky building so we took advantage of it even though the day isn’t something we usually bother with.

Next stop was Osaka Castle with a plan to both walk the castle and take a boat ride around the moat. Turns out the moat doesn’t fully encircle the castle, but it was still pretty cool to get most of the way around and back again. We climbed the heights of the castle which not only gave us amazing views of the city, but an appreciation for the full extent of just how big the complex must have been during its heyday, built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (some 400 plus years ago thanks very much).

With the castle visit over, the next task was to find some lunch, which we decided to do at the next stop which was to be a visit to the Glico running man., something Sam had put me onto as one of those … you haven’t been to Osaka if you haven’t seen it kind of things. There was a market nearby where we thought we’d be able to pick up some food, but sadly by the time we arrived options were getting a bit limited and more people ate at Family Mart than from the market stalls (where seafood was one of the most common options.

Thomas managed to snag some half-priced sushi as they were packing up and he and Caroline shared a salmon skewer from one of the vendors that was very tasty. From there we headed from the running man, snapped some obligatory photos and I noted there was a Uni-Qlo just down the street and given I had under-dressed for the occasion, decided to seek out an extra layer of clothing to wear (and to be sure no-one missed me in as it turned out).

Remember the bargain gloves I’d bought back in Tokyo? Well given I had bought them for the mountainous areas and hadn’t needed them while we were in Tokyo, I figured I wouldn’t need them in Osaka and Kyoto either. Perhaps checking a weather forecast would have been a good idea because the temperature was getting down toward the freezing point! Sometimes I surprise even myself with how foolish I can be!

We opted to seek out a local ramen joint for dinner and Sam did some quick research to find us a highly rated place in the area, which was great until it only had eight seats. Given there were ten of us, the Temby’s opted to stay and the Rowlands went off to forage elsewhere. We thoroughly enjoyed our Ramen and Thomas kindly donated an Aussie $5 note to pin above the doorway where there were already a number of other foreign currencies. So if you’re in down town Osaka and spot one above a random little ramen joint, maybe it’s the one he left behind.

We rendezvoused back at the hotel where we collected the luggage we’d stored and set off for the train station to transfer to Kyoto for the next stage in our adventure.

Something I neglected to mention about our arrival in Osaka was the little mix up we had with our hotel bookings. Apparently I’d managed to book 5 double rooms … which would have meant that Sam and Thomas and Emily and Aimee would have been sharing beds. Fortunately for a small incremental cost increase we managed to get them into twin rooms instead.

Cue reception in Kyoto and apparently I’d even more cleverly managed to book five twin rooms … and this time there was no double room vacancy. Single beds for everyone! I may never be trusted to book accommodation again! Just quietly, I did sleep well though.

Japan 2023 - Day 10

 Be warned … this is a long one …

USJ Day. This is something that I’d been hoping to do with Emily for a long time. Ever since Universal opened its Harry Potter themed attraction at its parks, Emily has been dead keen to go. With the US and the UK being expensive to get to, Japan was the next best option, though the thought of everything being in Japanese made us a little hesitant, especially because when we’ve previously travelled here we haven’t been as far south as Osaka where USJ is located. Squeezing it in amongst two different ski locations in a two week trip was going to be a challenge to say the least.

It was part of the reason this current trip was planned to be a three week affair and there was  high level of excitement around finally getting to visit.

Now we’ve been fortunate enough to visit a number of theme parks over the course of our travels so we had some idea what to expect, but its been a while and we’ve certainly never tried visiting one with a group of ten people.

We immediately made the decision that beyond getting the same timed entry for the Nintendo attraction, we’d split up and do our own thing around the park, especially given the likely long wait times for the attractions.

We had a great day, but as you’d expect,  we spent a lot of it standing around and waiting. No one masters the art of a queue like a theme park. I can well imagine that there’s someone who when they introduce themselves and what they do, says “Oh, I’m the USJ line Guy/Gal”. Because there’s certainly an art to the weaving trail of a 2 hour queue and keeping much of it hidden so you can still entice people to join. Fortunately we didn’t wait in any lines for quite that long. I think the worst said it was a 70-90 minute wait and probably took just over an hour.

We got into the park as early as we could, got our timed entry for Nintendo world and then went to find something to fill the time before that. We ended up at a 4D movie which was of course anime based, spoken in Japanese and almost entirely lost on Caroline and I. But hey, it filled the time until we got into Nintendo.

Getting in was our first experience of trying to corral everyone in one place while in the park and after a couple of false starts, we managed to do it, eventually getting onto the Mario ride which was a hell of a lot of fun, even if it seemed like complete chaos!

The kids were lining up for the café in there so Caroline and I opted to go for the flying dinosaur ride. We joined the single-rider line (40 minutes wait rather than 90) and set about waiting … and waiting. Eventually we made it to the front of the line and though separated, got to enjoy the ride (well I say enjoyed, Caroline not quite so much given she came off feeling a little nauseous). If you’re not familiar with the ride, you strap in and then get pivoted so that you’re facing the ground, horizontal to it at the point of commencement. From there, you loop, drop, weave such that at times you’re facing the sky, the ground and everywhere in between. It was awesome, even with sharing the ride with three screaming Japanese teenage girls!

After that ride it was finally time to meet up with Emily and head into Hogwarts. From the first entry it lived up to everything one had hoped for. Emily headed straight for Ollivanders to get her wand and then we set out to explore. We wandered through the shops and waited a really really long time for the Harry Potter ride. It was definitely our longest wait of the day but well worth it as the ride was sensational. Very different from the roller-coaster but rather than put in any spoilers, I’ll just say if you visit you need to do that ride.

It was close to 1pm by the time we were done with the ride and time for lunch. Having seen a few options around the park we opted for The Three Broomsticks. Hey, the line outside was only like five people long, so why wouldn’t you? A tiny little naïve part of me didn’t consider they line guy/gal might have had their fun inside the restaurant! Half an hour or so later, we enjoyed our delicious meal.

Having survived our time in Harry Potter land, we explored a bit more of the park, managed to squeeze in a couple more rides and shopped for junk souvenirs.

As our time in the park waned, Caroline wanted to get on one last ride, the flight of the phoenix back in Harry Potter land. The wait said fifty minutes. The clock said the park closed in fifty five. The ride doesn’t scream excitement. It’s a kids-focused roller coaster. After a bit of back and forth I did the right thing and agreed to line up while Emily shopped for additional souvenirs and on the condition she bought me the Mario Hat I’d decided I’d need for go-karting when my turn came. So we waited. Certainly the smartest thing I’d thought of before entering the park was having a book to read on my phone. It certainly aided with the eternal waiting.

Fortunately we managed to get onto the ride in about thirty minutes. I climbed in and pulled the safety bar down and waited. The attendant came up and indicated it needed to go one more click. Now I’m wasn’t the biggest guy in the park by any stretch, but there was simply no physical way that bar was going one more click. So they delayed the ride, ejected us and told us we’d have to wait and go in the front of the next one as there was extra leg room. So that was what we did before meeting up with Emily and getting out of the park.

For dinner, Sam found us an all you can eat Yakiniku joint. We had to split onto three different tables for all of us to fit in and so Caroline and I ended up alone while the other eight ended up at adjacent tables. On investigating the menu it quickly became apparent that the all you can drink option made economic sense. Let the fun begin.

Caroline and I sat and ate our way through a sizable portion of a cow, one tiny piece of meat at a time.

Over on the other tables, Thomas and Cameron were apparently making sure they made the most of the all-you-can-drink aspect of the offering two highballs (Whiskey and coke) at a time. By the time our allocated ninety minutes were up they were both well and truly ticking!

We somehow avoided the need for a small crane to extricate ourselves from the restaurant and waddled back to the hotel.

The Elicient was a lovely hotel and even had an onsen. Unlike lots of the tiny onsens our previous snow-based hotels have had, this one was quite large, well-lit and immaculately clean (though I should be clear we’ve never encountered an onsen that wasn’t clean). There was also a little feature on the TV in our room that would let you know how busy the onsen was. Caroline was waiting for ‘Vacancy’ which was the lowest level we’d seen. I opted to go down as quickly as I could given that was the state of the men’s when I made the decision. It certainly didn’t mean it was empty.

Its been four years since I was last in an onsen and waddling in off the back of an all-you-can-eat dinner isn’t necessarily the best decision one can make, but it was our last night in the hotel and the last chance I’d have in Osaka. So I went in.

Now I’m not going to say a lot about a room full of naked men because most of you probably don’t really want to know. What I will say is that for a middle-aged white guy not accustomed to regularly bathing naked in a room full of dudes, it’s a little confronting, especially when the first thing you’re confronted with is a large Japanese guy walking straight toward you in all his glory. I didn’t exactly study the people in there, but there was certainly instances of champignons in tall grasses and some worms working their way through the moss.

When I went to bathe in the onsen itself, there were three young guys sitting on the side of the onsen chatting. One of them causally with one foot in the water and his other leg at ninety degrees laid out flat along the rim of the bath with everything on display. A welcoming spread indeed. I took my place and realised I was sitting and looking exactly in that direction, so quickly re-orientated ninety degrees so I wouldn’t have to look there. Instead I was left watching everyone walk past me on their way in. Let’s just say I have a much expanded (and not sought out) idea of circumcision rates in Japan).

I stayed until the heat was too much and quickly withdrew to find Caroline still waiting for the indicator to be something less than full. It was still full at half past midnight when she finally conceded and went down. Who would have thought the onsen would be the place to be at half past midnight on a Monday!?

Japan 2023 - Day 9

It’s currently the 17^th of Feb and we’re back on a train travelling from Kyoto to Nagano so we can get on a bus to Shiga Kogen for more skiing. Given the hours of joyous train travel involved, I’m hoping it means I can catch up on a few days of our adventures! Kind of Ironic that on day 9 of our travels we were actually travelling in the opposite direction, having left Madarao bound for Osaka.

To achieve that we had to endure the chaos of twelve of us packing up to get out of the lodge. I know from all my work travel that I have an amazing capacity to spread my crap a long way in a very short space of time.  So if you give me four nights in one location and a lot of stuff, getting it all back where it belongs can be something of a challenge. Add another person to that and packing day can be pretty stressful, especially with skis and stuff involved. We managed though, sending a bag of stuff we wouldn’t need straight to the airport and our ski gear off to Shiga Kogen to await our next round of skiing.

With the packing taken care of we bussed down to Iiyama to catch the train. We had just enough time to dart into the local supermarket … the first time we’d managed to get into one this trip. Given we had a decent travel time ahead of us (five hours or so) we stocked up on a heap of stuff we really didn’t need (as well as some fruit) to help survive the journey. I love the fact that you can get basically everything you need to satisfy your immediate and not so immediate needs from a Japanese Supermarket. I picked up a crumbed pork cutlet to eat on the train, some baked goods, chocolate, whiskey, chips … and even managed to get out of there just in time to make it back to catch the train.

It was also where we farewelled Michael and Olivia as they were due to head back home and so were travelling to Tokyo rather than Osaka.

From there it was mostly a matter of enjoying the train ride. All of our previous trips to Japan had seen us travel from Tokyo to Nagano, but this time we were heading down to Osaka for the first time and we travelled West form Nagano to Kanazawa and along the coast of the sea of Japan.

The scenery was spectacular; mountains, lakes, tunnels and of course an array of Japanese housing, but other than that there’s not a lot to say about a 5 hour train journey where everyone survived connections, no luggage was lost and we arrived at our destination. I mean, maybe it’s a sign that everyone’s grown up when no-one provides me fodder to write about. All I can say, is that I don’t always pee on the train, but when I do, I like to do it at 300+ Km/hr with a window people can watch  through! That’s a very slight embellishment. The window isn’t to the outside of the train (sadly) and is really just enough for someone to see if the toilet is occupied or not (and only for the urinal, not the sit-down toilet). But still, if they see you in there, it’s pretty damn clear what you’re doing.

We arrived in Osaka around mid-afternoon which gave us time to check in to the hotel and then to go for a walk and explore some of the local shopping (with my express purpose being to find some whiskey). I was targeting the Daimaru we’d seen in the train station, but along the way we stumbled across Liquor Mountain. It was like coming across a rich vein of gold. I managed to pick up an elusive bottle of Yamazaki along with another single malt to keep it company, but given I was going to have to carry anything I bought for the rest of the trip (and had already picked up a bottle earlier in the trip) and hadn’t really scouted out a lot of prices, I limited myself to the two.

We split up after that, exploring the shops, including finding another pokemon store and the food gallery at the bottom of the Daimaru, before meeting up to organise dinner.

We again split up and sent the youngsters off to do their own thing and opted for Yakitori with Jasn and Bel, which was entirely delicious and nice and simple to organise given there were only four of us to cater for!

We retired relatively early given our plan for the following day was to take on Universal Studios Japan and would require something of an early start.

Japan 2023 - Day 8

Today was our last day of skiing the slopes of Madarao and the weather threw a little bit of everything at us short of blizzards and sleet. The day dawned overcast and snowing and before too long decided add a pretty decent amount of fog to the mix. It certainly made the skiing difficult.

Conditions were challenging enough that Caroline, coming to the end of one of our early runs of the day, she went to ski down to the lift for the next run only to find out she’d turned left a little bit early. Off the side of the run, into the deep powder and fwoof she was all but buried in it. There wasn’t a lot I could do to help as that would have involved either skiing into it myself or wading in it to try and assist with her retrieval and so she was left to extricate herself, skis off and wading back up the two metres onto the run. Hey, at least it provided me with some amusement and at least there was no injuries!

Today was also Saturday which meant lots of weekend skiers up for the day/weekend. There were actual lines to get onto a lift. Like, sometimes we had to wait like five minutes. We were definitely aware that we’d been spoiled over the prior two days with simply skiing up and pretty much getting straight onto a lift. It also meant the runs were cut up a lot earlier in the day.

The day’s skiing was challenging enough that Caroline, Emily and I decided and early break was in order and settled in for a drink and a crepe. Progressively pretty much the entire crew joined us and we decided we’d get in a little bit more skiing before heading to an on-mountain burger joint for lunch to see what it was like.

We managed to pretty much all meet up at the appointed time and found the place to have limited seating, so we staked the joint out, watching and hovering over people in the hope that it would encourage them to eat quicker and vacate their seats. After a while we decided to start ordering so that maybe we could coincide getting lunch with getting a seat. We were told the wait would be an hour. I think it’s a sign of how tired we all were that we agreed to stay and wait.

We did eventually get burgers and they were pretty good, but they were waaaay over-priced (compared to what else we could get on the mountain) and the wedges spiced within an inch of death so all in all, not what we were hoping for.

After lunch we decided to coordinate a trip across the other side of the mountain so some could again ski the natural half pipe. That turned out to be a long and painful exercise in herding cats that meant we didn’t end up doing a whole lot of skiing in the afternoon. The sun did come out though, which was as much curse as blessing as we started to get slushy snow and icy patches that detracted from the enjoyment a little.

We returned to our accommodation ahead of dinner and the younger members of the party decided that Michael and Oliva’s little slide would be a whole let better with a toboggan. And even better than sliding down with a toboggan, it would be better again if there was a jump. Caroline and I return from the mountain about the time the jump had been introduced, hearing gales of laughter coming from the rear of the building. We had to investigate of course. Apparently it was due to this:

Prose has always been my main means of conveying things in this blog, but sometimes words really can’t do justice to what you're seeing. I stayed outside long enough to witness these two amusing runs down the slide:

But, well it was cold, I was tired and I really wanted to get the ski boots off so I returned inside along with Caroline. The kids however weren’t done. By the time they were the jump was apparently about a metre high and resulted in the following. I'm sure you'll take as much joy from watching these as I did given I wasn't there to witness it first hand!

After that there was little to do but eat, compare aches and pains, pack and get ready for our transfer to Osaka the following day.

I have to say though, dinner included a visit to what has been my favourite Japanese toilet of the trip so far. I know I've detailed various aspects of the toilets here previously, but this is honestly the first time I came across one that was wifi enabled!

Now I'm not entirely sure what that does for anyone, but would guess that perhaps you can activate the toilet functions from your phone. That would mean you could scroll your socials and jet-clean your bum at the same time! Happy days!

Also, I have to say I loved the fact that there was no need to touch any component of the seat/lid if you didn't want to!

Japan 2023 - Day 7

Day 2 on the mountain dawned with snow still falling from the sky and by the time we were on the mountain it had in no way lessened. Of course, sometimes you don’t even make it to the mountain before your first little crash for the day.

Caroline has ever been an advocate for finding the path that is both the quickest and requires the least effort to get onto the mountain. In this case, she decided that was to walk to the point where things were down hill, then put her skis on and ski along the side of the road where the accumulated snow was. Unfortunately she didn’t take into account the fact that she would have to cross the road to get onto the run. Now, had there been as much snow on the road as there had been the night before, that wouldn’t have been a problem. Unfortunately the plough had been down the road and exposed some of the bitumen. She was only going slow, but that bit of bitumen was enough to stop her in her tracks and send her tumbling right in the middle of the road! Fortunately she wasn’t injured and no cars decided to add to her dilemma!

Bel was a little more fortunate. She opted for the same approach, but attempted to cross the road a earlier than Caroline had. She also came in with a bit more speed. It meant she navigated the crossing of the road, but wasn’t quite at the right level of skill to get up off the road and onto the run. Instead she zipped up and tumbled, missing the point of entry. Again, fortunately there wasn’t any injury!

I’ve been following a number of the Japanese ski locations around Nagano on Instagram since we first started skiing here and had seen a run at Madarao that I really wanted to try … something of a natural half-pipe in amongst the trees. I’d suggested it would be something worth trying early in the day. Most people opted to join in the venture given there was a beginner run around the outside of it should it prove to be too difficult.

It was something of a task to get there, but that as done successfully. On seeing the entry through the trees I was having second thoughts. I have a couple of issues with skiing through trees. My tight turns aren’t typically coordinated enough to give me a lot of confidence and more importantly, trees don’t get out of your way and they’re a bit more on the solid side than a nice mound of powdered snow! Add to that my fear of injury and promise to myself to exercise caution and entering didn’t seem like entirely the smartest thing to do. But I’d seen videos of kids getting through there and was determined to do so even if it meant picking my way very carefully into the pipe, sans skis if it came to it!

I managed to get in there without resorting to removing my skis though certainly with zero elegance. If I’d been a better skier I would have loved that little run, but it was at that point for me, where fun was outweighed by lack of confidence, so although I managed to get through it, I wasn’t about to return! I wasn’t alone in that assessment.

As the day wore on the snow didn’t really abate and certainly presented some challenge after years without having hit the slopes. By the end of the day there was a lot of discussion about everyone’s aches and pains both from incidental crashes that people had endured and from using muscles that hadn’t been used in those ways in a long time if at all.

For dinner, we had a booking for seven at one restaurant and five at another. With the day being Jason and Bel’s wedding anniversary we opted for Caroline and I to join the five in the Rowland party. We had a lovely dinner that was mostly uneventful apart from Jason suffering either a back cramp or spasm that left him wondering what the hell was happening as he stiffened and flattened himself like a board in his seat while the rest of us wondered if he was actually having a cramp/spasm or was about to eject a particularly difficult poo! Fortunately it passed and he was okay. There was no poo involved. 

The restaurant did win my favourite translation error(s) though which was both charming and amusing:

I'm pretty sure its fried rice, you Plick! (kudos if you get the movie reference).

With dinner done, we headed back for more a little more quiet Qwixx and whiskey to finish off the day.

Tokyo 2023 - Day 6

We awoke to find the weather much like it had been the day before … overcast and snowing, which isn’t really anything to complain about when you’re planning to spend the day skiing! It took us a little bit to get on the mountain by the time we worked out the logistics of collecting remaining hire equipment and finding each other. Emily had offered to show those who hadn’t skied for 10+ year the ropes and at least get them started to a point where they’d survive a lift run. The location of our lodge meant that after a short walk down the road you actually skied down to get to the base of the lift, rather than starting there.

It took a bit but everyone did eventually get down, even if there were a few spills along the way. I think Cameron may have lead the count at about five, but hey, we’ve all done that when we’re learning! Having once had to save Cameron’s life in Bali when he came out of the raft and got stuck under a couple while white-water rafting, I wondered whether there might yet be another intervention needed, but he improved rapidly and I opted to ski somewhere else!

We’ve got a couple of different group chats going on while we’re over here to try and help with the coordination of who is where and doing what, because let’s face it, when there’s this many of us and everyone is actually an adult, splitting the party is now more common than ever before.

It didn’t take long for us to inundate each other with endless lift-selfies and scenic shots as we worked our way up and down and around the mountain skiing. As confidence grew, so did the extent of the mountain that was covered and I think I’m glad I wasn’t able to see where Thomas was skiing as he has definitely been covering more than the rest of us, especially in amongst the trees!

The conditions whilst not completely perfect were actually brilliant for a first day with lots of fresh snow to help cushion the impact for anyone that didn’t stay on their feet.

For lunch we hunted down one of our favourite places from our last trip here so that we could enjoy their sensational okonomiyaki. We were very fortunate that we were all able to be accommodated even if we at somewhat in shifts.

I think my favourite moment of the afternoon (or possibly the next one as the days already begin to blur) was Belinda almost kamikazeing under a rope and onto a very steep (though powder covered and short) slope that she would never have skied down. Fortunately for her she only ended up with her skis under the rope and was able to abort that probably chaotic descent!

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring and skiing and a little bit of it trying to find somewhere to have dinner, though that was mostly done by Sam as he at least had limited phone time on his sim card and the ability to actually converse with the locals. He wasn’t very successful for that night, but at least got some bookings made for the following two nights.

Most of us opted to eat at the lodge again, while Michael, Sam and Olivia managed to get in somewhere else. Post dinner saw us reclaim the common room, play some Qwixx and demolish some of the wonderfully low-priced whiskey we’d purchased in Tokyo!

My personal goal for Madarao was to end each day with everything intact. After all, it was only about 14 months ago that I last ended up with a little hamstring problem;

Not to mention the fact that our last trip here was where I attempted to hit 100km/hr on skis only to convert the attempt to ‘near-death-by-snowboard’ at about 95km/hr. Both had been on my mind a lot during the day and led to a lot of caution. I think my max speed for the day was about 50km/hr and I almost exclusively avoided testing my limits too much. Ski-day 1 – success.

Japan 2023 - Day 5

Today was a travel day, with our itinerary set for us to travel from Tokyo to our first ski destination for the trip; Madarao.

It was the first time our full collective had travelled together with all our luggage in tow. We had two things in our favour. Sam, the super-organised one to help with navigation and tickets and the fact we’d made the trip before and knew to send our ski gear ahead of us. It mean that our skis, boots and ski-clothing had been shipped from the airport and would be waiting for our arrival in Madarao.

We lugged our collective possessions to the train station and up and down a few stairs (or in some cases, used the elevator) and after a bit of a false start all ended up in the same place, with tickets, ready to board the train. Almost miraculously, nothing went wrong and that’s exactly what we did. A transfer in Tokyo saw the Tembys on their first Shinkansen for the trip (having caught a local train from Haneda while the Rowlands had arrived into Narita and caught the Shinkansen to Tokyo).

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of travelling on the Shinkansen and can imagine one day simply purchasing the JR Pass and spending days just riding all over Japan. Our destination was Iiyama, where we transferred to a shuttle bus to take us up the mountain to Madarao itself.

We disembarked from the bus to be greeted by our first touchable snow of the trip, which for the Rowlands was the first time they’d seen it since they visited us in Canada. We collected our luggage and walked down the hill to our accommodation at Madarao Mountain Lodge to get checked in ahead of organising ski gear for all those who had to hire something.

I don’t think we’d been there for much more than an hour before Michael and Olivia had ventured out the back of the lodge and created a little slide and return stairway for themselves in the snow. Though short, the pitch was impressive! (don’t worry, you’ll see more on that in the days ahead since I’m playing catch up with this).

We were lucky that the lodge has a small restaurant and that dinner for the first night was sorted as Madarao, being small but busy, can prove difficult to book dinner reservations, and given there were twelve of us in total, we didn’t even expect to eat together every night.

Skis were hired and organised and we returned to the lodge. Thomas was itching to get out on his brand new skis and so went to the trouble of putting boots and skis on just to slide down the little run that Michael and Olivia had created earlier in the afternoon for their butts. He was pretty stoked to be the first of the party to get to ski.

The lodge has a small common room in the basement that we pretty much claimed for our own from that first night and thanks to a mix-up with dinner bookings, we ended up eating down there as well! It was definitely better than missing out altogether. After a couple of quiet drinks we decided to call it a day, ready to be up early to kit up and hit the slopes! There was even a small chance we’d see Sam in long pants for the first time on the trip!

Japan 2023 - Day 4

Today started with a run. Not everyone’s choice on holiday, but something I have been enjoying when I travel for a while now. On one of our previous trips to Japan when I was significantly fitter than I am currently, I discovered that there’s a loop around the Imperial Palace in Tokyo that’s about as close to five kilometres as one needs. There’s no traffic lights and only a relatively minor change in elevation, so a great place for a run. So I did it twice, because ten kilometres was what I was running at the time. It’s also quite a scenic run, so I had declared that I’d like to fit in a single lap this trip if I could. Thomas was keen to do it with me, while a few other members of the party said they’d be up to walk it.

So we (mostly) worked out the logistics for a start time that would get us back in time for the second group of go-karters to go have their fun. If there’s one thing that’s consistent with travelling with a larger group, it’s the cat-herding effect that even the simplest tasks seem to generate. But we got there. Now in my mind there was a very clear plan. Thomas and I run around the loop and when we get tot the end, we walk back to where everyone else was walking around. That should have had them about three-quarters of the way around and we could all walk the last quarter together and return.

That was what I thought the plan was. And apparently I was right. But the plan changed. I mean it makes sense that when you’ve gone to all the effort of visiting the palace and have the opportunity to go into the gardens, that you do so. Which was fine other than the fact that by the time Thomas and I had walked back to meet them, we’d basically walked 2/3rds of the way around and were getting short on time for the go-kart booking (which Thomas was part of). No issue, we’d just go straight there and everything would be good (other than Thomas not getting a shower and possibly being a little on the stinky side). And at no point did I google map the wrong hotel and nearly send us an hour out the way. Didn’t happen and even if it did, I realised before we got on the wrong train!

So with correct directions allegedly sorted I, being the sanitary one,  opted to return to the hotel to shower and then meet up with the pack later after they’d dropped off the go-karters. I was successful and the other half of the party was mostly successful in getting to the go-karting with only a minor detour.

The rest of us met up with Sam, Michael and Olive and opted for a yummy yakiniku lunch. There were a couple of items on the menu that were listed as having ‘death sauce’ so even though I like a bit of spice, I opted not to try them. Apparently Michael was a little more adventurous, but given we were split across a couple of tables, I wasn’t aware of this until right at the end of the lunch he offered me a bit of death-sauced chicken to try. Let’s just say that it was appropriately named! It’s okay, and by the time we made I through to have crepes some 15 minutes later, I could almost taste mine.

With lunch out of the way, we ascended to the 9^th floor of Yodabashi camera where it turns out there’s both a golf driving range and a baseball batting set-up. It wasn’t something we’d ever tried before so we gave it a go. Pitching speeds varied from 90km/hr up to 150km/hr on the cages we were using. During my turn I started at 110 and managed to scare a few balls before connecting with a couple. On my second go around I ramped it up to 130 and quickly stepped out the way of the first pitch with my tail between my legs. Michael had attempted a 150km/hr pitch and having stood behind it, I really didn’t need to subject myself to that madness!

With our batting cage fun over we linked up with the rest of the group and immediately split up so that Caroline could shop for a new helmet (with me in tow) while others went to visit Senso-Ji and the adjacent market before we would all link up again to visit the Tokyo Skytree (which included a mandatory trip to a Pokémon store, though amazingly compared to previous trips it is so far the only one we’ve been to)! We were up the top of the Skytree over dusk and into evening which provided some awesome views.

Our plan for dinner was to visit a restaurant we’d eaten at twice on our last visit because a) its close to the hotel and b) we thought it could probably accommodate all twelve of us. That part of things was successful.

Jason and I ordered whiskey’s and because I was anticipating a bit of a wait before we’d get to order a second, I suggested we double up, which we did. Then we were asked what size we’d like to which we answered big ones, but given the size of the drinks we’d seen Caroline suggested that maybe we didn’t actually need two drinks each. We bowed to her superior intelligence and attempted to amend our order. Something was a little lost in translation though … we ended up with two each anyway … one with coke, one with soda. And the girls, not to be outdone opted for their drinks large sized too!

We battled through …

Of course the highlight of the meal was the secret delivery of the very special extra dish. It was something I thought I’d probably only ever order once in my life, but given the chance to share the joy with our friends, I ordered it again. Now if you want your friends to eat something and no think there’s anything wrong with it, you either eat it and hold all breath/expression or other sign of anything untoward (like Michael did with me with the death sauce) or you simply eat it with them. What we ate wasn’t overly hot or anything, so that wasn’t an issue.

Bel had a bit of a taste and wasn’t impressed, so left the rest of hers for Jason. Jason ate his and like me, determined that it wasn’t terrible, but neither was it something you’d join a long line to purchase. Which of course was the time to let everyone that was trying it to know what it was they were eating.

Some jokes will never get old. Like Bel letting Jason eat her rectum …

It’s hard to top that for a night out, but we gave it a go. One of the things on our list of stuff to do for the trip was karaoke. Caroline opted for sense and sleep and Sam was good enough to come along to at least get us through the door and set up to sing. Well maybe sing is over-stating things. All in all we had a good time, though I think there was more butchery than karaoke, especially when yours truly was allowed near a microphone!

 

Japan 2023 - Day 3

 The first order of business for the day (after a local bakery breakfast) was trying to coordinate when Emily and Tom would make it to the hotel after their arrival into Tokyo. We’d planned to head to Team Labs (hyperlink) once they’d arrived, but it was something of an unknown as to when they’d actually get to the hotel after going through all required steps to get there. In the end they made pretty good time and now with a posse of seven, we headed out to find Team Labs  to experience something a bit different.

We trekked our way out to the Tokyo bay area where team labs is and given the time of day, decided to find something to eat before we went through (given the recommended 2 hour duration to explore the experience).

Michael found us a place that did katsu which became the plan. We trooped in and were given a table that unfortunately only seated 6 people. Thomas was directed to a separate table. I took pity on him and thought I’d completely ruin it for him by making him suffer my company as well.

There was a Japanese woman and man at the table between Thomas and I and the rest of the family. They offered to swap but looked way too settled to disturb them to that extent given there was a divider between them and the rest of our family so we declined their offer. After a couple of minutes they asked Thomas and I where we were from. When they heard we were from Australia we began a very stilted exchange of words that certainly couldn’t be rated as a conversation which basically became a rundown of things they either knew of or had visited in Australia and we had to work out what they were … Koala, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Opera House … you get the idea.

After a while they started asking about sake. We managed to work out they were asking if we were okay with drinking sake and when we said yes, a very large bottle of sake appeared on the table and was being poured. My prior very limited experience with sake saw it essentially poured into a shot glass (probably wrongly to) but this was a very large pour. I approached it with some trepidation because like most things, there’s good quality sake and poor quality as well. It turned out to be delicious. After a little while Sam joined in and actually had a bit of a conversation with them which resulted in us finding out another word they knew … present. They gifted the family three small bottles of sake to take with us. Throughout the whole exchange though it wasn’t quite clear whether the guy was trying to ascertain whether we thought the woman was attractive, trying to set her up with one of us or maybe just trying to sell her. Sam seemed to think that she was perhaps lonely, didn’t have a lot of friends and he was trying to help her out. We never quiet established what the relationship between them was. Again, according to Sam, they offered to show us around that night because they guy had grown up in the area we were staying in. We didn’t take them up on the offer as it would basically have subjected Sam to even more interpreting than he’d already been doing. Based on what we saw though it would have been a boozy night!

Having conquered and won at lunch, we headed off to team labs where we had a great time exploring the exhibits. 

I’d certainly recommend it if you’re in Tokyo and looking for something to do.

One of the things I’ve had on my list of ‘want to do in Tokyo’ is to go go-karting through the streets. A friend had done it around the time of our first trip and the Telfords did it during our last trip, but this was the first time that Emily has been old enough and licensed enough to do it. Unfortunately, because of COVID and the size of our assault on Tokyo, booking everyone in one go wasn’t ever going to happen. The most they’d take at once was four, so we’ve split ourselves over three groups. Today was the day for the first group; Michael, Olivia, Samuel and Emily. So after getting out of team labs we headed back to Akihabara to drop them off to go-kart.

While the first four were lucky enough to explore Tokyo on four very small wheels, the last three of us met up with a friend of Tom’s who was on his last day in Tokyo. We went through BIC camera quickly in search of some whiskey to bring home. That was accomplished and then we headed out to find some dinner ahead of the impending Rowland invasion. We found a ramen joint with zero English where you selected your meal outside and paid via vending machine to produce a ticket. It wasn’t the greatest meal I’ve ever had in Japan, nor was it the worse and it did what it was supposed to do and filled us up. Unfortunately Thomas’ friend had some sort of medical issue and after an extended trip to the bathroom announced he had food lodged in his throat and would need to seek medical attention! He didn’t appear particularly distressed, but at the same time, we were a little worried and sent Tom with him while Caroline and I headed back to meet up with the Rowlands who had made it to Tokyo.

We met them at the hotel and took them down the road for dinner at a local little family restaurant and the settled I for our first combined assault on the land of the rising sun. Oh and we did receive notification that Finn had managed to dislodge the food stuck in his throat without medical intervention much to our collective relief!