Japan 2018:sushi & sake

Zojo-ji Temple & Tokyo Tower It was a public holiday on Monday but commerce didn’t stop.   Bev had booked a tour of some temples and shrines, with a guide through AirBnB.   A peaceful place The tour started at a station called   Hamamatsucho which conveniently was on a JR line.   Navigating the Japanese public transport system is a nightmare.   There are several companies that run the public transport system.   Japan Railways is but one of the players with what seems to be mostly overground rail whereas there are other companies that run the metro/underground system.   Our JR pass is only good for the JR lines so we are using those as much as possible.   We have also had to get a Pasmo pass which allows us to use the other systems. The deities for little people- keeping their head warm After some wonderful tempura for lunch we met Torai, (a young law student from a country area), for our guided tour.   The f...

Cycleway just down the road from our place After the most delicious sleep I awoke refreshed and was ready to explore this new and different place.   A place where the language is almost foreign, the signs are mostly in an unreadable script and the place is clean, tidy and densely packed with houses and skyscrapers.   A truly new experience.   At one point I said to Bev that it seems to be largely a culture that has he wn its own place, that is modern without being western European.   It has   all the things we are familiar with - cars, iPhones, computers and so on, yet all done in a Japanese way. Parking: If you have a bike you have to park it.  It was very warm and quite humid.   Bev’s big idea was to go to the Shibuya crossing which is reputably the largest pedestrian crossing in the world.   We decided to walk there and to use Google maps as our guide.   It took us on a rather circuitous route and ended...

It was an early start this morning.   I did not have much sleep due, I suspect, to the anticipation of a new and exciting experience.   I wouldn’t normally talk about a taxi experience. However, a month or so ago I was directed to Zoomy (zoomy.co.nz ) which is a competitor to Uber.   They are a small start up operating in Wellington and Auckland but more like a ride share than the taxi company that Uber has become.   I didn’t expect to see one around at 5am in the morning but on checking the the app to see if there was one nearby I was surprised to see there was one down the road.   It was a quick ride to the airport and the cost was two thirds of that of a regular taxi  - even cheaper because I had a bonus for some reason. After a lovely morning in Wellington we arrived to cold drizzle in Auckland. After clearing immigration and a very grumpy customs officer we queued for the security screening along with a lot of other rather tired looking trave...

About five months ago I had a rush of blood to the head.   Why don’t we go to Japan instead of the islands for a week.   This was prompted by a special from Air New Zealand.   Getting the right dates was a bit of a challenge as the preferred dates coincided with the school holidays (and higher prices) whereas later dates conflicted with a wedding and a couple of organised bike rides.   Bev did all the research for a place to stay in Tokyo and what we should do while there. As a result we have a packed itinerary that involves a cycling tour, a walking tour and a night at a traditional inn.   On our penultimate day we are going to go to Kyoto to see the old capital which is meant to be very beautiful with many temples.   This will allow us to experience the bullet train.   We are staying in an AirBnB in Shibuya.   It will be interesting to see how tiny it is.   For the past couple of weeks I have been keeping an eye...