Asia Tour – Akihabara Re-visited, Tokyo, Japan

Posted on by
1

Jan 12th – Bit of a slow morning as had to sort some things out for the return trip, namely arranging my transfer to the Airport for the next day. Skipped the hotel breakfast – safer option.

Met up with Ferlyn at Akihabara in the afternoon, and the weather was horrid, rainy and windy and very cold. Exactly what we didn’t want for wandering around outside. After a bit of battling through the crowd of umbrellas, we arrived at our first stop the @Home Cafe – this was huge, 3 floors of Maid cafe, and each one has a different theme. The queue was incredible, went down the stairs 3 floors. Decided not to wait and were about to go when we found the lowest floor of @Home had a traditional Japanese style theme – and NO Queue! So we went in. I can see why this place was so popular, really good decor, the costumes were really good and the service was great. We were lucky enough to catch (and be part of) a game of paper scissors stone – I was out first round, Ferlyn got to the second, eventually it came down to 2 very nervous Japanese gentlemen, who then had to compete up in the centre with the Maids. Was all good fun, even if I couldn’t remember the sequence of actions properly lol.

We had a desert and I got a green tea, which the maid prepared in front of us – then came the adding of the love – we had to perform this ritual before being allowed to enjoy the tea, it basically consisted of bringing your hands together to form a heart shape, then saying a couple of words in Japanese, and all 3 of us had to do it at once – the purpose is to add love into the tea to make it extra special. Took a couple of attempts, mainly down to me again not quite getting the sequence right, but after it must have worked – faith – as the tea was great. We also had to partake similar rituals of adding love for each item ordered, and for our desert the maid would pour the source on, but would only stop upon making the correct “mew mew” sound. The cute cat theme was present in other areas, such as part of the paper scissors stone sequence involved a couple of cat like actions, including making of cat ears on our head, all very cute and was good fun.

Then we had a look round one of the big stores which sells like everything, spent a bit of time there looking in the costume section – so many different ones and such amazing designs. Also had a look at the other @Home cafe in there, again big queue, and quite a bit smaller. Then we had dinner at a Okonomiyaki restaurant, and this was quite different from what I’d tried before, but we had 2 different dishes and both were really good, also very filling and couldn’t eat all of it, but glad to have tried it before I left Japan. Then it was time to head back, and took the JR line back to Shinagawa.

Didn’t take any photos that day as the rain and wind were so bad, so here’s a random photo of Ferlyn (on the left) as a maid from back in March at Cosafe. Actually its not random, I love this photo 🙂

dsc00292.jpgdsc_0093.jpg

The second photo is from Christmas Eve at Cosafe (Ferlyn in red), for more Cosafe photos see this post.

Asia Tour – Roppongi, Tokyo, Japan

Posted on by
1

Jan 11th – First full day of Tokyo part 2, had the hotel breakfast buffet, and then headed out to Roppongi to have a look around, wasn’t sure what to expect but from the guide its full of international themed places. As I was there in day, it wasn’t overly exciting, few nice shops tho and a nice mall just over the main road from the station.

DSC00168.jpg
DSC00170.jpg
DSC00171.jpg
DSC00172.jpg
DSC00175.jpg
DSC00176.jpg

[Show as slideshow]

Lots of international bars and restaurants – even found a place called Piccadilly (see photo), a Mexican, french and Spanish restaurant, and a couple of English and Irish themed bars. All closed at the time, appears only open for the evening. Didn’t feel like waiting 2-3 hours, so headed back. Wasn’t feeling so great when I got back – appears the hotel breakfast was to blame..hmm. Decided not to be too adventurous, and had dinner in the hotel’s Chinese restaurant, stayed in after that and got an early night.

Asia Tour – Back to Tokyo, Japan

Posted on by
1

Jan 10th – Back to Tokyo. Early start and hotel breakfast, then made the long trip back to Tokyo. From Hiroshima JR station I took another Hikari RailStar Superexpress 469 to Shin-Osaka, this time it was a fancy Series 700 Shinkansen, which seems to be the best and newest model, however after seeing the round 500 series which is a sort of 2 tone metallic blue, the 500 series gets the points on looks. After a short wait I then transfered to another Hikari Superexpress 413 for the final trip to Shinagawa in Tokyo. Do not underestimate how long this trip is, it felt like the whole day was spent traveling, and I didnt arive at the hotel till well after 6PM. The hotel is interesting in itself, as there appears to be 2 of them, the original Grand Prince and the New Grand Prince, both appear next to each other and linked by the land in the middle which has the hotel’s convention centre. I can only vouch for the New Grand Prince, however this part alone is huge, and could practically fit a football pitch in the lobby. Very posh, very smart, and a very luxurious hotel, and my room on the Club Floor is beautiful, but what makes it is the view of the city and the Tokyo Tower.

DSC_0483.jpg
DSC_0484.jpg
DSC_0491.jpg

[Show as slideshow]
DSC00177.jpg
DSC00178.jpg

[Show as slideshow]

Asia Tour – Hiroshima, Japan

Posted on by
Reply

Jan 8th, First evening in Hiroshima. One thing which is quite surprising is how busy and built up the city is, clearly the last 50 years have been an incredible growth period, and it is quite amazing how it has bounced back after the A bomb. My hotel room had a magnificent view, over looking the Peace Park and the city from the 12th floor at night makes a great photo.

DSC_0471.jpg
DSC_0476.jpg
DSC_0481.jpg

[Show as slideshow]

Took dinner in the hotel’s Italian restaurant, which was very good and again had an excellent view – this time the 15th floor. After this it was quite late, but I ventured out anyway and headed along the river towards the centre of town. The river bank opposite from the peace park was a nice walk and not many people around, will be back for photos tomorrow however. Got to an area noted as an Arcade on the map and guide, and although was quite interesting with the masses of slot machine places and a few restaurants, most seemed to be closing up for the night and only a few bars still seemed to be open but almost empty, the hundreds of taxis which were slowly roaming through the streets in a long winding line seemed to suggest everyone was heading out of there, so I also headed back. Unfortunately I had managed to not remember the correct way back, and after 30 minutes of wondering gave up and got a taxi back like everyone else.

Jan 9th – Visit to the Peace Park and Museum. The museum sites right at the start of the Peace Park, and has been expanded into a second building. I decided to go for the full tour experience and hired the audio guide, a clever flash based player where you simply press the button for the number of the sign and press play. Having over 50 separate tracks, and taking me the entire day to look round, it is quite an impressive museum and tour. They cover everything from explaining the A bomb itself, to a history of Hiroshima before and after, as well as detailed coverage of the effects of the A bomb, some which are quite disturbing, particularly the accounts of the young children who were burnt so badly that hardly any skin remained, and yet still managed to struggle to try to get home. The sad truth that they all died shortly after, either from the horrific injures or from the radiation makes it even more of a saddening story. Then there is the story of the schoolgirl who initially was a survivor with good health until in the 6th grade she became ill and developed leukaemia, all from being exposed to the radioactive ‘Black Rain’ while trying to escape the aftermath with her mother. She is quite famous for trying to make 1,000 paper cranes as tradition tells that if you can fold 1,000 paper cranes, your wish will come true. Through her determination, she did in fact make well over 1,000 by herself, unfortunately her wish was not granted and her condition worsened until her death a short time later. Her story reached world wide following, and school children still make and send in paper cranes. Some of the original she made are on exhibition at the museum.

DSC_0457.jpg
DSC_0464.jpg
DSC_0466.jpg

[Show as slideshow]

On a another level which people may find disturbing is how a certain last remaining super-power has contemplated the use of Atomic weapons in other situations following Hiroshima. There is on display a list which shows the dates and incidents in which that country has contemplated dropping a nuclear bomb in war in other places, this list is quite shocking, and practically amounts to every conflict they have been in to date. The museum gives a very un-biased account of the events, and displays many interesting items on what countries have such weapons at present. They also play a very active role, as does the city itself, in trying to rid the world of atomic weapons, and there is a torch which they vow to keep burning until the last one has been disarmed.

Asia Tour – Kyoto, Japan

Posted on by
Reply

Jan 6th – First full day in Kyoto. And unfortunately the day my cold decided it was all out war, leaving me bed ridden for almost the entire first day, I didn’t even get get the hotel breakfast. I finally forced myself out for the late evening, and was so hungry when I emerged from the hotel, I had a Mc Donald’s to make up for no food that day – it was slightly better than the standard cardboard in the UK, and clearly the Japanese version actually had meat in the burgers, although was not even close to MOS Burger (a Japanese burger chain, where everything is made fresh and tastes like real food). I then decided to take the subway one stop, change lines and end up in the down town area. In reality, I went one stop, couldn’t find the line to change to, decided to walk instead, walked about 15 minutes only to emerge back at the hotel, turned around and went back in the opposite direction and got to the right area some 30 minutes later.

I then came across the one thing you can never fail to find in a far off land (except for a Chinese restaurant) the good old Irish Pub. Yes, its Kyoto, Japan, cant get much further from Ireland, yet theres an Irish Pub. I went in and got a Guinness. The Gael Gion as its called, is pretty authentic, fantastic décor and nice selection of drinks, and the Japanese bar staff spoke good Irish (well English). Currently owned by an Englishman from Liverpool who wasn’t in that night, but am told it was once owned by an Irishman some time before. This turned out to be an excellent night out, and made good friends with 3 of the regulars, one who kindly gave me a tour of the near-by area.

Most people headed home by this time, but on the way back a particular bar caught my eye as still being open, and after a beer and some chatting with the staff, I decided to stay out a bit longer. After spending about an hour chasing down a foreign compatible ATM, I ended up at the highly recommended Sam & Dave night club. Quite a nice venue and was quite enjoying the atmosphere. Shortly later a Japanese gentleman approached me, and after a couple of minutes I discovered he wanted to challenge a westerner to an arm wrestle “because westerner’s are meant to be really strong” now, me knowing a thing or 2 about Japanese strength, namely that even the smallest of Japanese seem to have amazing strength, I really wasn’t expecting to stand a chance, but I thought I might as well have a go anyway. Sure enough I lasted about 4 seconds. By the 5th second we were already bowing to each other furiously, by the 7th second he’d taken my beer. Fair enough I suppose, he did win fair and square. That little manoeuvre had me laughing to myself for the rest of the night, a very intuitive way to get a free beer if ever I saw one. About an hour later it was 4am, and I headed back via a taxi to the hotel.

Jan 7th – This was meant to be the day I visited Nara, and also I was looking at a trip to the Steam Locomotive Museum, unfortunately my cold decided it was having none of it – probably not helped by the previous late night admittedly, and lost most of the day again feeling quite ill with a cold and even a fever thrown in for good measure. Opted for dinner in the hotel with the intention of going out again that evening, however following the long meal I really wasnt up for it and ended up having an early-ish night.

Jan 8th – Got a nice early start, hotel breakfast finally, packed and headed off to the JR Kyoto station to make my way to Hiroshima. After just missing my train I got to watch several of the really high-speed Nozomi trains leave for Hiroshima, and then I got my Hikari superexpress which took me the majority of the journey to Okayama, where I then changed to a Hikari RailStar superexpress for the final section to Hiroshima. Upon arrival in Hiroshima, it was a 5 minute taxi ride to the hotel, the Sunroute Hiroshima.