People, People, People Everywhere

We have been in Toyko 3 days and our overwhelming impression is the number of people everywhere especially in the railway stations. We have to regularly travel to Shinjuku station which is the busiest station in the world with 2 million people passing through it each day! And we believe it! Despite this people stand in orderly queues and are still very polite and helpful. A fellow jumped off his train to help us.

Last night we joined with thousands to go to a festival to see fireworks over the Sumida River. We were squeezed onto the train by railway staff pushing people in. We couldn't move an inch in the train! It turned out to be an amazing experience in crowd organisation. As police moved the crowd forward in sections to see the fireworks over the river. As we could not understand what the police were saying over their megaphones we didn't realise this at first so didn't get into the river of people. This actually worked out to our advantage as we were on the bridge when the finale fireworks went off.

Outside Shinjuku Station

Inside the station

Coming into the station

On the train

Street near our hotel in Ikebukuro

View from Government Metropolitan Offices

Shinjuku

The three of us at the fireworks

The fireworks

Fireworks over Komagata Bridge

People at the Fireworks

After the fireworks with the menus. Handy they had an English menu.

All 3 of us had this traditional Japanese dish which was delicious. We were very hungry as we didn't get to eat till 10pm. Pork, tofu, potato, snow peas, carrot and a few unknown things.

 Outside the restaurant.

Bilingual Buzz

For those of you who have watched Toy Story 3 you will know that Buzz Lightyear can speak Spanish. Well today we found out that Buzz can also speak Japanese! We went to Tokyo Disney for the day and had a fabulous time! We were joined by half of Japan and so had many long waits. But it was a really fun experience to go on all the rides and see the characters singing and speaking Japanese! They had the most amazing parades. One was in the afternoon with great Disney floats and dancing characters. The other was at night and had extremely impressive lit up floats. The Japanese people are so organised and respectful and made sure that everyone was sitting down during the whole parade so that everyone could see.

It was very hot! So we enjoyed many Mickey shaped icecreams!

Dad was wiped out from the Space Mountain ride and needed to hold onto Mum for support!

We enjoyed the 'It's a Small World' ride with the singing in different languages!

A slightly more tame rollercoaster for the parents! (Aimed at little kids!)

Outside Minnie's house

Splash Mountain! Aaaaaaah, that's a big drop!

The Tokyo Disney castle

The elaborate afternoon parade. Tigger was so cool - he jumped from his perch there onto a trampoline below still holding on to the tree by his tail!

The incredible night time lights parade! The Cheshire Cat with Alice riding on top.

 The genie changed colours and characters - here he is as Tigger!

We got fastpasses for Splash Mountain and went on it at the end of the day. It was nice to get splashed on Splash Mountain to cool down from the hot day.

Good Surprises

When we were planning the holiday Glenn found a company that took you into the mountains around Takayama and we planned to do hiking. The fellow who did this tour has left the company and they now don't do this tour. We were disappointed about this so Glenn searched the internet for something else and found a bike tour in the country. So again out came the JR rail passes and we went to a small town called Hida-Furukawa. The company had suggested because of the train times you have lunch in Hida-Furukawa before the tour. Off we went in 34 degree temperatures walking around the town looking for somewhere to have lunch - well it seems Tuesday is the day all the restaurants and cafes close. We were feeling very hot and hungry when we saw a place that looked like we might be able to get something. We went in and started to try to ask the man when he called someone over who turned out to be an American who has lived in Japan for 3 years teaching English so he could read the whole menu for us. We ended us with very nice tuna sandwiches and Glenn had a coffee he rated very highly.

Now on to the bike tour. It was the 3 of us, 3 Canadians and a girl from Hong Kong and our Japanese guide Hisa who spoke excellent English as he had lived in New Zealand for 5 years. We rode along rivers and drank water from a natural spring. We saw many different crops growing including rice, spring onions, pumpkins, potatoes and beans. Hisa told us lots about all these crops. We called into a store and he answered everyone's questions about the products. We stopped to look at some cows that would become Hida beef - an extremely high quality beef which is world renowned. We looked in a Japanese farmhouse and saw wonderful views. Near the end he produced cold tea and miso biscuits. The bike ride is definitely one of our highlights.

At the start of the bike ride.

On the bike ride.

An old couple weeding their vegetable field.

A view across the rice fields.

Some disappearing hills for Keith.

The three of us on a bridge.

On the bike path next the rice fields.

Having afternoon tea.

We talked to the Canadian people and they told us where they had dinner last night so we thought we would go there but it turned out it was closed. The next restaurant we tried was full and the next 2 closing. We were getting worried when we saw one that seemed reasonably priced and had some English so sounded okay. We ended up getting a delicious meal in a place with real character.

Penny's dinner.

Having dinner.

Pen says the 'bestest day yet'!

A Different Japan

Instead of jumping on the train with our JR rail pass we had to go by bus to Shirakawago, a world heritage site. When we arrived we felt like we were in another country. Most of the houses had been built about 200 years ago. They are called Gassho houses. They have thatched roofs up to a metre thick and are steeply pitched as they get a lot of snow in the winter. They are very large. There are about 60 gassho houses in the village.

The Wada House. We went in this house.

The fireplace inside the house.

In the village.

The gardens were lovely.

The view of the village. Quite a walk up here. Kathy and Keith - we were saying this was a little like the See alp see walk in Switzerland except not as long and not as steep. The weather was a bit drizzly up here. There were many rice fields in the village.

Penny took this picture of an insect near the view point.

We stayed in a Gassho house. It is very like a ryoken. We had a traditional dinner and breakfast. The other people staying there too were 3 Frenchmen and a Thai family. The food here was much more to Glenn and Penny's taste. A delightful meat dish and lovely vegetables. Only one seafood dish which was a whole fish. We did not sleep as well here as the pillows were filled with hard beans and the mats were thinner. Also we were woken up at 5:30 with ceremonial chanting.

   

Having our dinner.

The dinner. The meat dish was cooking in the pot.

In bed.

  

Trying out Japanese games at a shop.

Gold for the Jacksons

No, it's not the Olympics yet but it was gold for the Jacksons today! In Kanazawa, the gold capital of Japan, we saw gold, bought gold, learnt about gold, got creative with gold, used gold lotion and even ate gold...that's right we ate a piece of gold leaf!

We went to a museum was really interesting and had a great video about how gold leaf is made. It also had a fascinating hands on section where we could feel the weight of different metals and explore different materials with a very powerful magnifying glass (it is amazing what your hair looks like magnified - like spaghetti!). We stumbled upon a second gold museum and this one allowed you to design and make your own gold chopsticks. Mum and I really enjoyed making the chopsticks by stickytaping the design and then coating it in gold leaf. We were really happy with the finished product. The instructor was such a character and knew a few English phrases which he liked to repeat - okay okay. It was great fun!  

The golden chopsticks we made

We drank gold in our tea!

We have really enjoyed exploring the 'small town' of Kanazawa (Dad told us is was a small town...it is certainly not small! Houses, shops and people everywhere, like everywhere in Japan! A very lovely place - so well set up for travellers with a great hop on hop off bus and maps all over the place). Here are some of the other things we've been up to the past couple of days...

We travelled in style aboard the Shinkansen!

Playing Settlers of Catan on the Shinkansen

I was excited to be able to assist our travels by reading the Japanese sign to find the right place to board the next train. Otherwise we would have been at the opposite end to where we were supposed to be! Our train was called the Sandaabaado (Thunderbird).

We went to a local market...there was lots of seafood!

We've been enjoying wearing the yukata provided at each of our hotels!

The beautiful Kenrokuen Garden. So lovely and green - it would be even more magical in Spring and Autumn!

The cool colour sculpture at the Modern Art Gallery - the colours changes when you walked through it...so cool!

We have been loving the food! We have been trying lots of different foods. The last two nights we tried some Indonesian and Korean food - both delicious!

Tonight we ran into a couple we met at the Frisbee World Championships (parents of another Australian)! They are doing a similar trip to us and we wondered if we'd see them.  It is so fun to bump into people you know! There are lots of frisbee people travelling around at the moment and they are usually wearing frisbee t-shirts or hats so we can recognise them. However all the frisbee people swapped shirts at the end of the of the tournament so you never really know where they are from!