Reset search
Gabrielle Ingram
Gabrielle Ingram

Gabrielle Ingram

traveled in 17 countries Read more
FollowMessageStatistics
  • Japan 2025

    Osaka to Brisbane

    January 3 in Japan ⋅ 🌬 8 °C

    We woke up to find that our flight was delayed a further 1.5 hours, so not so much of an early rise was required, but a moot point since we had already arisen.

    An uneventful flight home.

    Sadly that is the end of our Japanese adventure. An excellent time had by all ❤️‍🩹. Time to save up for our next holiday... and to remember how to do "real life" again.Read more

  • Japan 2025
    2

    Tokyo to Osaka

    January 2 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 6 °C

    We woke up to find that our 8.45pm flight was now delayed until 9.00am tomorrow, so hurriedly booked some accommodation near Kansai Airport (in the same building I stayed with Lynette on our first night arriving in Japan). We caught the connecting trains to Tokyo Station, hopped on a Shinkansen, and got to see Mt Fuji out the window, with barely a cloud to obscure it! Very exciting because that was one thing we would have otherwise missed.

    After stowing the luggage in lockers at the very large Namba Station, with google maps pins and photos to ensure we could actually find them again, we set off in the direction of Osaka's version of kitchen street. As we walked put of the station, it started to snow a little. Stopped for lunch on the way at a very cheap but extremely tasty hotpot restaurant. We ordered two beers and the manager came to check we were driving (they wont serve alcohol to drivers in Japan) and that we wanted two. Yes we said. OMG, they were gigantic!

    This kitchen street was just as disappointing in terms of closed shops at Tokyo, but it only takes one shop to be open with the thing you want to buy, and luckily a set of cooking chopsticks could be procured.

    Our next stop was 30 minutes away by train: Osaka Aquarium. We got there to find you should have ore purchased tickets, and the wait time to get in was 75 minutes. Nope... Kate had just informed us as we walked past the gigantic Ferris wheel next to the aquarium that she had never been on one. Because we are the nicest parents on planet earth, and to ensure we just hadn't wasted a one hour round trip, we went in that instead. According to the sign it was the largest giant Ferris wheel in the world. Looking it up later, I think that claim was short-lived, but it was 100m in diameter, so pretty big.

    At Namba Station, we passed a shop selling the special Osaka wobbly souffle cheesecake, so grabbed one of those for later, eventually found the lockers again and headed to our accommodation in Rinku-Town.

    Dinner was a nearby, very gigantic, sushi train shop. Good, but not quite as good as our Tokyo experience.    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    Craig on the way back with my morning cofee
    Fruit smoothie being made at the Seven ElevenKonbini lunch

    Tokyo New Year's Day

    January 1 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    We didn't get to bed until 1am and knew that pretty much nothing was going to be open today, so along with that and the fact that the cough I started to develop on the rainy day of the terrible ski lessons over a week ago has been steadily getting worse, I was happy to do absolutely nothing today. We didn't waked up until about 10.30am, and I then slept on and off for the remainder of the day, whilst Craig did some sketching and painting and Kate played games.

    Living right across the road from a konbini (in our case Seven Eleven) is like having the world's best room service but at a way better price. Fabulous cafe lattes for breakfast at about $2.20 each, fruit smoothie for $2.60, brilliant selection of lunch for under $7 each and then dinner and dessert for under $10 each.

    It was nice to have a lazy day because it has been a reasonably cracking pace for me for the last 4 weeks. Too bad I wasn't feeling the best, but quite possibly if I was feeling better I would have been out and about. I did an online grocery shop so we have a fully stocked fridge and pantry when we get home. Big day tomorrow getting back to Osaka and filling in time before a very late flight home.    Read more

  • Japan 2025

    Tokyo NYE Part II

    December 31, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

    We strolled back to Asakusa at about 7.30pm and wandered the laneways until we found a place we liked the vibe and the menu. We went in but the owner said "sorry sorry" because he was full. We went back out again and started to walk away when he opened the door and yelled out " sorry sorry, you come you come". An American family was just leaving. This restaurant only seats 16 people, so space is at a premium. We had an excellent meal of share plates of different sashimi, skewers, and cheese potato cod rice thing, the most delicious fried chicken and melt in your mouth prawns. Yummy.

    We then came across a huge multi-storey Don Quixote, and since it was heaving with people and I hadn't been in one yet, and we had time to fill in between now and midnight, in we went! What a weird shop, but awesome in the quirky way you can only find in Japan. We bought a present for Finny, so worthwhile.

    We then walked towards Senso-ji temple and there were loads of food stalls, many with very delicious looking okonomiyaki. Almost made me hungry again. Instead we lined up for some dessert ball things and waited, and waited, and waited. The line didn't move or get shorter whilst we watched granny and her old mate son argue incessantly as he painfully slowly mixed the batter in a series of giant plastic bins with a giant electric drill and a piece of plastic tubing. Craig's notoriously short fuse for lining up was burning, so he wandered off and I ended up with an attack of the giggles, mainly because of the exasperated facial expressions of the guy in the line in front of us, and how ridiculous it was that we were still lined up more than 30 minutes later. Craig's ultimate appraisal of our dessert when we finally got it was "boring as bat shit". Both Kate and I were inclined to agree.

    Since it was clear by now there was not going to be any huge "hurrah" at midnight, Katie relented on her desire to stay out 'til midnight, declared it was midnight in Australia, so we wandered back home via the waterfront for views of the skytree and our favourite giant golden sweet potato for a quiet drink at home.

    Happy new year!!! 🥂 🎉    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    Royal Milk Tea
    Empty kitchen street1I can see!IzakayaGrilling at the izakayaWaiting for the chopsticks making workshop to commenceThe raw productSanding after the planingThe finished productTraditional NYE decoration at our house which is burnt at a temple in the next few daysHome sweet homeCraig's new knife, which we are not allowed to useNYE drink, my new specs, and my newly minted chopsticks

    Tokyo NYE Part I

    December 31, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

    We had a few goals for today, and sadly not all of them were realised to their fullest potential.

    Goal #1 was to buy Kate and me some new spectacles because even though we had private health insurance, it is still cheaper to buy them here. Only catch was that same day service is for single focal length only. No worries though because Kate has apparently had bad eye sight forever but neglected to tell her parents, so she now has a lovely new pair of glasses and it is like watching a baby giraffe learn to walk... She is wandering around Tokyo like she is living in a whole new world now, literally with a look of amazement on her face. I bought a new pair of distance and a new pair of reading specs. All three pairs for just under $300 and ready within 45 minutes.

    Whilst waiting, goal #2 was to walk along "kitchen street" (Kappabashi Dougu Street). Major disappointment here and I almost wanted to cry because this was one thing I really wanted to do in Tokyo; explore the kitchen shops. And pretty much every single one is now closed until next Monday. Wahhhh. There were a few knife shops open, and Craig bought himself his first shop-bought Japanese-made carbon steel knife. He has made them before at home. A lovely young Russian kid in the shop served us so had a good conversation with him, in Japan studying his MBA. There was one non knife shop open and I bought myself a new kitchen pastry brush. The shop lady said "hand wash only", I said "I will tell the kids no dishwasher" and she laughed, obviously recognising the futility of this statement. To my children: if you read this, do not put my new brush in the dishwasher... like ever!

    After the quick pickup of the new specs, we headed to Akihabara which is the anime and tech district. Kate needed to buy some Pokemon cards as a gift. I was also thinking we would go to a maid cafe for lunch but the food looked crap, and I guess you are paying for the experience so we went to an izakaya instead, and it was brilliant! We couldn't spend very long (25 minutes to be precise) because we had a 3pm chopstick-making workshop to walk to 25 minutes away, but we were given a plate of sardines and other things to cook at a grill at the table which comes with the experience. This in addition to our share plates of nigiri and sushi rolls. Because we couldn't linger like we really wanted to, we are going to find another izakaya for dinner tonight as our last meal of 2025.

    In a very un-Japanese way, our workshop was running 30 minutes late to start, so we could have actually lingered...

    And we are now all the proud owners of our very own hand made chopsticks. Craig and I made ours out of Japanese Cedar, Kate made hers out of Hinoki Cypress. It was good fun. After that we walked home on the hunt for a stupid lightning cable so Kate can go out for NYE with a functioning phone. Craig seems to think there is no need to start staying awake until midnight, so I might end up out with Kate, although fireworks are not a big part of Japanese NYE, and in fact it is being actively discouraged to gather around Shibuya Crossing which explains why the rooftop garden was closed off when we wanted to go there yesterday. Katie and I think we might head to Tokyo Skytree since it is only 1.5km from our house. There is a gathering at temples at midnight where a gong is struck 108 times to dispel the 108 worldly temptations, so we may well end up there too.    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    Shibuya
    Craig and mewtwoCamping shop in TokyoTree lined boulevardTeamlabTeamlabOdaiba Seaside ParkRainbow bridgeUdonRainbow bridgeKoi fish in milky water

    Tokyo Shibuya and TeamLabs

    December 30, 2025 in Japan ⋅ 🌙 10 °C

    Katie had some shopping to do today, so we headed into Shibuya to start the day with the scramble crossing. To be honest, I think YouTube videos had hyper-inflated expectations here, and as it turned out, we ended up walking through it several times without much fanfare, although I did read that at its busiest there are 3,000 or so people using the crossing at each light change, which certainly wouldn't have been the case when we were there this morning. We left Kate in one of the multi storey clothes shops and headed off to find interesting things of our own. This included walking through a shop called Tokyu Hands which is a variety store full of practical and interesting things with a quirky three tier offset floor layout. Craig ended up buying a new sketch book here.

    Rendevouzing with Kate, I was required to give an opinion on a new jacket. We then set off to walk through nearby Cat Street which was supposed to be a pedestrian friendly trendy vibe unique fashion and cool street food place. It seemed to be more international shops like Patagonia, Adidas, Nike etc. It was still a cool street, and we grabbed some street food here for a light lunch.

    We took a long way back to Shibuya Station to walk through Miyashita Park which is a shopping complex with a rooftop green space and apparently on a clear day there are views to Mt Fuji. But just like the Imperial Palace Gardens, this week the rooftop is closed off. Kind of weird...

    We had a date at TeamLab Planets Tokyo about an hour away, so we jumped on several trains to make it to our 2.30pm reservation time. This was a mix of some super cool immersive experiences where you are wading around in white milky water to just below your knees with light generated koi fish swimming all round you, to many different 3D light and mirror experiences, to a hanging garden where orchids are suspended and raise up and down as you walk through them. After a few hours in here, we walked to Toyosu Gururi Park for sunset views across to Tokyo, and then walked on a little further to Odaiba Seaside Park. We had a yummy Udon noodle dinner here with the twinkling lights of Tokyo, the Tokyo Tower and views of the rainbow bridge, although no coloured lights on it tonight.

    It was nearly an hour home view several trains tonight and we got our first experience of being packed in like sardines. It was kinda weird because this guy starts chatting to us, and to us he looked Japanese, but he was being a) chatty on the train and b) super helpful to people getting on and off and speaking to Japanese people in English so we could tell he was not local. Had a lovely conversation with him, an international student from Khazistan who is studying his Master's here for 18 months, and he makes a funny joke about how no-one bothers him as he looks Japanese even though he is a foreigner.    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    1Space age hovercraft on the Sumida River
    Mario cart riders in downtown Tokyo1One swan a sleepingTokyo StationTokyo StationInside the station they always have the best ceilingsLoads of paper options at the stationary store1Itoya67 all over the place!Tokyo TowerThe giant sweet potatoSashimi!Craig couldn't wait til we were home to play with his new penHeaven on a plateGiant sweet potatoSky towerTonight's shoji screen silhouettesSashimi delivery

    Tokyo Ginza district and tower

    December 29, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    All alarms were turned off this morning so we could have a lazy start to the day without any rush to catch something or to do anything by a certain time. Bliss.

    We did a load of washing before we went out. Craig also discovered a good/bad thing depending on how we look at it. Bad = we are not flying out from Tokyo but rather Osaka so we need to catch a Shinkansen at about $170 each early Friday afternoon for a 9.45pm flight home. Good = we discovered that today rather than rocking up to the wrong airport on Friday!

    The plan today included a fair bit of walking, with the first destination being the Imperial Palace Gardens about 4km away. About 5 minutes down our street though Craig comments on a giant building which I look up and it is the Ryogoku Sumo Stadium, which explains all the people lined up. And just as we pass it, we comes across three actual sumos in the street dressed in the their mawashi showering off under a garden hose on the footpath!!! Wow! I demonstrated great restraint to not stop and ask for a photo. Kate on the other hand refused to even cross the street because she didn't think it was proper to walk past near-naked men on the footpath. She is strange sometimes.

    When we got to the palace, the entire precinct is closed for the week. All this enabled was for Craig and Kate to add a sleeping swan and a new duck to their bird list. Next stop, Itoya, the multi-level stationary story in the Ginza district, but on the way we had to walk past the Tokyo Station, which in fact just invited us to go in and have lunch in one of the shops in the vast underground shopping malls underneath the station.

    When we got to Itoya, we left Craig on the third floor in all the fountain pen buying craziness to enquire about the Platinum (brand) ultra fine nib pen he has been eyeing off, and Kate and I ventured up each floor to floor 7. This shop sold all sorts of beautiful papers and pens and stationary stuff I didn't even know existed. It was beautiful, but also very busy. Too many people for Katie, so she was happy to get back outside again. Craig was successful in his pen purchase, getting it tax free, and discounted for an end-of-the-line pen, so he was a happy camper. We continued along the very expensive shopping street full of Louis Voutin, Jimmy Choo, Prada, Valentino, Tag, Rolex etc.

    We were going to head to the fish markets, however by now they would be close to closing, so we scratched that idea and headed to Tokyo Tower instead.

    Kate and I think we eat more sushi in Australia in a week than we have in Japan and decided that this needed rectification, so I searched for sushi restaurants near our accommodation. Kate wanted a train, so I found a place where it is made to order, and delivered on a conveyer belt. We decided to walk home first, have a bit of a rest and then walk the 1 km to the sushi restaurant. However, on the train we worked out if we just stayed on it for a few more stops we would more or less be at the restaurant, so did that instead. And what a find! OMG I think we ate our body weight in nigiri with velvet fresh sashimi tuna and salmon. Kate counted 22 dishes between the three of us, and including drinks it was $58. I feel like I have died and gone to sashimi heaven. In addition, the sushi restaurant was right next to the giant golden sweet potato we saw when we arrived in Tokyo yesterday (which is actually the Asahi HQ building), so we were able to see the sweet potato at night.    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    Rice fields under snow
    Hiking through snowWe made it to TokyoSenso-ji templeOur skinny little Ninja House in blue/greySouffle cheesecakeTwitchingHome for the next five nightsSilhouettes on the footpath outsideNinja House, the whole widthNinja House tour

    Hakuba to Tokyo

    December 28, 2025 in Japan ⋅ 🌙 6 °C

    It was impossible to book a taxi on Sunday morning in Hakuba, so we decided to don the backpacks for a brisk walk through the fresh snow to the bus terminal to line up for the first come first served unreserved bus seat to Nagano. Both Kate and Craig got to see wild monkeys on the bus trip.
    to
    In Nagano, we changed over to the Shinkansen and scored unreserved seats again, on our way to Tokyo. A last minute decision to get off one station earlier, we were able to catch a single metro train to near our accommodation and only had to walk 1km to drop off our luggage. We weren't able to check-in until 4.00pm so we had three hours to kill. We backtracked to the Asakusa area to see the Senso-ji temple area and it was a district packed to the rafters with people. Katie was not enjoying it with so many people. We grabbed some lunch and decided to cross back over to our side of the river to scout out our local konbini and then after finding the elusive souffle cheesecake from Osaka, we took it down to a local park to just sit for a while. Craig has started tracking birds using an app called Merlin which has been delivering him a bird of the day. He actually managed to spot a bird of the day from a few days ago in the park! There was a fee museum in the park, so we spent a bit of time in there, covering an earthquake from the 1920s and the air raids of Tokyo during WWII.

    We topped at the konbini across the road from our Ninja House Secret Base. This is a narrow two-storey plywood house in Sumida City which Craig booked. It even has a ninja costume we can get dressed in, with a warning not to wear it outside as the police might shoot you 😄. We are sitting in the front living room area with a toughened shoji screen between us and the footpath outside, watching a dubbed Last Samurai Standing on Netflix. Craig is incredulous at the low security level required in Tokyo.    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    Snowy morning
    IciclesWhat a beautiful dayLet's get this show on the roadThe husband getting ready to lock in the skisThe green runCraig is readyKate had my phoneGondola back down at the end of the dayRidiculously happyGondola viewsAm I really only regular goofy??Shuttle bus back homeHotpot to end the day. Perfect!Our street this morningSkiingPainfully slow I knowMade it to the end of a runCraig and Kate are off

    The wild horses showed up again

    December 27, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ -5 °C

    We woke up to a beautiful snowy morning with clear blue skies. Still anxious but with the place looking so wonderful, and my body betraying me by not contracting 24 hours flu after all so I woke up feeling perfectly fine (grrr) if not a little muscle fatigued, we headed off again. I was a bit determined not to let this stupid skiing sport beat me. We got a good seat on a half full bus, didn't have to faff about buying lift passes, no line up for the gondola. A dream run!

    Headed off down the same green run, with Kate having declared she was heading up higher to do her own thing, and she may have said as she was skiing backwards in some amazing feat.

    Anyways, over the edge, and I got to the bottom in a faster time, with maybe about 10 falling overs. Not bad. Chair lift with the husband, not so great. Our poles got tangled up as we stood up to launch down the run, which caused me to face-plant right in front of the chair. All I can say is lucky skis are designed for the boots to detach under extreme pressure or I would have had two broken ankles or knees or something. The chair lift man came to rescue my skis as I crawled off to the side wondering how I got where I was.

    A bathroom stop and the first proper coffee in days was in order by then. It would be tempting to blame my poor skiing performance on bad coffee for the last 5 days, but that would be disingenuous.

    Anyway, we were off for another run! Like, two whole runs before lunch! This time I also managed to get off the chair lift and only fall over after skiing to the bottom, so things are looking up. Katie met us at the gondola restaurant for lunch, and before long we were off on our third run of the day. This time I only fell over about 5 times and feel like the "getting it" is slightly within grasp. At the bottom, Kate and Craig reckon they will do two more runs to my one. Up the chair lift, fall off again, go down the run by myself and just as I reach the bottom, not having fallen over one single time, Kate is already waiting for me, which proves that I was very slow, but still managed technique of some description because on my final run of our ski holiday, I have managed to not fall over!!! Craig arrived a few minutes later looking like a pro (in my eyes anyway 🥰).

    Time for my first ever snow angel before calling it quits on our skiing "adventure". Craig is slightly concerned that because I ended on a high there is now a small possibility that I might suggest going skiing again one day 🤭.

    I felt ridiculously happy on the way down in the gondola that I had managed 4 runs today, Craig managed 5, Kate some untold number because it was so many she didn't need to count. All up, a positive way to end it. I feel less of a failure and so glad we stuck at it today. Quite a few bruises on my left leg, which is weird since it didn't hurt at all to fall down a gazillion times, but obviously I was banging myself up in some fashion.

    We had a delicious pork hotpot for dinner just down the road, and since we haven't booked any buses out of here, are currently contemplating how and when we will be able to leave Hakuba tomorrow morning in order to get to Tokyo.    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    Coming back from breakfast in the snow
    Falling snowSame view from the restaurant yesterday, the snow in the foreground has fallen off the roofKatie is ready to goPizza

    What idiot invented wild horses?

    December 26, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ❄️ -3 °C

    I hardly slept the whole night with anxiety about heading off to ski today. Every fibre of my body was saying "don't go you idiot!".

    We went. It had snowed non-stop all night so Hakuba was blanketed in snow. And it didn't stop snowing all day...

    It is a nice start to each day when waiting for the shuttle bus that you get these 20 minute snippets of conversation with the same people lining up. Craig has been with a french sounding American guy in his 60s called Peter who is lovely. His wife is not a skier, so she has been doing very sensible things like going on day trips to see the snow monkeys bathing in the hot springs, and heading to Matsumoto to visit the castle. My snippets have been with a family from Cairns who live at Redlynch and the wife is a teacher at Freshwater State School which is where Craig went to primary school.

    It was a full bus this morning and we were the last to board, which meant standing up holding skis and poles with one arms stretched out precariously trying to hold on to an ill positioned rail. The bus driver hit a road sign, so there was a lot of lurching and sudden stopping happening too.

    Next task, buy lift passes for two days. ✅

    Next new experience, getting on and off the moving gondola. ✅

    Next hurdle (and it was about now my desire to throw up grew sizably) was launching ourselves over the edge of the green (easiest) run. Hmmmm. First little bit lulled me into a false sense of security, because after the first little bit, there is a steeper bit, and remember that at this stage we have still not mastered turning around or stopping as well as would seem prudent if the edge of the ski slope was coming at you faster than you would otherwise desire.

    So somewhere between the top and the blessed relief of being at the bottom, I fell over more time than I can count (and I stopped counting after about 15), hyper-ventilated so much I managed to fog up my goggles, spent a lot of time trying not to cry and telling myself that (nutty in my opinion) people find this fun and it is a mental game not to psych yourself out (a game at which I was failing badly). Pretty sure my quads have never burnt this much in my whole life!

    I will add that Craig was doing pretty well, and Kate was skiing down a little bit and waiting for us (mainly me) to catch up, offering words of encouragement. I am very glad I looked up a YouTube video before I left the hotel this morning on how to stand up when you have fallen over. I am beginning to perfect that technique, but man is it exhausting. By about now I am pretty much hating this entire thing.

    Now for the chair lift... Kate went with me and tried to prep me for what lay in wait in terms of how to get off the jolly thing. And, somehow I managed it! Success. With that, I caught the gondola back down to the bottom, and Craig and Kate skied down Route 7 to the bottom, arriving only a few minutes after I did. Lunch and a rest!

    Those persistent and frankly very f***ing annoying wild horses dragged me back up again after lunch to try and conquer the anxiety which was now meaning I could barely eat. I am not really an anxious type of person, so this is all very unfamiliar territory. Anyways, here I am at the top faced with another torturous journey down the green run. Once again, I lost count of the number of times I fell over because I am just not getting "it". "It" is all so counterintuitive... to lean forward to slow down, and lean left to go right and lean right to go left. Argh.

    At the bottom, Katie and Craig decide to go up the mountain to try something different so I say I will call it a day... Which means going back up the chair lift to get to the gondola to get back to the bottom, this time by myself. Well, I discovered why the chairlift occasionally stops when you are on it because I was the cause of it being stopped. I got to the section where you are supposed to stand up and then ski forth down a frankly way to steep hill in my opinion, and my fatigued muscles just couldn't do it. There is no "down" on the chair lift, so you have no choice but to get off. So the chair lift stops as it has turned the bend, with me still on it, so I now had to plop off the chair lift, which thankfully or otherwise was into about a metre of snow below. I didn't land gracefully, so here I am now flailing around in the deep snow trying to work out what way is up so I can crawl out of this mess. Stand up, try to regain what little composure and dignity is possible at this stage, and then amazingly manage to do three beautiful turns slowly down the hill to the gondola. Craig thinks it makes no sense because that bit was steeper than other bits where I was falling over all the time. Hop on the gondola, head back down as Craig and Kate arrive, and we catch the bus home.

    At this point in time, I am now developing a sore throat and swollen glands, come home, have a shower, get into bed and fall asleep, glad that this terrible, terrible day is finally over.

    Craig is quietly gleeful that I will never, ever try to convince him that a skiing holiday will be a great idea again. Like EVER. I was too whatevered to even go out to dinner, so the husband kindly went foraging and bought pizza for dinner, bless his little cotton socks.    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    Christmas pyjamas
    1What is this weird waistband thingy?So full of anticipation at this stage1Kate the ski bunny3Which clearly I am not!

    Merry Christmas

    December 25, 2025 in Japan ⋅ 🌨 4 °C

    "How are you supposed to wear all this gear?" was the main theme of the morning dressing routine. Like what order to do up your boot bindings, how tight, how do the weird pants with extra floppy bits work etc. Walking in "very hard to walk in" boots, we staggered off to catch the bus to Hakuba47 again to meet our ski instructor.

    Kate bought a lift pass and headed up the mountain by herself. Craig and I started what can only be described as the longest two hours of our entire life, which was in the rain the entire time. Without a doubt this skiing caper is the hardest thing I have ever done!

    Craig only ended up on his bum once, I lost count of the number of times I ended up on my butt. So at the end of two hours, neither of us can sufficiently stop and can't really turn. Kate met us at the end of the lesson to witness the debacle and we went off for lunch. Once inside and with our jackets off we went from way too hot to quite cold, I suspect that all our nervous energy made us so sweaty that with our jackets off we were evaporatively cooling quite quickly.

    Over lunch we declared ourselves too buggered and too wet to continue on in the drizzle, so headed home. I slept pretty much all afternoon (it was after lunch on Christmas day after all!). I can't believe that two hours can make you so knackered!

    After all our family Christmas calls, we headed off to dinner in the yummy Malaysian restaurant in front of the hotel, and we'll be in the land of nod in no time.

    Merry Christmas 🎄    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    Rainy snow
    Kate getting some gouache instructions from CraigHow I hope to avoid coming down the mountainThis person was put in a van, which had no ambulance markingsLunchThe 1998 winter Olympics ski jumpsKate sketched the hut in front of our viewAnd a gondolaRaining

    All dressed up and nowhere to ski

    December 24, 2025 in Japan ⋅ 🌧 7 °C

    Bonus buffet breakfast with the hotel booking which I didn't remember requesting!

    We asked the front reception man about what people do in the snow when it is raining and not a fine sunny day. His suggestion was that no-one skis and that it is icy. He also told us that Happo One lower runs were closed, and better to go to Hakuba47 Ski Resort as it was better for beginners, so that's what we did. Dressed in our snow pants and jacket and gloves, we left skis, poles, helmets and goggles at the hotel and wandered down the street to wait for the free shuttle bus. Luckily some other Australians there set us on the right path of which bus to get on, and in no time we were at Hakuba47, heading for the ski school building.

    No luck for lessons today, and in fact no group lessons tomorrow either, but for $250 we could get a two hour private lesson tomorrow morning, so in desperation I said yes (even though it is supposed to be raining tomorrow too). Signed up, and as we were sitting down going through the ski lift advice the lady had just given me, Eric walked over and introduced himself as our ski instructor tomorrow. He was waiting for someone to turn up for a lesson and was not expecting her as she didn't show up the day before either, so he stayed and chatted to us for about 30 minutes or so. A 69 year old Italian from Verona who was married to the Japanese lady I had just signed up with, and they split their time between Hakuba in the winter, Verona, Singapore where he lived for 10 years and Phuket, a true geo-arbitrager. He was a civil engineer, and obviously very well travelled. He grabbed some skis and gave us a few ski instructions ready for tomorrow. If two hours proves to not be enough tomorrow I think we will just buy another two hours. There is a slim possibility we might be on a beginner run by tomorrow afternoon. Erik said last year at Hakuba was a bummer snow season with a large December dump, this year not much snow and it is a problem world wide. To prove his point he hurried off to find his phone to show us dismal pictures of snowless ski areas in Austria.

    We then spent three hours sitting in the big-windowed restaurant watching people come down the red run, the people standing in the rain at ski school group instruction just in front of us, and generally watching the world go by. Kate and Craig did some mini sketching and painting. This included a lady who decided to walk down the mountain sideways, dressed in a very nicely colour coordinated ski outfit whilst the boyfriend walked down beside her trying to cajole her whilst carrying her skis. A dude who lost his glove near the top bit we could see, then basically tumbled with his snow board down 1/4 of the run, tried to walk back up until a nice person swiped up his glove and brought it down to him, and most disconcertingly, the person who came down in a cocoon slung between two medics, was then attached to a skidoo and quizzed over to a waiting van which did not have any ambulance signs on it, so I am really hoping they were breathing in there, otherwise we just witnessed a dead person.

    We caught the 1pm shuttle back into town for lunch, a bit of grocery shopping (since I've now cottoned on to it being Christmas and all tomorrow), which then meant we thought more about the need to book a restaurant for tonight and tomorrow night... And our first choice was already booked out for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Eeek...

    Craig went for a walk with Kate and has booked us into a Japanese Curry Pizza place reserved under the name of "Craog". And I found an Italian place where I have requested a reservation for tomorrow night for our Christmas evening meal, where I am hoping to be resting all exhausted from a successful day of earning how to ski!    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    Waiting for trains
    Train station

    Takayama to Hakuba

    December 23, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C

    Another big(ish) travel day from Takayama which should have required several trains, a Shinkansen and two buses, but because we got lucky and managed to find ourselves on a direct train and a direct bus, there was a lot less switching involved. Pretty sure we paid for the luck though. It was also supposed to be a day where we were going to get Kate to do the navigation as a learning experience. This was thwarted by the daughter's ownership of a stupid iPhone with a cracked screen, no phone charge within the first hour or so of leaving Takayama, a dodgy battery pack and her not having brought the correct cable from Australia despite several reminders of her father to do so, which then led to requisite teenager attitude being deployed as though all of those things were our fault. Happy days. 😔

    Once we hit the Hakuba bus terminal we were supposed to be met by the hotel shuttle where they were also picking up four others. No shuttle in sight, a bit of stalking of parties of four, and we found our fellow hotel guests, which at the very least confirmed that we hadn't missed the shuttle. They were just very late. We are now checked into the Shakespeare Hotel, aka Australia Hotel. It is quite run down, so you are paying for the privilege of it being near snow rather than anything flash, like... the toilet... which is fully manual - no electronics and no heated seat. What??? How will we cope? The barbarians at the Shakespeare Hotel do not even issue toilet slippers! (Actually, they forgot to give us towels and a shower curtain too, but at least these were standard issue when we did ask).

    It was nearly 4pm, so we then did a mad dash a few kilometres down the road to a ski gear rental place. Apparently this was something we were supposed to have booked in for, but they kindly squeezed us in. After emptying our wallets, we are now fully geared up for four days in the snow. Skis, poles, helmet, goggles, gloves, boots. Bad news though, the "no planning anything" method of travel I am finding myself in seems we have missed out on being able to get any ski lessons tomorrow, and after ringing a ski school and talking to Dan the Australian on the phone at 7pm, we are now left with ski rental shop suggestion of just rocking up tomorrow at Happo One ski resort and seeing if they can fit us in.

    An early dinner at a tiny little pub thing right next door to the hotel for ramen and yakisoba and we were tucked up in bed by 9.30pm or so. It is predicted to rain all night tonight and all day tomorrow and the next day, so a postcard white Christmas with us frolicking in the snow is looking a bit doubtful at the moment. ❄️    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    1

    Takayama

    December 22, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 3 °C

    It was a "feels like" temperature of sub zero most of the day today, so a real taste of winter for us topping out at 4°C. After catching the shuttle bus from the hotel back into town, we stopped for a coffee and croissant for breakfast (very Japanese 😁). We visited a couple of morning markets, but the benefit of a reasonable number of tourists in a town is that things seem to open a lot earlier, which gave the markets and streets of the old town area a bit of a vibe. It wasn't long before we stopped for another coffee and a local pastry found in the region. Craig did a bit of sketching whilst we were at this stop.

    There is a retro museum in the old part of town, so we decided to go through that too. There was a rotary dial phone in there, so Katie is asking how to use it. Rudely, the husband seemed to remember every other phone number in Cairns from his highschool years other than mine. 🫤 But we got to pay some arcade games including PacMan, Donkey Kong, Galaga and a few other we could not work out at all!

    We walked up to the top of town to the Higashiyama Walking Circuit which skips between cemeteries and temples with views down over the city. Hida beef is the local wagyu to this area, and despite setting out to eat this for lunch, Craig and I ended up with some delicious eel, and Katie with a beef and rice dish. This needed to be rectified a bit later with a street cooked beef skewer. OMG, it was like eating melt in your mouth velvet. Kate announced she could eat a lot of them easily. Totally agreed.

    We tried to check out a pen and ink shop Craig had spied yesterday, but that was inexplicably closed, so we did the long long walk to the Hida Folk Village on the opposite side of the river and town. This is a collection of old buildings set up as a living museum. Really worth looking at, although we were pretty cold by the time we got to the end, so probably skipped a few in favour of not taking our shoes off and keeping the feet warm. We hightailed it back to the train station in record time to catch the 4.30pm shuttle back to the hotel, stopping in at the awesome resort shop to buy some noodles and sake for dinner in our room.

    Craig and I visited the onsen. Kate declined declaring that "being naked with other naked people is not my thing". I tried to talk about "when in Rome" and all that, but to no avail. A bit of logistics planning for the multi train journey tomorrow and making up our own futons since we declined the housekeeping offer, and we are getting ready to tuck up in bed for the night.    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    Bye
    ByeShinkansen travelShinkansen travelViews at about 300km/hDelicious yakisoba noodlesCraig bought unfermented sakeSake optionsGovernment houseGovernment houseA lot of tatamiOur roomViews from the 6th floor2First time yukata wearing on the way to the onsenThe washing machine translation was hilariousFutons ready to goCraig's sake cupSake tasting machine2Drinks at the barYukata and padded haori

    Osaka to Takayama

    December 21, 2025 in Japan ⋅ 🌧 10 °C

    I said to Lynette on the way down the elevator I was reminded of the Friends episode where Chandler was moving in and as Monica said goodbye to Rachel who was moving out, she burst into tears and exclaimed "I have to live with a boy!". And so it is that I have had my last meal with Lynette and abandoned her in Osaka, we say goodbye to our fabulous Japanese adventure together as Craig, Kate and I move on to Takayama today. Sorry it is such a rainy day in Osaka to end what has been a dream run in the weather department.

    We navigated a train, Shinkansen and accidentally snagged an express train to Takayama arriving just after 1pm. I don't think I realised how much regular feeding my 17 year old actually requires given she can usually forage for herself! So after stowing the luggage in a locker, we set off for a nearby restaurant which was excellent. We backed up last night's dinner with another yakisoba and it was delicious and inexpensive. It was light drizzly rain which kinda hampered what we could do for the afternoon, but I did find Takayama Jinya which was a large Edo period government administration complex we could look through, satisfying the "it's not in the rain" criteria perfectly.

    With a bit of foraging in a supermarket where we also bought some sushi for dinner, we ended up back at the train station to catch the shuttle bus back to the hotel. This hotel is out of town, so no casual night time stroll into town for us. I selected it because of the onsen, but it is also a weird blend of why we think resorts catering to Japanese tourists sprung up in the 1980s in north Queensland. I have taken the opportunity to do washing for the first time in two weeks, and since I only brought two sets of clothes, I changed into Kate's clothes so I could wash everything. My nervous first time onsening family set off to the onsen, and I joined Katie not long after. She was boiling to death so didn't stay in long. This place has an infinity pool on the 5th and 7th floor, and takes turns alternating men and women. Craig was on the 7th today, we were on the 5th. Something about Craig in a yukata (or more so the slippers) made me sing Queen's "I want to break free" 🙂

    Back at the room, the housekeeping staff were setting up our futons for the night, and we had our sushi and cheesecakes for dinner. Craig and I then went for a wander around the hotel to find the hotel shop was amazing! We used the sake tasting machine for six shots of different local sakes and a souvenir cedar sake cup which just so happened to be on Craig's list of souvenirs he wanted. We then hung out in the bar for a while before calling it a night.    Read more

  • Japanese Journeys

    Day 17 - Osaka to Brisvegas

    December 21, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

    Today was the last day of my Japanese Journey as I had a flight home booked for 9.45pm. it didn't end up leaving until 11.45pm, but what is a couple of hours between friends...

    Sadly, I was casually abandoned by my erstwhile travelling companion, now that she had better friends to play with. After an early breakfast with them at 7am, Gabby, Craig and Kate left Osaka to go on another (not quite so) epic series of transport journeys to get to another mountain to start their skiing holiday.

    That left me with a whole day, and more, to kill, and a wet, miserable day at that. Fortunately, we got a late check-out arranged when we booked in yesterday, so I didn't have to officially give up our room until 2pm, so I hung out there until closer to 10am and then bravely ventured forth out into the wet, after borrowing an umbrella from reception. I was on the hunt for souvenirs and ended up at one of the shops we took a photo of yesterday (although I didn't realise it at the time), called Don Quixote Dotonbori. (It was the one with the Ferris wheel and cartoon characters...). It was 7 floors of tourist and travel and snack paraphernalia. All I ended up with was a set of chop sticks that I obviously mis-read the price tag on, because they cost more than double what I thought they were, but they are very nice, so I still got them (and I could not be bothered trying to find the place I actually found them again, to be honest).

    After a couple of hours of wandering, I went back to the hotel, and hung out till check out time, having a shower and trying to work out how best to re-pack my now overstuffed (and, did I mention, heavy) bag.

    I didn't have to start heading to the airport until 5.30pm so I still had several hours to kill, so I left my bag with reception, borrowed another umbrella and ventured out again, to continue the hunt for a couple more souvenirs and to get some food for lunch.

    It was around this time I got the message that the flight was delayed (happy days!), so I ended up dragging out the afternoon by slowly eating lunch, and then later sitting in a coffee shop having coffee and chocolate mousse and then sitting in the hotel lounge, until I decided to have a change of scenary and headed to the airport to sit in one of their lounges instead...

    I am urrently in the air about half way through the flight and looking forward to being home with the fam (and my bed!!). Due to land about 9.20am Brisbane time.

    It has been a fantastic trip, and Gabby has been great to travel with, only slightly marred by the whole abandoment issue on the very last day. She will have to lift her game next time...    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    Mochi pounding out of a garage
    Mochi pounding, woman styleMochi pounding, man styleOsaka CastleLynette, me and Katie KoozleOsaka manhole coverIn the crush of the peopleWe are not in Kansas anymore TotoDinner on the canalFamily (minus one)Bright lights of the cityAn oblong ferris wheelSensory overload6 7The cheesecake souffle Kate ate... and Lynette and I didn'tTwo pillows! 2/5 of what I usually sleep with, but since I've only been sleeping with one, I'm happy

    Nara to Osaka

    December 20, 2025 in Japan ⋅ 🌙 13 °C

    Not a massive journey today, but we were still up earlyish, ate half of our ¥194 apple each, and set off to the train station to journey on to Osaka. The train station that bamboozled us a few days ago on our way to Koyasan was equally as bamboozling today, but we eventually stumbled on to the correct metro station. Unfortunately for us, mainly because Lynette did a bit of shopping yesterday so her pack now weighs at least 5kg more, there are three hotels with the same long name before the little bit at the end that differentiates which one is which. We walked to the wrong one! It was a long walk back the way we came to walk to the correct one. And here I am reunited with my husband and daughter.

    After dumping the packs, we set off to Osaka Castle, but didn't even make it to the first block from the hotel when we heard a crowd down the street, so we gravitated to that the minute we realised they were doing mochi pounding. We narrowly missed seeing this a few days before elsewhere. And the most awesome thing was that we were invited to actually pound the mochi! Refer video, ignore obviously bad technique on my behalf.

    A long walk to the castle, we then made our way around the edge and into the Dotonbori district of neon lights and a lot of people... Like a LOT of people. We hung around for the 3D dog billboard, had our photo taken with the Glica running man by a kindly gentleman in the crowd who seemed to just be offering to take everyone's photo of the Glica man, which at the time of him gesturing to us to assume the Glica man position, I was completely unaware that this is "thing". I have now researched this phenomenon and I am now suitably informed.

    Lynette and I had looked up a capybara cafe yesterday so after telling Kate about it she was now the prime navigator to the cafe location through what was very visibly the funky party of town. We made a reservation for 15 minutes later, but in the meantime looked up how much having a drink next to a giant guinea pig was going to cost and decided we don't like oversized rodents that much, so rescinded the reservation and meandered back to the hotel to check in.

    We then headed out a little later to trawl through the Semba Buildings which are a series of shops in the bottom level of at least 9 identical buildings built over a metro. We were in search of some obis, and managed to find them just as the shops were closing up for the evening. We then started the slow walk back to the Tonbori Canal to find places to eat. It was barely 5.00pm but Kate was starving. We found an okonomiyaki place right on the canal and were able to sit here just out of the main crush of people enjoying life going by. That is our third okonomiyaki now, and I think the Hiroshima style was my favourite.

    We wandered along the canal back to Ebisu Bridge to check out all the neon billboards in their glory before meandering back home. And I thought that was it for the night until my daughter told me she had gone to the 7-Eleven with her father and bought one of the famous cheesecake souffle things famous in Osaka. Craig and Kate are staying in a different room to Lynette and I. So shoes were back on and I was now on the hunt for two cheesecake souffles... Two 7-Elevens and a Pitstop later, I am back at the hotel empty handed because they had all sold out! Disappointing to say the least.

    After all our smaller, quieter villages, Osaka has been sensory overload!    Read more

  • Japanese Journeys
    1

    Day 16 - Nara to Osaka

    December 20, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    Today is my penultimate day in Japan as I fly home tomorrow night, whilst Gabby continues on to a skiing holiday with her husband Craig and daughter Kate who flew into Osaka last night.

    This morning we left Nara for the short train trip back to Osaka to join them for the day. Well...it was short-ish, aside from walking all the way to the wrong version of our hotel which was in completely the opposite direction to where we needed to go. Not happy, Jan, especially as my pack is heavier due to the Yukatas and Obi I had purchased in Nara. Sigh....

    Aside from that, all was well and after leaving our gear at the right hotel we joined up with Craig and Kate for a stroll around Osaka. Our meanderings took us past a mochi pounding gathering which we stopped to take a look at and ended up participating in. We then continued on through the grounds of the Osaka Castle, and to a very, very, very long covered street with lots of shops and LOTS of people, culminating in a bridge of some fame or another in the Dotonbori district. Along the way we had lunch, almost but not quite went in a cafe to pat a capybara (we decided it was too expensive for the effort) then had an ice-cream before going back to hotel to check in and have a short rest.

    Late afternoon saw us heading to a very, very, very long shopping arcade running the length of 10 city blocks, called Semba Central. Then we went in search of dinner, which we eventually found on the side of a canal, near the aforementioned famous bridge. We tried the Osaka version of okonomiyaki, which was different again, but still very nice. It was more pancakey this time.

    By this time, my feet had decided to go on strike, so I was very glad when we headed back towards the hotel for an early night.    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    Mochi pounding toy
    Saw manSimilar to Chinese checkersEdo period bey blades and the kind lady at the museumNaramachi streetscapeLattice houseSecond floor of lattice house which was surprisingly largeFirst floor of lattice house where the merchants did businessNara manhole coverThe cryptic conversations with my husbandRinetto taking her deer friend for a walk. I was jealous 🤭In the art museum, which seemed to encourage touching thingsShed over the five stories pagoda which is being restored. Stratco need to lift their game!ET went to JapanNaramachiDessert, not in the slightest bit Jpanaese2

    A lazy day in Nara

    December 19, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 7 °C

    The lovely Lynette was excited when I woke up at 8.30am and she sprung out of bed with a "you're welcome" after she had spent two hours patiently waiting for my eyes to open. 😴

    We faffed about for a bit before hitting the road in search of coffee and breakfast. The first place we came across had good coffee but a lousy food offering, so we decided a progressive breakfast was in order. The second place had amazing breakfast and lousy coffee, so between the two we had a good start to the day.

    Craig was teasing us last night about our (excellent in my opinion) itinerary organisation with some commentary along the lines of how we can't help ourselves and we can't be spontaneous. Red rag to a bull and all that, we just walked today and if we came across a thing, we went to it.

    So this is what led us to finding ourselves spending about half an hour in the Nara Karakuri Mechanical Toy Museum, free entry, with a lovely older Japanese lady sitting with us at each table showing us how these old hand made toys worked. We learnt a game similar to Chinese checkers, but actually much more strategic. There was also a game there which was from the Edo period which was suspiciously bey blading! A small donation later and we were on our way.

    We then found ourselves in the Naramachi Koshi-no-le Lattice House (free entry again) which was a preserved merchant house in the Naramachi district (which we are staying on the edges of) and it was amazing. They had very narrow frontages because they were taxed based on how much street frontage but the houses were long. Great to see inside. We wandered around the Naramachi district a fair bit today, and for some reason I can't stop humming or singing La Cucaracha. 🙂

    Continuing our theme of free things we just wandered into, we also went to the Nara Prefecture Museum of Art and the Nara Craft Museum. We also continued our search for obis which saw us back at the same shop we bought our kimino/yukata from yesterday, where Lynette picked up some more. I snapped a picture of the kimino-wearing ET today though. We also decided to buy one of the giant apples we have been seeing in the shops and have brought that home to have as a snack on the road tomorrow as we make our way to Osaka. Despite our lazy day, we still managed to hit 16,900 steps. And proved Craig wrong!

    Craig and Kate have flown out today so we had a bit of chatting with them late morning because their flight was delayed two hours, so they will have a very late arrival into Osaka, probably in the wee hours of the morning before they get to their accommodation I suspect. To boot, my darling Finny, who is never unwell, had a bit of a medical episode today, so I have had to worry about him from afar. Luckily he has Eleanor there to take care of him now that he has been abandoned by both of his parents.    Read more

  • Japanese Journeys
    1

    Day 15 - Nara

    December 19, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 7 °C

    Today has been a relatively lazy day in comparison to others, although we still managed to fit in about 16,100 steps. We are staying two nights here in Nara so we had a bit of a sleep in and didn't get out of the guest house till close to 9.30 this morning. We went on a morning ramble, looking for a place to have breakfast on the way to visit a (free) historic townhouse in the Naramachi district. We managed to find a place that did a great coffee but not food.

    Then we stumbled upon a fabulous mechanical toy museum that had examples of toys that you could actually play with. The lovely lady who was working there showed us how to use the toys and play the games. We even played with an early version of spinning tops like modern Beyblades and I beat Gabby at a different kind of Chinese checkers/ draughts. We had a lot of fun and it was a terrific way to start the day.

    Still on the hunt for food, we found the historic townhouse and spent a short while wandering through that. After that we eventually found a patisserie that did some delicious breakfasty types savoury breads and sweet pastries, and not so great coffee.

    We are on the hunt for obi sashes to tie up our yukatas so we kept diving into likely looking new and used kimono shops everywhere we found them. Only one obi was found in this fashion today.

    We then popped into the Nara Prefecture Museum of Art for a quick sqizz before taking a walk down a street with a deer and then heading back to accommodation for a bit of a pause in our exhausting day!

    The hunt for dinner drew us out again after 4pm, looking for a pizza place that was actually open. This hunt took a lot longer than it reasonably should have (and involved dropping into a craft museum as well) but in the end we found a nice place to eat but not before wandering around for 90mins or more, and then stopped for ice-cream on the way home again.

    Big day all round, really. Relaxing but still quite entertaining.    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    Inside the main temple
    This was where the morning ceremony ad last night's meditation were heldBeautiful ceilingsBreakyGoma stick wishGome ceremonyLanterns and writingsOutside the man templeAsshole deerDeer in primeval forestI'm sure one of us is offending a deity here tonightBYO yukata

    Koyasan to Nara

    December 18, 2025 in Japan ⋅ 🌙 4 °C

    This morning was a jam-packed schedule all before 9am with a relatively early wakeup to go watch the early morning Buddhist ceremony where three monks did a series of gonging, chanting sutras, cymbals, and bells. It lasted about 25 minutes and was very mesmerising, almost trance like to listen to. No photos allowed of this one. The monks wore slightly more ornate robes for this ceremony than there plain cotton daily wear we were greeted in the day before.

    Breakfast was another traditional meal in the main dining hall, with a quick chance in between to clean the teeth before the goma/homa (fire) ceremony commenced at 8am. This ceremony is unique to Esoteric Buddhism, performed for the purpose of destroying negative energies and thoughts. The night before we were invited to write your name, age and a wish/prayer on a flat decorated stick which is then burnt and offered to the deities. It was such a special event to witness.

    It was a chilly 1°C when we left the monastery, so with no coffee shops open we raided a vending machine for a hot chocolate. The drink was very well positioned to heat our hands up perfectly, too bad it didn't really taste great.

    Despite only having to travel about 70km if we were driving today, the public transport options saw us walk, catch a bus to the funicular, catch the funicular down the mountain, and then catch three other trains to get to Nara. Apart from one tricky thing where we circumnavigated a building because we took the wrong exit, we made it relatively easily into Nara. We are staying at a guest house here for two nights, and it wasn't manned when we arrived, but they kindly gave us the pin code to get in and drop our luggage off so we were unencumbered for the rest of the afternoon.

    First order was lunch because we were getting a little peckish, and that saw us in a second floor restaurant we found in an arcade which was Chinese! Probably one of the most excellent sweet and sour porks I have ever eaten.

    We then followed the crowd to the east end of town and spent the next few hours walking through the Kasugayama Primeval Forest which contains many many temples which are all world heritage sites. This is also home to the famous wild deer which roam around harassing people for food. They have learnt to bow their head as you pass by and I strangely felt compelled to bow back to these deer. It was an odd feeling. I read a blog on the train from someone who declared them all assholes because he kept getting bitten by them. Given just as we walked into the park we saw one tourist yelling and swearing because he had been harassed by a rather persistent deer, and then later and old man who had evidently fallen off his bike because of the deer and was lying on the path with his face covered in blood, I would agree with this assessment. We stopped for a matcha ice-cream (we are still attempting to like this awful matcha stuff), and kept getting butted gently by a couple of them. One the matcha front, we both agree matcha ice-cream is the best use of matcha so far.

    On the way back to the guesthouse, we took a convoluted route to a place which sells second hand yukata and haori. It was a jam packed tiny store with an ET wearing a kimino on the top shelf (funny). After rummaging through the stock, we picked up a yukata each at a great price, so we can now bring a little bit of Japan home with us.

    Our room is semi Japanese with tatami mats, and good grief, we don't have someone to make up our futons tonight 🙂. Our heads are supposed to point away from the North (because we are not dead) but we have been guided by the location of powerpoints rather than cultural taboo. The "semi" is that we are sitting on poang chairs from IKEA to write this. They are a welcome clash of culture in my humble opinion, as my hips are ready to pop out of their sockets with the amount of cross legged floor sitting we have done in the last 24 hours of Buddhism.

    Dinner tonight was a strange clash of rice, omelette, bechamel sauce and prawns, which was then grilled. Kinda like a Japanese mac and cheese. We have agreed on a lazy start to the day tomorrow, although having said that, Lynette's idea of what constitutes sleeping in and my idea are probably on different planets.    Read more

  • Japanese Journeys
    1
    2

    Day 14 - Koyasan to Nara

    December 18, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

    Today started with two more Buddhist ceremony, intermixed with a Japanese breakfast. Firstly, at 7am, we started the day with a Morning Ceremony that involved three monks and a lot of chanting for about 30 mins. We were the fed and at 8am, we watched a fire ceremony, where a single monk burnt a lot of kindling and threw some leaves and herbs on the fire. They also burnt our prayer sticks that we each wrote wishes on. All very dim and mysterious with lots of incense.

    That was the official end of our visit and we finished packing up and left the monastery about 8.45am to catch a bus, furnicular, train, train and train to Nara, where we walked to our accommodation to drop our packs, just after 1pm.

    Nara is renowned for lots of deers that wander around harassing innocent bystanders for food, which people are encouraged to give them (prepuchsed crackers). Walking around watching this, my mind was rebelling, thinking 'don't feed the animals!!!'

    The deer park is part of the Kasugayama Primeval Forest, so we spent an hour or two wandering through that, looking at trees, temples and tombstones (actually they were more like shrines, but that doesn't start with T...).

    On our way back to the guest house to check in, we found a nifty kimino shop where we got great deals on a second hand yukata each, which we are currently sitting around in.

    Dinner tonight was baked omelette with rice, kind of like a baked risotto, which was very yummy. Lunch had been an equally yummy, but different, soys bean meat and cashew Chinese stir fry. We also tried our first matcha flavoured soft serve ice cream when in the park, so I am a bit full now....    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    One of the less crowded legs of the epic journey today
    6On the funicularChecking into the monasteryOur room for the nightInside the monasteryThe exteriorGreat Pagoda, Lynette for scaleEntrance to the cemeteryCemetery and cedars1Dressed as a flapper?1These trees and this setting is amazing1TwilightBack at the monasteryCheck out our dinner!The seaweed things was quite nice1Up the funicularWandering the cemeteryThe main temple for meditation this evening

    Miyajima to Koyasan

    December 17, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 6 °C

    In our own special Japanese version of train, planes and automobiles, today's travel journey from Miyajima to the mountain Buddhist village of Koyasan required us to walk to the ferry, then take the ferry across to the mainland, then catch a local train, then a shinkansen from Hiroshima to Osaka, then catch a metro subway, then transfer to a local train, then switch over to another train, then transfer onto a funicular to head vertically up a mountain, then get on a bus into Koyasan proper, fore walking the last then few hundred metres to our Buddhist monastery where we are staying the night. The modern day version of a one day pilgrimage?

    And despite an extraordinary number of connections, the whole thing went incredibly smoothly thanks to the precision of Japanese public transport and the voodoo magic that is google maps.

    Koyasan is the centre of Buddhist study and is a major monastic complex, where 50-60 of them offer overnight stays for visitors, offering meditation, Buddhist cuisine and sutra copying. We are not doing the sutra copying.

    After dropping off our luggage and getting an early check-in tour by a young monk, we headed off to the far end of Koyasan at the suggestion of Chat GPT. Here we wandered around the Danjo Baran Complex with many large (and I mean large!) impressive temples. Most were originally built in around 816 or thereabouts, but have been subject to fires and therefore been rebuilt many times. With so many wooden structures in Japan, we can certainly see the importance of a constant water source and the local fire brigade in each village. We paid to go to the main temple (Daito) which contained a large main Buddha and was surrounded by four other Buddhas. No photography, but suffice they had a beautiful golden glow. There was a monk giving a tour whilst we were in there so they did some praying/chanting which was lovely.

    We then walked the entire length of the village back to the one thing I have been very excited to see which was the Okunoin Cemetery. There are over 200,000 gravestones and monuments and it is 2km long. In particular, I have wanted to walk through it in the evening. Luckily it gets dark early in winter, so we got to walk in during daylight and out during twilight just as it started to have light misty rain. Definitely worth getting wet for! The mausoleum of the founding esoteric Buddhist monk (Kobo Daishi) was at the end. It too was a visual feast for the senses, surrounded by centuries old cedar trees and the main pavilion had hundreds or orange lanterns lit. No photos allowed.

    Dinner was at 6pm in the dining hall, seated on tatami. This was a traditional washoku kaiseki meal which also was spectacular to look at and very tasty. At 7.30pm we went to the main hall for 20 minutes of meditation. We were rugged up but luckily I was also sitting right next to a kerosene heater. It was toasty, and needed to be as it is freezing here tonight, but I think I'm lucky my polar fleece didn't spontaneously combust. It was hard to sit still for that amount of time because I'm pretty sure my hip was about to pop out of its socket. Old lady Rinetto was offered a stool by the young monk and was all indignant that he thought she was old. I reckon I'll use the stool at the morning ceremony tomorrow so I can walk afterwards 🤫

    Whilst we were at dinner, our futons were made up and come with a much needed electric blanket. We did a trip to the onsen to bathe and warm up and are now tucked up in med. The toilet is at the opposite end of the complex, so I'm now restricting water so I don't need to brave the cold hallways again until tomorrow morning.    Read more

  • Japanese Journeys
    1

    Day 13 - Miyajima to Koyasan

    December 17, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

    Today we managed to cover almost every type of public transport possible in Japan to get to our next destination, a Buddhist Monastery in a small place called Koyasan, south of Osaka. We had an early start for this epic journey, that took us by foot from our hotel to Miajima Ferry, ferry across bay to Miyajimaguchi Station, local train to Hiroshima Station, Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka Station, subway train to Namba Station, a local express train to Hasimoto Station, then a local slow train to Gokorakubadhi Station, a funicular cable car up a mountain to Koyasan Station, a bus to Karukayado-mae and then a final walk to Komyo-in Temple (Pilgrim's Lodge).

    We left the hotel this morning about 7am and got to our monastery about 1.45pm. So, not bad going for that number of transfers... They whole process of getting here from Namba Station was very streamlined and geared to get lots of 'pilgrims' up the mountain as smoothly as possible. Very easy to navigate they whole way though. I think only the things that threw us a little was the fact there were two separate stations when we got off the ferry and the totally unusual lack of an easily found toilet in Osaka Station (don't worry, we eventually found one).

    The final bus dropped us only a short walk to the monastery towards the far end of the village we are in. After checking into the monastery, we walked back up the beginning of the village to visit a temple complex with a very, very, huge pagoda. From there we wended our way back down through the village main street looking at sights (more temples, usually) and stopping in shops to mooch around looking at souvenirs. Our end goal for the walk was the cemetery that this place is renowned for. Nestled in amongst a forest of ancient looking trees, the path through the cemetery goes for 2 kms and houses over 200,000 grave shrines/mausoleums. It was almost magical just wandering through as dusk was creeping in and darkness fell....

    Then it started raining, so we hot-footed it back to the monastery to get out of the rain and make sure we made it in time to change into our yukatas for dinner at 6pm.

    Dinner was another Japanese feast, this time completely vegetarian. We were pretty hungry by this stage as we had only grabbed food from a konbini on the way here, and hadn't eaten very much all day. So, I think we did justice to the meal this time!

    Next on the schedule was a group meditation at 7.30 for half an hour and then an onsen bath before bed.

    I normally meditate lying down, completely relaxed. This meditation had us sitting cross legged with straight backs. This was fine for a few minutes, but I was very happy when the bell rang to signal the end of the meditation. Thank goodness for the hot onsen afterwards is all I can say....    Read more

  • Japan 2025
    This encapsulates safety in Japan!
    First glimpse for the dayI love the funny translationsOn the cablecarViews across Hiroshima BayWe decided to walk to that building on the other hill, also known as Mt MisenThe 1,200 year old temple contains a 1,200 fire used as the eternal flame over in the Peace MarkAt the top of Mt MisenCable car down againKoi and deer in the same pondMomiji manjuThe tide is outMoss makes everything look more beautifulSome last remaining autumn leavesAnother foot bathTorii at nightShrine at night with the tide coming in1

    Hiroshima to Miyajima island

    December 16, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    After a hearty continental breakfast in our hotel this morning, we packed up and walked down to the pier to catch a boat over to Miyajima, opting for a more expensive but scenic river cruises leaving a short stroll from our hotel rather than the ¥200 ferry that required a train or two to get to it.

    We were on the island reasonably early, so dropped our bags off at our hotel and set off for the day. This island is a haven for day trippers, so we did a bit of reconnaissance down to the waterfront to see the most iconic thing on the island, the red torii gate in the water, Otorii.

    There is a cable car which takes you up in the mountains with fabulous views, from which you can then walk to the summit of Mt Misen. If there is a mountain to climb, we feel compelled to climb in, but this one was relatively easy when all was said and done.

    Time for food! There is a famous maple leaf shaped pastry on the island called Momiji Manju, which comes either fried or baked with various fillings, and since we were overdue a coffee, we combined the two. Mine had a custard filling and Lynette went for chocolate. I also had a beef and oyster curry filled friend pastry thing. Strange combination but it seemed to work. It was quite a sweet curry, but good street food! If you are into oysters, this is your island. They are farmed extensively in Hiroshima Bay, so EVERY shop sells every possible type of oyster thing. I did not know oysters with grilled cheese was even a thing until today.

    We donated ¥300 yen each to the upkeep of the main shrine and to walk the slow 10 minutes through it to the other side. Entry fees to things in Japan so far have been ridiculously inexpensive. We had a bit more time to kill before check-in so went for a walk along the main length of the village to the outskirts and back again. We then bought the baked version of our special maple leaf pastry for Ron.

    Check in was a bit of fun. We got to choose our yukata from a wide variety of patterns and styles, our obi colour, and then were given a little dilly bag to select a range of amenities like body lotion, hair bands, thong socks etc. We were then accompanied to our room (bags already here, bargain), and the gentleman noticed that the room was missing a pair of room slippers, a set of towels and a haori jacket. Off he toddles, and then comes back with the missing stuff, but notices that there is now a missing complimentary maple-leaf pastry (I promise we did not eat it). He disappears again, and at this stage we have just left our door open. Some time later, two older ladies jabbering away to each other in Japanese wander into our room, start looking around in the bathroom, poking around in the room, take the one maple-leaf cake that was there and leave two packets of some flat things and jabber off again. Lynette and I have discussed marauding marauders more often than you would think possible in the last 10 days, so I asked her if she thought we had just been scammed out of our special maple leaf cake by cleverly disguised marauding marauders... She agreed we had.

    Anyway, there is an onsen footbath at this hotel, so we got changed and went off to soak the tootsies, came back and went off to use the inside and outside onsen (the outside one had water which was at a much more tolerable temperature), came back and got changed to go out for dinner. Earlier reconnaissance had shown us that not much was open late, so an earlyish dinner was on the cards, after which we went back to see the torii gate at night and wander a bit more with basically the island to ourselves.

    Oh, and this island has wild deer wandering around the village, so we also found it necessary to take lots of photos of them and include more than a fair share of "no idea" jokes across the day 🤭    Read more

  • Japanese Journeys
    311

    Day 12 - Hiroshima to Miyajima

    December 16, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C

    Itsukushima (better known as Miyajima, Japanese for 'shrine island') is a small island a short ferry ride away from the coast of Hiroshima. We decided to splurge just a little and catch an 8.30am boat to the island from near the Peace Park, a short walk from our hotel), instead of catching a train all the way to the ferry terminal proper and then a ferry. The actual boat trip is longer and we got to travel down the Miyajima-Motoyasu River before heading out to sea across to the island, which took us about a hour all up. We will do the ferry trip tomorrow on the way back.

    Miyajima's claims to fame are a huge "floating" Tori Gate, that has been built out in the bay and gets surrounded by water when the tide is in. The also have lots of wild deer, some other shrines, a ropeway (cable) car up Mount Misen, and lots of interesting laneways that we had to investigate.

    Our first stop, after dumping packs at hotel, was the Tori Gate and Shrine, but the tide was on the way out so we decided to make our way to the ropeway to go up the mountain instead. That turned out to be a good decision based on the number of people waiting to get on the cable cars when we came back down. At the top we walked about 30 mins to get from the end of the ropeway to the actual top of Mt Misen. Well worth the effort.

    After coming back down we wandered about town looking for something to eat for lunch and to search out a place that might be open late enough for dinner. As it is off-seasoon most shops shut when the day trippers leave, before dark, and that leaves only a small handful of restaurants open and an even smaller number that possibly have any vegetarian options. Fortunately, we did find one that wasn't going to close till 7.30pm. Otherwise it would have been a 4pm dinner for us....

    Anyways, we went back to the hotel at 3pm to check in, then left to look for a place for dinner then back to the hotel for a hot, outdoor foot bath and then into the hotel onsen for hot baths and then out again for dinner (vegetarian tempura sitting on the floor at a low table, for the first time) and to see the Tori Gate all lit up at night and with the tide in again.

    It was all very beautiful, and quiet without lots of pesky tourists. We are glad we decided to stay overnight here. Well worth it....    Read more

Get your own travel profile

Free

QR code

FindPenguins for iOSFindPenguins for Android

  • 2026© FindPenguins
  • Home
  • About us
  • Group Tracking
  • Press
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy & Cookies
  • Help Center
  • Legal notice