Here we are, on December 6^th, 2023. Last time I wrote, we were leaving Japan and I highlighted the cost of that trip. Since then, we have been to Taiwan, Singapore and then boarded a cruise ship. Internet is spotty, hence the delay in posting.

Where our cruise has gone so far

On the ship, we have visited Malaysia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. After visiting these three, we are now sailing for India – we have our visa’s and we’ll see what awaits us as we embark on a three-week tour of the southern part of India. We have multiple hard copies of our visas and passport pages.

It was not too long ago that Sri Lanka, Ceylon before 1972, was in the midst of civil unrest, protesting against the government. Most Canadians will recall, not that long ago, a minority of Canadians were protesting against the government and making international headlines. Today, in Sri Lanka, everything seems fine on this lush tropical Island nation of 22 million people. They were very warm and welcoming and we intend to return here to explore more of the island and its food.

Tours in Sri Lanka

We took two tours in Sri Lanka, one in Hambantota and one in Colombo. Both times Tuk-Tuks were our method of transport. Our first Tuk-Tuk had a sun-roof, which is a rare thing here. We spent a lot of time standing up with our heads sticking out of the window. You can see a video of that on Instagram. The Tuk Tuks’ don’t travel that fast, maybe 60km flat out, and they are rather noisy, but are they ever an experience!

Hambantota – gateway to Yala National Park (and elephants!)

Our first trip, from Hambantota, had us in a Tuk Tuk for about 45 minutes, then transferred to a safari jeep. We then toured Yala national park in search for animals. We saw a number of birds and mammals and just as we exited the park gates at the end of our safari, we saw an elephant. 

This beautiful elephant, completely wild, was just hanging around at the side of the road, drinking from a stream and “shooting” water. It was like a scene from the movies. The elephant headed over our way and the guide gave him a melon, which he “crunched” in one bite. Then two bunches of bananas were passed and devoured, peels and all. It was awe inspiring to watch the elephant gracefully use his trunk to feed himself. Where there was no more food, the elephant got bored with us and headed back for some leaves. 

Asian vs African Elephants

Seeing this majestic animal, it is devastating to believe anyone could hunt these animals for their tusks. Our elephant, who had no tusks, was likely an Asian male elephant. Noting the broken branches on the road, the elephant was likely “marking” his territory, according to the guide. A small percentage of Asian male elephants do not have tusks. Female Asian elephants do not have tusks. Both male and female African elephants have tusks.

From the safari, we went to a restaurant for a very late lunch, 4:00 PM in fact. Conveniently, it was at the restaurant of a “friend” of our guide, and rather out of the way. While the food was good, it was not earth shattering. 

Colombo, Sir Lanka – a beautiful city.

This morning, we arrived in the capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo. After leaving the ship, we went to the shuttle which took us to the entrance of the port. Not surprisingly, the touts were waiting for us, and our fellow passengers. The first tout wanted $50 for a three-hour tour but soon dropped that to $30. Considering his English was “pigeon” at best, we passed and decided to walk a bit.

Of course, other touts took the opportunity to entice us with various offers and prices. Eventually we settled on $20 for three hours with a fairly decent English speaking Tuk Tuk driver. This is still likely more than we need have paid, however considering the economic plight of the residents of this country and our blessings, I didn’t bargain too hard.

Buying Local

The tour was fine, not remarkable, but fine. Of course, it was about 20% of the cost of a similar one from the ship. One thing that was impressive about Colombo, was the number of green spaces and the friendliness of the local people. Naturally, half way through the tour, we were taken to a “tea factory”. After the requisite demonstration and samples came the “sales pitch”. We up and left as we are not going to lug stuff around India for another 3 ½ months. Our guide then took us to a “gem store” and we said “no”. “Oh Sir, you do not have to buy anything”.

It was at this point Meg said “that’s why we’re not going in, please drive away”. We know the drivers get a kick back, but we are really not interested in tea or gems. The tea was about $15 CDN for a small pouch, about double what you would pay at David’s tea. They also sold cinnamon, which I’m sure was laced with gold, considering the price. I had wanted to go into a grocery store to see if they had any cinnamon, just to compare prices, but we didn’t find the time.

Lunch on the tour

When we asked to go somewhere for lunch, we drove around for 10 minutes to a restaurant we were assured was “nice”. The sign read “Indian food”. We said “no, Sri Lankan food”. So, after another 10 minutes of driving, we were deposited at a buffet, where we had a decent meal for about $4.25 CDN each. We were not sure about any kickbacks here. There were a number of Uber eats vehicles outside the restaurant.

After lunch, we were dropped off at the port and then we walked a bit and found what was likely our highlight of Colombo. A bakery. The deserts were out of this world good and they were about $0.50 each. Yup, less than a buck CDN for two scrumptious pastries. 

From there we headed back to the ship, continually being asked by other Tuk Tuk drivers if we wanted a lift. Once onboard, we relaxed until sailing time.

Tomorrow will take us to India. We are so excited and a bit nervous. I’m really not aware of anyone who doesn’t say India is fantastic. Everyone also says it is a total assault on the senses. From that point, we are thankful we are starting in the south first. Of course, the visa thing is “out there”. Even though it is settled, who knows? Our visas were in place a week before the “storm”.

Our pending arrival in India

We’ll let you know how our travels in India go.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave any comments or suggestions for things to do/see in India.

Our tour of Japan was based on a few things. I (Cam) wanted to show Meg so many of the things I experienced during my six-month posting in 2021/22. There were also a number of things I did not get to do while I was here, I was working after all. My schedule had me working 11 days out of 14. I had Friday’s off and every second Saturday. 

Looking at commercial tours of Japan and seeing what there was, I crafted our itinerary and then went over it with Meg. I also thumbnailed a budget and, I’m happy to say, we came in under budget.

Transportation

A mix of transportation is how we got around in Japan. This included local, limited express and Shinkansen (Bullet) trains, buses, local subways and of course walking. The only trains you need reservations for are the Shinkansen and selected limited express trains. 

I have had a lot of success scheduling train travel in Japan by using Google Maps. Simply enter your start and end points and various routes will be offered, including prices. A note about train prices in Japan. The route you take to get from A to B will determine the cost. I’ve shown an example of travelling from Yokosuka-Chou Station to Nestay Inn Tokyo. 

The first option below uses the Keikyu line to the Oedo Line and then walking, costing ¥890 and takes 1 Hr and 31 Min. Option B would also leave at 6:36PM on the Keikyu line but transferring at Yokohama to the JO Yokosuka Line and then transferring again to the Shinjuku Line and walking. This travel would cost ¥1,170 or ¥280 more than the first option and it takes 11 minutes longer. Why would anyone do that? Well the JO line is operated by JR Rail, and if you had a JR Rail pass, you may want to use that line as part of the travel would be covered by the pass. Travel on the Keikyu and Oedo lines would not be covered. When you transfer trains you often have to “tap out” and “tap” back in again if the lines are operated by different companies.

Learning Japanese trains

I’m sure I spent way more money than I had to when I first arrived in Japan, simply because I didn’t understand the process. The first time my friend and I went to Tokyo in 2021, it cost us ¥2,000 and took 2 ½ hours. We spent over an hour in Yokohama station wandering around, we were so lost. Finally, a kind ex-pat took pity on us and pointed us in the right direction.

Our transportation costs for our time in Japan was $1,896 CDN for 49 days or $19.75/day/pp. This included four rides on the Shinkansen, all subways, local and limited express trains. Our travels took us as far north as Nikko and as far south as Hiroshima and criss-crossed the country seeing both coasts. We did not use a JR Rail pass as it would not be cost effective in our circumstance. Your mileage may vary.

FOOD!

We travel to eat. New taste and experiences are what make going to new places so fun. The food in Japan is amazing. Both of us starting feeling better after about a week and noted our diet took a turn for the worse in Taiwan.

We ate out a total of 54 times. Breakfasts were always in our room, usually fruit, bread and yoghurt. Lunch and dinner were eaten in restaurants about half the time, with the other half being in our Air BnB, on a park bench in the sun, on the go, wherever. We never ate on local trains, but did eat on Shinkansen’s, as that is allowed, they even have food carts!

Sushi – two to three times a week

Sushi was our number one meal, we ate that 18 times in seven weeks. Indian restaurants were a close second with eleven visits. Food is generally cheaper in Japan, at least in the restaurants. You don’t tip in Japan, and while there is 10% consumption tax, it is normally included in the price of the meal. Our total for food and beverages, including alcohol, was $2,656 or $27.67/day each. This includes all restaurants, groceries, water from vending machines when hiking, the odd random ice cream cone. OK, maybe the ice cream cones were not that random.

The amount above provided for high quality meals. We were not on a university students budget. One of my yoga teachers previously said about buying food – “you can pay with your wallet or you can pay with your health.” There was a lot of fruit and veggies, mostly from the grocery store. Our most memorable meal was at a Spanish restaurant in Takayama.

Activities

Coming to Japan, or going anywhere really, is to do “things”. While there are a lot of free activities including hikes, walking around markets and neighbourhoods, some things do cost money. Many of the popular temples have entrance fees. Tourist attractions such as castles are user funded so you need to pay.

Admission fees did not prevent us from doing or seeing things that interested us. We dropped a bunch of money on Disney Tokyo, not once, but twice. It was totally worth it. Overall we spent $1,382 in total on activities or $14.40 per person per day on average. That includes every fee, admission, tour and row boat rental that we did.

Although we have a great home in Victoria, you still need a place to stay when travelling. Being away for as long as we are, a place that was a bit bigger where we could have some meals in while not sitting on the bed was important. A combination of Air BnB’s as well as hotels was our plan. We never booked anything that was dodgy but we didn’t book the Ritz either. In all, our digs were fine, except one Air BnB that was not up to standards and Air BnB is looking at deleting that listing.

For our time in Japan, we staying at eleven different accommodations, for a total of 48 nights. The total cost was $4,757 or $49.55/night per person. This did include approximately $500 of points for three free nights in Nikko. If that is factored in, the cost would rise slightly, however points are there for a reason. To use and enjoy. We do not like leaving anything on the table, so we use our points as soon as we can. I think most people had a surplus of points post COVID and are trying to burn through them.

Miscellaneous Items

Where do you put things that don’t go anywhere? We are placing them the miscellaneous category. Photocopies, document fees, gifts for friends. The hospital visit is also under misc, we’re still trying to recover from the insurance company so this amount may come down. Our purchase of two pairs of running shoes to also goes to misc.

We walked close to 600km in Japan and in doing so, both of us wore out our shoes. At the end of our second visit to Disney, our feet were achy and tired. We were at the park from 8:30 AM – 8:30 PM, 12 full hours. The longest break we took was to eat a light and overpriced lunch. The day after Disney we went out and bought new shoes are our feet were much happier :). We kept the old shoes and are taking them with us to hopefully gift them to someone in India.

The total of miscellaneous costs was $762 or $7.94/day per person.

Total trip costs

All together, we spent $11,455 for 49 days in Japan or $119/day/pp. That includes every snack, each bottle of water, tours, trains, gas for rental car, etc. This does not include the travel to get to Japan. Some people arrive by plane, others by ship. Some come from Korea, some from other places. Some may arrive by parachute. That is a separate expense. 

There was no way we could have afforded seven weeks in Japan had we booked a tour for the entire time. I checked on-line recently on tours of Japan. “Premier” tours can cost $1,800 US/per person/day. For that price, we could have taken a two-day tour. The hotel would have been nicer; however, our digs were fine. More mainstream tours run about $7,000 CDN PP for around 10 days. 

Obviously doing things yourself and arranging everything on your own has both advantages and challenges. It certainly saves money, but when things go wrong, there’s no-where to turn. It all comes down to attitude. On a trip, the difference between adventure and ordeal is attitude. We try and have a positive attitude and pull each other up when one of us is a bit down. 

That’s why I enjoy travelling with my best friend.

Thanks for reading, feel free to leave any comments.

For loyal readers of our website, you may recall a post from early October, where I commented on the size of Tokyo. In particular, it would take a city of Tokyo’s size to be able to support an Accordion club. Fast forward about seven weeks and we are in Taipei with a population of about 2.7 millioin. I was amazed to see this site while strolling back from a flower market.

Maybe it is a regional thing? Now to be clear, I was NOT looking for this shop, or this type of instrument. I’m not sure what the music craze here is, however, I don’t think it is this. For curiosity, I Googled the name. Sure enough, they offer lessons, including on line lessons. Wow.

Night Market

We’ve seen some other interesting things here in Taipei, including the famed night markets. The crowds were almost oppressive last night, a Saturday. Meg and I certainly brought the average age up. It was difficult to order food as there are very few signs in English and Goggle translate is often lacking. Case in point, at lunch earlier in the day, we ordered what translated to crispy sausage. We are not sure what we received, it was likely heart and it certainly wasn’t crispy. We both tried it and left the rest. 

At the night market, we were hungry as our walking tour had just ended. We did manage to order chicken, well I did. All I did was point and hand over some money and the clerk passed us a bag of fried chicken nugget like things. The signs all around this stall had pictures of chickens. Normally night markets are delicious, however we did not get half way through these nuggets before we threw them out. After that we were a bit gun-shy and, even though we walked around for another 45 minutes, we did not order anything.

Restaurant dinner

We returned to our hotel prior to going to a different night market close by. All the stalls were busy, however there was almost no English at any of them. There was a lot of food which looked as if it came from the parts of animals we, as North American’s, don’t normally eat. In the end, we chickened out and headed to a rather busy sit-down restaurant and had a delightful meal.

We have wound down our time in Japan.  I’m drafting this at the Narita airport, awaiting a flight to Taiwan. Our plan to spend seven weeks in Japan, which seemed like such a long time when we arrived on September 30^th, flew by. Originally we were not sure we could fill the time. We had an aggressive tour planned, and in the end, we could have easily stayed longer.

Sometimes less is more

One thing we came to realize after about three weeks, is we needed to slow down. Three days in a place was often not enough. After leaving Tokyo, we visited six places for three days each (Nikko, Hakone, Takayama, Kanazawa, Hiroshima and Osaka). By the 18^th day we were exhausted. I know the organized tours will spend one or two days in a place like Kanazawa, or Osaka, and then move on. These tours are only about 7 – 12 days. We found three days was usually not enough unless you only wanted to see the Instagram things. 

Kyoto came after our 18 days of heavy travel where we stayed put for seven days. Those consecutive days in one place, in a hotel with a kitchen, were a relief. The eight days in Tokyo that followed Kyoto were also good for the mind. Looking forward on our trip, we still have not booked Bali/Indonesia. We’ll use the lessons learned in Japan to assist us in having a better three-week experience in Bali by not moving every two-three days. Remember, it’s only a mistake if you don’t learn from it.

Walking – our primary way of seeing things.

We walked an average of 17,566 steps per day for 48 days (based on our step counter), our highest daily step total was 31,215 steps. Based on IPhone data, we walked about 12 km/day, on average. That’s 576 km’s for the time we were Japan. There were a number of days our knees and feet were sore, the onsens certainly helped on the days we could access them. 

I’ll update more on Japan in a few days, highlighting some more numbers.

Thanks for reading, feel free to leave any comments.

While we normally travel independently, there are times we take local tours to gain some insight and history of the area we are visiting. Reading about things only goes so far, guides, well good guides, will add some interesting things that you simply can’t find online. At least not without spending hours digging, and by then you’re likely to forget.  

Walking the Bamboo forest and a row boat ride

This past Sunday we took the bus and headed over to Arashiyama, walking through the bamboo forest. The photo is Meg standing in “Bamboo Alley” – note the height of the bamboo. We then explored the Okochi-Sanso Villa and gardens where we had a modified tea ceremony in the bamboo forest.  Then we continued walking toward the river where we rented a row boat and spent an hour on the Katsura River. It was a lovely day, +25C, and clear skies with light breezes.

A neat bike tour of hidden Kyoto

In Kyoto, we also took a bike tour and saw some interesting things we would have never seen.  the tour was about 3 1/2 hour and covered 7km. There were some stops and we had time to see things and have a snack along the way.

We also saw the Golden Temple, which was on our to do list.  The building is actually coated in gold leaf. You can’t get into the building, it can only be seen from across the pond. The guide took a great photo of us, catching the reflection of the temple on the pond.

A neat back street tour of Osaka

In Osaka, we took a back street food tour.  We learned a lot about the back streets of Osaka, including the red-light district and organized crime. We also learned why so many houses are abandoned in Japan. We then visited an Izakaya that we would have never walked into, although once inside we realized everyone was a tourist, so it may not have been the real experience. Osaka is reputed to be the food capital of Japan, we’ll reserve judgement until we’ve been more places. The next day we did venture into a local spot that we would have never tried before.

A walking tour of Kyoto

In Kyoto we also took a walking tour. We learned a number of things, saw one of the Gisha districts (shown here). The tour started at 9:30, however as it progressed the streets became more crowded as it was a national holiday.

It was a good lesson in “rising early”, which we did the next day as we ventured to Fushimi Inari Shrine, catching the first train at 06:30 and arriving back at our hotel by 12:00. It is a long hike up to the top, but seeing the 10,000 Torii gates was worthwhile.

Poking around on our own

We leave Kyoto in two days for Tokyo, so we’re now in the “poke around” phase, finding nooks and crannies that are interesting. Today we returned to Kiyomizu-Dera temple, which we skipped on the walking tour. The tour ended there, but the queues were way too long for us. They were much more reasonable today. The photo is Meg in front the “easy childbirth” pagoda. I’m hoping Meg isn’t planning anything I’m not aware of.

Then we found a Mom and Pop restaurant for lunch that had amazing food, and lots of local business men coming in for great food.

Thanks for reading, feel free to ask any questions in the comments, or give us some ideas.

Trains in Japan

Most people have heard of the Japanese bullet train, which is actually called the Shinkansen.  Normally trains in Japan run like clockwork, for the most part.  In our 4 1/2 weeks here we have had four trains late.  One was actually cancelled and another one was 15 minutes late. They did an announcement about the late one, saying it was delayed by 15 minutes due to a crossing issue.  The third train, the “Thunderbird Express”, from Kanazawa to Kyoto, stopped on the tracks and there was an announcement “the train has stopped due to a strange noise”.  We waited a bit and then we carried on and went to a station where we waited a bit more.  We left but stopped again on the tracks to do a “test”.  The explanations in Japanese were a lot longer than “crossing issue” or “test”.  

Our train from Kanazawa to Kyoto

Now I’m all for safety, especially when I’m on any form of public transit.  The thought of doing “track tests” when the train cars were full of passengers was a bit strange.  You realize, that when you’re in a train, or plane for that matter, you don’t really know a lot of what’s going on. The train picked up speed again and we seemed to moving along, although there were a few more unscheduled stops.  I wondered what further tests they were doing.  It made me consider how the train track scheduling was going to work with so many trains going in all directions, now that this one was behind schedule.

A tight connection in Kyoto…

While safety was a concern, I was also a bit worried about the pending connection in Kyoto onward for Hiroshima.  When we booked the trains, we gave ourselves 37 minutes to change trains in Kyoto. It’s a large station and there is usually some “confusion” for newbies finding where things are.  We also thought we would get lunch at a bento store.  37 minutes is not a ton of time, but who wants to wait around in a train station? Well, don’t we wish we had booked a later train now!  The delays cost us time and we arrived at Kyoto 23 minutes late.  Hmmmm – that leaves 14 minutes to sort out Kyoto station, run through the station, find a train platform et al. Sounds like an episode of the Amazing Race!  We knew we had to “boot it”.  

We exited the train and we were greeted by about 25 steps up with no elevators/escalator in sight.  I took both my suitcase and Meg’s and hauled them up the stairs. Meg is and has been amazing carrying her own bag, however with the time crunch, I knew this is time where I could help.  Besides, a workout when travelling is a good thing right?  

We found the Shinkansen entrance but we hadn’t left the Thunderbird Express section. Oh drats! We found a JR Rail “helper” person and they took our tickets for both trains and started asking some questions. Ummmm didn’t they know we were going to miss our train if we continued to chat?  When they were satisfied we were all good, they processed the tickets but then when Meg went through the gate some alarm went off. This was not the time to pull a Hugh Grant, in Bridget Jones, The Edge of Resaon, and leave her there to figure it out for herself…not if I want another 35 years of marriage. Things got sorted out, of course the clock was still ticking. Once we were clear to go, we headed into Shinkansen land, found the platform for our train and then our car.  The train was not there and we had eight minutes to spare. 

The train ride to Hiroshima started out fine, we had our reserved seats and stored our luggage in the special seats we had booked.  The weather was brilliant sunshine and we were looking at the country side. About an hour into the train ride, it became really dark outside (no it was not a tunnel).  Then we heard hail hitting the roof of the train, at which point the Conductor came on and said we were now five minutes late due to high winds. Of course, the train runs on electricity, which does not really react well to water or hail. I guess they worked it out, because we arrived in Hiroshima, late, but safe.

In the end, everything was OK, because if it’s not OK, it’s not the end.  I first heard this phrase when watching the movie ‘The Exotic Marigold Hotel’ (2011). The movie is set in various cities in India including Jaipur, where we’ll be in about six weeks.  I recall that phrase and I wrote it down at the time as it struck something within me.  It’s funny how some phrases, when you hear them, resonate immediately.  Had we missed our train in Kyoto, we would have simply taken another one. We may have missed the hail storm, who knows? Everything would have been OK.

I only wish I could put that phrase into use all the time and not worry as much.  There’s always room for growth.

We normally eat three times a day with “munching” taking place regularly during the day.  One of the reasons we like cruising so much is there is never a decision of where to eat.  You go to the dining room and chose what you want from the menu.  If you don’t like it, you ask for another meal.  If you’re really hungry, you ask for two meals. Seems pretty simple.  In Japan, we’re on our own and that’s fine. We know what we like and there are sites that provide ratings of restaurants so you know where to increase your odds of a good meal.

Our last night in Takayama, we chose to eat at a Spanish restaurant.  It had good reviews and the night before we were going to eat there, I went in to see if I could get a reservation.  The restaurant is on the second floor, so I went up the stairs, Meg didn’t follow, she had had enough stairs for the day.  As I opened the door, I fell in love with the place and knew I wanted to eat there.  I met the owner and had a table booked for 18:00 the next day.

Defective Wine Bottle

When we went for dinner, we were greeted with a big smile and shown the best table in the house.  We ordered a bottle of Italian wine, I know it was a Spanish restaurant, but the Italian wine did look better.  It did not disappoint.  We both secretly thought, can we take the other half of the bottle home because we never drink a full bottle at home.  We ordered two appetizers and two main courses and the food came in stages, there is only one cook, the owner. The last dish to come was a main and somehow that bottle of red wine was empty.  We both looked at each other and burst out laughing.  Did the owner sneak a glass for himself?  Did we spill some?  Was this bottle defective and leaking? We had to ‘fess-up, we were the culprits.  I think it was the fastest we have ever consumed an entire bottle of red wine and yet neither one of us seemed intoxicated.  If we are ever back in Takayama, we’ll head back to that restaurant.

Some of other meals in Takayama included a burger at a burger joint – Hida beef is a “thing” so we decide to try a burger. We had been three full weeks in Japan without a Canadian meal and didn’t feel we were “cheating”.  Besides, Takayama is in the centre of Japan so the fish is not a fresh as on the coast.  We also tried a Nepali restaurant.  There are a number of Nepali restaurants in Japan, most of which specialize in Japanese/Indian curry which has always been quite good.  This place, although well reviewed, was on the lower end of our Nepali restaurants in Japan.

We’ll keep updating on our adventures and travels.

Thanks for reading 🙂

We are now over half way through our time in Japan.  So far, our trip has been AMAZING (emphasis added). Our daily activities are listed in the blog portion of the site and there are some updates on Instagram.

When we reflect on what is and has been amazing in Japan, the answer is (drum roll please)…almost everything. You can see us with a Samurai warrior in Nikko – how cool is that? I loved the culture and food when I was here in 2021/22.  Meg has completely embraced it and loves it too.  Meg thinks she has eaten more sushi since arriving in Japan than she has in her entire life. Of course, shell fish sushi is off the table for her due to her allergies, however it is still easy to get none shell fish sushi. 

Travel has been fairly smooth

Japan, for those who know, is well serviced by trains. In some cases, buses provide necessary connections.  We’ve managed to book almost all of our trains, although that did come with some challenges.  One of the on-line sites would not accept the credit card we are using.  We have a no foreign exchange fee card but it seems to be blocked from certain on-line transactions.  When we could not book on-line, we went to a train station and booked from a ticket machine where the card worked without issues.

We have found not all trains can be booked at all machines, depending if it is JR Central, JR West, etc. Not to worry, at this time, the only reserved ticket we need is Kyoto to Japan.  I read that train runs every 10 minutes, and we’re 2 ½ weeks from needing it so we’re not stressing.

Accommodations

For the most part these have been good to very good with one exception.  Our place in Tokyo was a very noisy dump and we ended up buying our own sheets at Ikea.  Many of the hotels are small and often the bed is jammed up against a wall.  This means that one of us has to crawl over the other one to get in or out of bed.  Since we’re not spending a lot of time in our hotels, it is not too bad, but it is good to know if we want to come back that we’ll need to be careful if we want to stay somewhere longer term.

Onsens

For those who have not been to Japan, the Onsen is a wonderful experience.  It is a public bath where you get undressed, shower to get clean and then soak in various hot tubs. The water at different Onsens has different elements.  As Japan has geo-thermo water almost everywhere, these hot springs are tapped into and they fill up the hot tubs so you can soak. We’ve found a few that have outdoor sections and you can look at the moon or stars as you soak.  You come out completely relaxed and very clean.  So far two of our hotels have had onsens attached to the property so they were free, otherwise there is a fee.  Also remember to take your own towels, otherwise you have to buy/rent a towel.

Driving in Japan

While we were in Nikko, we rented a car.  You need an international drivers licence, which I obtained prior to leaving. They drive on the “other” side of the road in Japan, so it took a bit of getting used to.  Also the cars are smaller, a lot smaller as shown in this picture.

Meg was an amazing navigator and always reminded me to be on the other side of the road – I think that was, in part, self-preservation. Parking is a challenge in Japan, you don’t simply park on the side of the road.  The parking lots are a bit different but we were able to figure them out.  Nikko, for us, was a good place to rent a car.  Our hotel was a bit out of town, we redeemed points for that one and we knew it was a hike.  Other guests were taking taxi’s to town where the bus system would take them around.  The car gave us freedom to come and go as we pleased.

Our second half of Japan

As we enter the second part of our Japanese tour, we’ll be heading to Hiroshima, Osaka, Kyoto and back to Tokyo.  I’ve been to Kyoto before and we were in Tokyo earlier on this trip, however Hiroshima and Osaka will be new.  We are also going to meet a friend in Kobe as a day trip from Osaka.  Based on a recommendation from someone we met travelling, we’ll pop over to Nara for a day while in Kyoto, where we’ll be for a week.

Thanks for reading, I’ll post more in a week or so.  Meg will keep updating the blogs so you can follow daily if you like.  We both post on Instagram.

It’s just a number but October 15, 2023 is a milestone to us.  Today marks our 35^th wedding anniversary.  It was on this day, in 1988, in Scarborough Ontario, in front of our family and friends, we tied the knot and were married.  We left the next morning for San Francisco and our honeymoon.  We traveled down the California coast to LA and visited Disney.  We visited Disney Tokyo this week, very fitting. 

What we’ve done along the way.

Along the journey, we have raised three awesome children.  We have had seven cross country moves.  We have travelled throughout the world, mostly as a family, more recently just ourselves.  As a family we’ve been to Disney more than once.  Maybe it’s a theme.  We’ve seen recessions, pandemics, inflation, deflation, good times and bad times.

We’ve laughed a lot and sometimes we’ve cried.  We’ve both had amazing jobs and contributed to society, not only by raising our children, who are making incredibly positive impacts in the world, but by making things better.  We have always given to our communities and helped others.  At times others have helped us.

Where do we go from here?

Thirty-five was part of the reason for this trip.  We are celebrating not only 35, but everything that came with it.  We are also looking forward to another 35 (OMG – I’ll be 95 then!).

We have been blessed with family, friends and each other.  Once in a while there were tears, there have been far more laughs and it is the laughter we remember.

Thank you for reading and being part of our journey.

Love to all.

Cam and Meg

Cam and Meg with the Tokyo Sky Tower in the background

On the weekend, we met up with some friends for brunch in Roppongi Hills.  Brookey is a member of the club and we shared some stories and had some laughs with his wife and daughter.  Brookey was kind enough to take a picture of Meg and I with the Tokyo Tower in the background from the 51st floor of the Roppongi Hills tower.

In the next photo, there is a building with what appears to be white lines up the length of the building.  That’s Google’s Japan head office.  

Mega projects and development

As far as you can see, there are buildings and expressways, which only end at the water. Cranes dot the landscape, with mega projects still being started.  Interest rates are still below zero percent in Japan, so large companies are being paid to borrow money to keep things going.  Japan does have an aging population and no one is sure how things will turn out.

Green space and parks

Despite it being such a large city, there are a number of parks and green spaces.  The most impressive, of course, is the Imperial Palace grounds. I’ll post more on that soon, as we plan to visit those grounds and hopefully get a tour inside. I’m sure when they figure out who I think I am, they will welcome inside me with open arms.

Over the next week, we’ll be exploring various neighbourhoods, each with it’s own specialty and vibe.

Have you been to Tokyo before?  If so, what was your favourite neighbourhood?