Let's enjoy camping - Sunday 27th May



When I eventually left school on Saturday I met up with Kat in Nagano to catch our train to Kurohime to meet Alex and Todd at Lake Nojiri. We had bought a brand new tent for Fuji Rock (not until July) and thought it was the perfect opportunity to test it out! Being the expert camper that I am, I bought a couple of sleeping bags and presumed we were all kitted out for a good night's sleep under the stars. Turns out Lake Nojiri is 300 metres higher than Nagano and therefore the temperature dropped quite significantly once the sun went down, which just so happened to be when we arrived to put up our tent...


Ta daaaa - done in 6 minutes 20 seconds! (with NO help from the boys!)




Todd - we compared frog sightings!


standard Japan BBQ food - "meat" on a stick


Kat already in her sleeping bag!

After quite literally CHILLING out all evening by the water's edge, Kat and I huddled up in our sleeping bags with what felt like no sleep at all until about 5am when the crows started competeting with the frog noise!






7am view from inside my tent




"is the sun up yet?"





We spent a lovely morning at our campsite where the owner brought us deck chairs and fresh coffee, and then we headed off in search of the others at the wakeboardng side of the lake. I am ashamed to say I did not partake in any watersports this time but was incredibly successful in relaxing on the side of the lake and doing absolutely nothing... bliss!




Kyla and Alan

SATURDAY (!!) 26th May

Well it's Saturday, I'm at school and not very happy about it! I had to teach two demo lesson for random members of the public to come and watch. Turns out nobody is actually all that interested in the gaijin of Minami High School and so my only spectator was Kocho Sensei (the principal). Nevermind though, as both my lessons were finished by 11.40am this morning I now have 4 1/2 hours left to sit and stare at the walls while all the other teachers are at a PTA meeting. Oh and did I mention that it is about 25 degrees outside and glorious sunshine... something I am unable to appreciate when sitting at me desk. Sigh.

It's all good though as tonight I am off to the lake at Kurohime for my first camping trip in Japan! For now though I thought I would post some pictures of Iiyama coming into summer. The season has quite literally changed overnight and with the paddy fields filled with water, the only thing more annoying than working on a Saturday is the fact that 3 million frogs have chosen my neighbourhood paddy fields to express themselves vocally in. Believe me, that's a LOT of noise!

Anyway, here are the pictures:

Lions and tigers and bears... OH MY!

Well, not really lions and tigers. Just bears. And it was only really one bear but it's still "OH MY!". An announcement came over the tannoy at school this morning saying that a bear had been spotted hanging around the train staion at Nozawaonsen (10 minutes from here) scaring all the students on their way to school. The notice that followed immediately afterwards translated as "be careful and do your best". Thanks Japan!

Last week kicked off with a block meeting in the city that inlcuded a visit to a neighbouring town called Matsushiro, where we saw old samurai houses and gardens and then visited the Daihon caves built during WWII. There was so much hype built up in the JET community about this meeting and how it was "too much fun" to be a compulsory part of our training but to me, it was a nice day out of the office and the chance to miss teaching my least favourite class!



I just couldn't take him seriously with that helmet on!


Or them!


A portrait etched into the caves






Samurai street


Watch tower looking over the valley in Nagano

After our day out, Belinda and I were faced with getting ready for Kiren's Hen Party on the bus as we drove back to Nagano. Kiren's friends and family from Australia and the UK were in Japan for her wedding and so we all went out for dinner (Shabu Shabu - meat and vegetables boiled in a sweet soup) and general merriment! The second part of the night was an all-you-can-drink karaoke session which I was GUTTED to have missed out on but my last train was calling. Oh and of course, it was a school night!


Kiren with her mum and friends from home


Kiren and Bel

Kiren and Nic got married at Zenko-ji in Nagano on Wednesday and Belinda and I joined them at the Green Gerberah for the "Nijikai" (wedding reception) afterwards.

The rest of the week was pretty quiet and then on Saturday Kyla and I drove down to Saku for Erika's birthday bash titled "Kimono and Keeki party" (keeki is Japanese for cake!). The venue was Kat's lovely big house and we all donned out best kimonos (complete with obis bought from the 2nd hand store) and brought along our keekis to munch on. I have about a million pictures of gaijins (foreigners) in kimonos because to tell you the truth, the novelty just didn't wear off! We all drank and danced the night away until eventually Kat and I realised that everyone else had gone to bed and we could hear the famous cockrels that wake her up every morning!


No more explantion needed... here are some pictures!

Kyla and Kat

Kyla and me

Abby, Nadia and Toshio

Abby, Zia and Nadia with their keekis!

"BANZAI!"

Well I’m going to pick up where Madz left off on our little adventure!!

After giving Makoto his car back and saying our goodbyes, Tamie (Makoto's wife) dropped us at the station where we caught the train through to Nagano followed by the Shinkansen onto Tokyo to start the next part of our adventure!

On arrival in Tokyo we headed straight to where we would be staying – the Sakura Hotel in Jimbocho! Because we had started out nice and early we arrived around lunchtime and had the whole day left, so we didn’t wait about long at the hotel.

First we went to Shibuya, which has to be one of the busiest places I have ever been and is amazing for people watching. We sat back in a massive Starbucks and looked out the huge 2nd floor window at everyone on the world's largest intersection.









We spent the rest of the day looking about Shibuya at the shops and taking pics. Before dinner we stopped back at the hotel to get changed before heading to Harajuku where we found a restaurant for dinner and some much needed nourishment!

On Saturday morning we were greeted with the best weather of our holiday with temperatures easily pushing 25 degrees we made our way to Yokohama using a variety of Tokyo Metro then train. It took around an hour to reach Yokohama and upon arrival it was immediately obvious just how different it was from Tokyo.





We left the station just outside the massive Yokohama sports stadium (mainly baseball) and started to walk toward Chinatown. On the way there, the streets seemed wider and the buildings further spaced giving a much less enclosed feeling than Tokyo and (although still very busy) it felt a lot more relaxed too!





Chinatown Yokohama was something else! We made our way down the maze of narrow streets with so many people that you really had to just go with the flow and get pushed along. Every so often we would nudge past the crowds and have a look in a shop or through a restaurant window! We came across a sort of mall where there were many small shops selling a bizarre range of souvenirs, clothes and food. After several purchases we made our way back out into the crowds, the best purchase of all was a dress I got for Madz, which was very beautiful in black and red.



At one small food shop outside Madz was over the moon to find Mi Goreng noodles – a favourite of hers (apparently sold around the world)!












By this point we were getting slightly peckish as almost every 2nd establishment we passed – without exaggeration either sold food for cooking or was a restaurant! At the top of the main street was the Chinese museum of food and entertainment! Inside was almost as busy as out and we found several floors of shops / stalls selling a variety of Chinese and other foods. We purchased some fried rice dish and Japanese gyoza (dumpling) and sat amongst the small tables and munched away!



After lunch we headed back out onto the streets. Numerous photographs were taken and the atmosphere was amazing with hundreds of people wandering about, the noise and everything going on – shop and restaurant owners were doing there best to shout louder than the competition! I was particularly interested in the roast chestnuts that were being sold, although I never purchased as too many samples were being given out, we did however sample a very nice coconut which was surprisingly refreshing and cool!







We then made our way slowly out of Chintown to see what else Yokohama had to offer.
As we walked towards the city centre we stopped for some further light refreshment in the form of Corona at a funky bar with incredibly encouraging seats and tables soaked in sun outside in the street!





Walking through Yokohama we eventually came down to the Harbour side and docks. A large part of the main promenade had been rebuilt within the last few years with an interesting modern walkway with views around the bay of the bridge and cruise ships!







Leaving the harbour our next destination was the Landmark Tower - Japan's tallest skyscraper with 71 floors.



Boasting the worlds fastest elevator (it really was, my ears even popped with the height) shot us up to the 60th floor in just 1 minute – very cool! As the doors opened we were greeted with the panoramic views around Yokohama which were breath taking. We had chosen a particularly good time of day to go at because upon arrival it was daylight (late afternoon) and we then saw an amazing sunset followed by the city at night once the sun had gone down all within the space of an hour!













After many photographs dinner began to call and we headed down to ground level.


Dinner on Friday night was courtesy of the Hard Rock Café, which you really cannot go wrong with, the food as usual was great! I was slightly offended that the waitress suggested that the sundae was big enough to share (when it arrived I was glad I didn’t have it on my own)! We had to head quite quickly for the train after dinner as time was going on and we didn’t want to miss the last train back to Tokyo!








On Saturday morning we gave the hotel breakfast a miss and headed straight into Tokyo for a busy day (picking up a small croissant and a coffee on the way – sorry not very Japanese but tasty though!).

First on the itinerary was Meiji Jingu a shrine in Harajuku. Each of the temples and shrines Madz and I have visited in Japan has held something different and Meiji Jingu was no exception. First of all the Ni-No-Torii (entrance gate) is the largest in Japan and really is massive. I’ve no idea how they found 1 tree tall enough to make it that height let alone two!











Being Golden Week the temple was very busy however this didn’t detract from the amazing beauty! It may also have worked in our favour, as there wasn’t just one wedding taking place but three, lets just say that a lot of photographs were taken!!
There were also two Geishas playing a large Japanese harp / guitar (Shamisen) together which was attracting a large crowd – I felt quite sorry for them as it looked hard work and a very challenging instrument to play especially in tandem!




The temple entrance is very close to the bustling streets of Harajuku. On our return to the station we passed the area of Harajuku made famous by the teenagers (and adults) who dress up quite theatrically - many in a Goth style - and pose in the street for their photographs to be taken!






There were also many buskers playing too – all of which made great photographs! Funniest of all was a fairly ordinarily looking man who did nothing but dance to Sting with great emotion and enthusiasm (until he got moved on by the police)!



Our next stop on our busy day was to Hie Jinja – the series of small gates that led up the side of the hill to the shrine made it very worth while going to see! All the gates are painted a very vibrant red with black writing the temple itself to be honest wasn’t as good as other ones we had seen but this didn’t matter at all!! Strangely this temple is located right in the middle of the business district and its quite strange that one minute you can be standing in the silence of the ancient temple grounds and in a short walk you can be in completely contrasting, ultra-modern part of Tokyo packed with offices!










On Saturday night as we came to the end of our time together in Tokyo, we had planned a rather special dinner! A quick taxi ride from our Hotel took us to The Park Hyatt where we would be dinning at the New York Grill on the 52nd floor! The restaurant was amazing with views over the city and the food was brilliant – I had a very large Hokkaido (Japanese) steak and Madz had Chicken, all accompanied with loads of veg!! We had just enough room left to share a cheesecake before making our way to the sky bar!






After a few cocktails at the bar (made famous by Bill Murray who drank there in the film ‘Lost in Translation’) accompanied by some singing (not by me) and jazz and a lot of people watching we went for a wander around the hotel!



Sunday morning was a very early start and it was fairly fitting that it was raining as we qued at the bus stop at Shinjuku! Before long we were on the Bus to Narita Int Airport and saying our goodbyes!

Each of my trips to Japan has been completely different and I would find it very hard to choose a favourite. However having said that I would say if pushed this most recent trip would be it, having done so much especially seeing Mt Fuji!

(Very big thank you to Makoto and Tamie for loaning us their car and my folks for the airport shuttle service at silly o’clock in the morning and at night!!)