Japan

Today was a good one. Nice weather all day. We got up at 9am and headed into Shin-Osaka via metro, took around 20 mins but was tough wheeling big suitcases! Bet glad I spent a little bit of money for a 4 wheeler now as it’s saved me so much hastle!

We picked up some store bought sushi for the train which is well renowned here, probably better than UK restaurant sushi!
As it was a clear sunny day bullet train gave us an amazing view of Mount Fuji which I tried to capture below in a video!

We got to Tokyo around 3pm and had another metro and a walk up a hill in the heat up our hotel! We decided to treat ourselves for the last night and stay in the 5 star Okura hotel in Tokyo! We arrived sweaty but thankfully had bellboys get all our luggage for us. Sinead got us a free room upgrade thanks to her booking.com account and we got treated to a room with amazing views over the city and a great bath! We can actually see Mount Fuji from bed (noticed as I’m writing this in the morning)

After we checked in we explored the room (it’s a mix of traditional sliding doors and modern) then headed down to use the pool and spa as want to get our moneys worth. We both did 20 lengths and then tried out the facilities (separate for both male and female in Japan). You have to go in completely naked here which is a bit weird but I wasn’t bothered by it. I did some hot cold therapy where I went straight from the cold plunge into the sauna and did that a few times! I then chilled in the relaxation room with views across Tokyo 😎.

Sinead was more apprehensive about going in to her section so just showered and I met her outside the spa. We got some amazing views of the sunset over Tokyo from back in the room! We then got ready for dinner and headed out to a TEPPANYAKI place I had booked earlier that day. TEPPANYAKI is where the chef for you cooks on a massive grill. We wanted to Ben on the chefs table so had to wait a bit when we got there but got sat eventually! Food was excellent and we had 7 courses and lots of food I’d never tried! Japanese chef in front of us was young but very skilled with the knife! We had crab, scallops, sea urchin, abalone (which never had tried), sirloin and a nice desert with coffee! The chef flambéed our steaks which was cool too see! Only weird bit was the chef putting on live lobsters straight into the grill! They kept trying to run off and squirm away which was a bit squeamish to watch.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel to explore a bit more and have a drink at the bar. We both got the speciality and was delicious! Sinead called her mum and I went up to run myself a bath! Dont usually have baths but felt I had to try this one. Was weird lying in the dark but turned off all the lights and got a great view of Tokyo at night. There was tv built in and I watched a bit of BBC news! Can’t believe the one time we’re away the northern lights are out, but can’t complain!Read more