Category: Travel

Ooof, these early mornings make for long days. But it’s the only way to avoid the crowds and heat, so it is worth it. Especially because being early meant we basically had all the deer to ourselves! But by midday it was so hot we didn’t want to be out in the heat any longer, no matter how many beautiful stone lamps we found in the park.

Laying in bed, I realised just how long I ranted about the train station building in my last post… Apparently, bad / impractical architecture is a trigger of mine.

My apologies

But if I can just add one thing…

Well I can fully believe there are at least 1000 Torii gates here. 

Last chance to use the Onsen and outdoor shower this morning so there was no stopping us. This could easily become a lifestyle habit. You know, if it wasn’t always so cripplingly cold in the UK…

There was absolutely no view this morning heading up the mountain. The clouds were so low or we were so high that we were drifting through them. It was also a little windy so I was glad of the two rope design of the ropeway, it must be to limit swinging around. It was very strange seeing the ropes disappear into the mist ahead and behind us. It was a little disorientating as there was zero sense of forward progress until anothe car or a support pylon loomed out of the mist. But the smell was definitely more pungent today, eminating from somewhere far below.

Ok these blogs are going to have to get a little shorter no matter how much cool stuff we are doing. I’m just running behind writing and uploading them so maybe some things might get missed, but I’m still going to tell the best bits… 

Like breakfast!

Today we managed to go on 4 different types of railway… 

It was a good day for an engineering nerd.

Aimi did well to tolerate me!

Well we tried…

Getting into Tokyo centre, we walked underground (which is why you dont see anyone on the streets in some places) towards the Imperial Palace. We crossed a huge, now largely decorative, moat into the outer park where there must have been thousands of short trees with perfectly smooth cut grass all around. Arriving at the gates, we had thought we could just walk around the formal gardens but apparently you either need to book in advance using a complicated form in Japanese, or line up in the morning and hope you get a spot on a tour, of which there were none left.

Damn it.

But we did get to see some rather skittish horses practicing their carriage parade.