Day 3

A day-trip around the Western and older parts of Tokyo actually began at the most modern area. Shimbashi (or as I termed ‘future-world’ a long time ago) is a collection of underground walkways, a driverless monorail system, and futuristic buildings. For example, this one appears paper thin:

Hama Rikyu park was out first destination. A very surreal gardens as it is set alongside the skyscrapers yet is so serene.




We hopped on a boat which took us up the Sumida River to Asakusa.


We passed a plethora of sights, most of which I hadn’t even known existed/what they were the first time I made this journey: Tokyo tower, Odaiba, and a boat fresh out of Stingray, among others:




Arriving Asakusa, we headed to the Asahi beer tower; the highest building in this picture, just behind the ‘Flaming Turd’ (‘Flame d’Or’)

At this height, the city went on forever.


Asakusa temple, determined to be the number one tourist spot in Tokyo, was bustling as ever, with its many market stalls lining the street between the Thunder Gate and the Main Temple.



We also tried おみくじ (omikuji - fortune-telling). From what I remember, Barbara received good luck, Dad had semi-good luck, and I was landed with bad luck. What happens is that you put 100円 into a slot and then shake a hexagonal box. After reading the number on the first stick that comes out, you take a piece of paper from the drawer with the respective number. The final stage, after reading your fortune, is to tie the paper around the wire.



In the late afternoon, I took Dad and Barbara back to Harajuku to a shop where they could be made up as a Maiko (similar to Geisha, but more colourful) and a Samurai.
Who would be which?...

It was a very interesting process, and although it takes a whole two hours to make the transition complete, you can imagine how gruelling and painful it would be for a proper geisha/maiko, who would take a whole afternoon to prepare as well as not having any of the latest make-up to use. (Oh, and the samurai sword was sharp!)






Whilst on photographer-duty, I may have abused my role a little bit*:





The end result:

*well, you requested more pics with me in them.

NOVA Students Say The Stupidest Things #29

(Having just heard a listening exercise about buying a dog)

Phil: Question 1 - where were the people?
Student 1: At the pet shop.
Phil: Excellent, and what did they do?
Student 1: Don't know.
Student 2: I dont't know.
Phil: Can you imagine? What did they do with the dog?
Student 2: Did they eat the dog?

NOVA Students Say The Stupidest Things #28

Back by popular demand (3 separate people requested it!):

A lesson on introducing yourself.

Phil: Imagine you're from England, ok?
Student: Ok. My name is Phil. I'm from England.
Phil: Nice to meet you. Which part of England are you from?
Student: Wales.

Day 2

Although I was more than happy to wake up early to meet Dad and Barbara and have a longer day, it meant waking up at 6:30, uuurgh… However, it marked my return to Hakone, which was a very exciting prospect.

Barbara’s main aim was to ride a Shinkansen (bullet train) and see Fuji. Kyoto was near impossible due to time and price constraints, but I had a brain wave; the Shinkansen stopped one station from Hakone, which meant a decent hour ride each way. And not so expensive, at about £20 return per person.



A huge bonus was that the weather was beautiful and Fuji was more clear than I’ve ever seen it. These were taken from a) their hotel room and, b) from the Shinkansen.

The route around Hakone was pretty much the same as my original, so I won’t go into great depths about what we did and in what order. However, it involved a switch-back train up a mountain, a cable-car further up, and a ropeway.



This took us to Owakudani; the “hell valley” which smelt of sulphur. The first time I went there was quite cloudy, so it took me by surprise how visible and near Fuji was; I had no idea before. One of my favourite moments was in the ropeway capsule, when half the people looked to one side and saw the steam rising from the sulphur springs and said ‘Sugoi!’* and the other half saw Fuji and said ‘Sugoi!’, then everyone looked to the other side and said “Sugoi!” again.





Special mention to Dad for his Eminem impression:

This is a close-up of the summit, which takes an hour to walk around. Craziness.

And onto hell valley:


A lot of photos later, and explaining to Japanese people that I’d climbed it a few months back**, and we went to eat some black eggs. Delicious!



The autumnal red leaves were stunning.



A pirate ship across Ashinoko took us to the shrine with the red gate ‘floating’ in the water.




And as the sun set, we walked along the bay, watching Fuji slowly disappear into the night sky.

Unfortunately, the last leg of the journey was on a bus which, thanks to a traffic jam, took a lot longer than expected, but the comfortable Shinkansen more than made up for lost time.

I watched this video on the bus, and it was proof enough that the slow ride was worth it:



It was a great day and I’m glad that Dad and Barbara got to see as much as they did. As they noted, it’s not the easiest country for foreign tourists as it’s not designed for tourism, so without me they would’ve only seen a fraction of the sights I showed them. Just call me “Phil-san, tour guide extraordinaire”.

* Sugoi = great/amazing
**Seeing Fuji so clearly made it seem so strange to think that I’d climbed it. I think if I’d seen how huge and steep it was in this light, I might’ve not attempted it.