Day Twelve - Wednesday 23 December 2014

The final day of our holiday.
Our flight didn't leave until midnight so we all went to the famous cable car ride - called Ngong Ping 360.
We had to take four trains to get there - but the rail system is pretty impressive here and we didn't have to wait more than 3 or 4 minutes at any stage.
The cable car is amazing - takes you on a 25 minute journey up the mountain side on Lantau Island.

 At the top is a thriving tourist village - including a Giant Buddha, up a surprisingly large number of steps.
The place was very busy and the views were pretty impressive.

Day Eleven - Monday 22 December 2014

Jane went to Disneyland with her friend today while the rest of us strolled around the shopping areas of Kowloon. We discovered a thriving hub of shops just behind the hotel - a mixture of high end shops and street market stalls. 

John bought some clothes and haggled with stall owners quite successfully. 

We ate at the Peking Garden restaurant again and had the Peking Duck special. Delicious again!

Day Ten - Sunday 21 December 2014

After some aimless wandering around the city, we decided the best way to see Hong Kong would be on a guided tour. (Jane spent the day with her friend getting her hair permed and her nails done.)
We set off, full of high hopes, but after changing buses three times as we picked up more people from different hotels, we started to have our doubts about the quality of the tour.
We finally met our tour guide - whose name was Ban Bi - but let Jim call him Bambi.
He was as camp as a row of tents, so the name seemed rather appropriate.
The first real stop on our tour was the Victoria Peak Tram, which was a tram built up the main mountain in Hong Kong about 80 years ago - but still functioning. It was an amazing ride. It felt like we were on a 45 degree angle but apparently it's a 27 degree angle at its steepest point. The view on the way up and at the top was absolutely sensational.
This is what the tram looks like: -

And the view from the top is like this: -

A funny little photographer joined the tour at this stage - Mr Lam - who was pretty much as bald as an egg. He made us all pose against the backdrop of the amazing view and then later presented us with a plate with our photo on it. It was absolutely awful! But he was so sweet and cheerful and enthusiastic that I think everyone bought their plate.
After the tram ride, we visited Aberdeen Fishing Village - which didn't seem to be a village at all but a collection of old fashioned boats - or sampans.

Fisherman in Hong Kong can no longer make a living out of fishing so exist by taking tourists for rides. Our boat was manned by a little old lady who spoke hardly any English.
The only words she knew were "pay now" and "fish".
She slowed down before taking us back to the pier and say "pay now, pay now!" very loudly and without a trace of a smile on her face.
Needless to say, we all paid up promptly. (We discovered the boat ride wasn't included in the cost of the tour.)
After this, Bambi took us to the coastal town of Stanley, to a jewellery warehouse (why? I'm not entirely sure), on a ferry ride across Victoria Harbour to see the lights and then dinner at Sky 100 - the tallest building in Hong Kong.
Here's a photo at the top, taken by Bambi. (It was facing away from the view so you'll have to take my word for it that we were up high.)

 It was a long tour - lasting almost 8 hours - but we certainly feel we saw lots of Hong Kong - along with a running and flamboyant commentary, with lots of giggling involved.
The final part was a walk along the Avenue of Stars - where lots of famous Hong Kong celebrities have put their hand prints. (We recognised about four of the names - including Jacky Chan and Bruce Lee.)
We reached our hotel tired but satisfied.

Day Nine - Saturday 20 December 2014

Breakfast this morning was on the 54th floor of the hotel. What a view!
The airport is on a man-made island connected by a bridge to the mainland. An engineering marvel.

We caught a shuttle bus out to the airport and boarded our flight on time.
What a fabulous country Japan is. Millions of people but everything organised and efficient and the people so polite and helpful.
We had a wonderful time.

We arrived in Hong Kong in the middle of the afternoon - and already it is suffering in comparison to Japan. Busy, people everywhere, noisy and a bit run-down and grubby.
We're staying in Kowloon - and perhaps this is the less posh part. 
The hotel - the Royal Plaza Hotel - is above a train station and is part of a major shopping centre - so we went downstairs to have a look.
It is a rather exclusive shopping area but when we ventured out into the street, it seems like quite a slummy area. It also felt like rush hour, so we decided to eat in the shopping centre.
We found a restaurant called Peking Garden Restaurant - specialising in Peking Duck.
Of course, we ordered the duck and they brought out at least 12 ducks and carved them on a special trolley as part of the entertainment for all the diners.
We got a whole duck - a soup made of the bones (presumably a previously cooked duck), a mixture of the breast meat with vegetables in lettuce - and then the Peking Duck itself - 30 slices of duck with crispy skin - with the pancakes and cucumber and special sauce.

And this was after some fabulous dim sum.
We groaned as we staggered out of there!

Day Eight - Friday 19 December 2014

Today we left Shinosaka for our final Japanese destination - Rinku Town so we will be close to Kansai International Airport for our flight tomorrow morning.
We had a sumptuous buffet breakfast at the hotel first - the best so far - a mixture of Japanese and Western food.
Jim and I took the suitcases to the Kansai Stargate Hotel - taking two trains - while the kids stopped off at a major shopping area at Shinsaibashi. We dropped off the suitcases and turned around and came back on yet another train to look at the shops ourselves.
Our hotel is quite impressive - about 50 storeys high. The view from our window is quite something.

Tomorrow we leave Japan for good!

Day Seven - Thursday 18 December 2014

Well, when we woke this morning, we realised why it was so cold yesterday. We woke to this view out of the hotel window

 And this view in the street. Amazing!

We also realised that snow in a city is not half as pleasant as in a quiet country town.
The traffic turns the snow on the street into brown sludge and the streets are very slippery until they have been cleared properly - but it's still quite exciting.
After breakfast, we headed off to Shinosaka - just outside Osaka.
Jane decided to blend in with the locals - about 50% of whom wear these facemasks - either to stop spreading their germs or to stop catching other peoples, I'm not quite sure.
We all fell about laughing though.

After reaching the hotel, Jim and I headed off to Kyoto to visit a wonderful temple complex - over 1300 years old.
It was up a winding road full of interesting shops and while we were there, it started snowing again.
It was fairly light snow but it made the place more magical.

We had dinner at the hotel - the New Osaka Hotel.
The menu provided great entertainment. I had "hotpot of the eggplant and the mozzarella" and Jane had "the mixture pizza". Some other highlights were "chips of the anchovy flavour" and the piece de resistance was "height of fruit alignment". We couldn't even begin to imagine what that was!
The hotel is an interesting mixture of a modern lobby, restaurant, lift and corridor - and then a room that looked like it hadn't been updated since the 1960's - but at least there were beds!
We are all heartily sick of futons.

Day Six - Wednesday 17 December 2014

Today was a day of travelling.

We left the hotel bright and early and trekked to the station in a snowstorm. Amazing!

We then took a total of five trains - including two bullet trains and a subway train to get to Nagoya.
It was odd to find it colder here in this city than at any time in the snow - but there was a vicious cold wind blowing through the city streets.
We are staying at the Nagoya Hilton in yet another Japanese style room with futons. Here is the room before a little Japanese man came and set the futons up.

We didn't do a great deal today - a bit of cruising around shopping centres and walking the streets, but that was about it.
We had dinner at a restaurant at the hotel - fiendishly expensive and a bit of a disappointment.

Day Five - Tuesday 16 December 2014

Today was snow monkey day - but first we were served an enormous Western/Japanese breakfast with a variety of strange and interesting foods.
After this we toiled up the hill to the hotel we visited last night. Daniel, a young American man who was brought up in Japan and spoke fluent Japanese, had offered to be our tour guide for the day so we set off with him in the hotel Volvo to the home of the snow monkeys - about 15 minutes away.
We parked in a very low key carpark - more a patch of snow - and began our 1.6 km winding hike to the thermal pools. The path was slippery and muddy and took a great deal of concentration, but the scenery was magnificent. We were walking through a forest of snow-covered trees full of picturesque views but not many handrails.

After what seemed like a long time, and after being passed by a group of little old Japanese men and women striding along, we began to smell sulphur and came across our first thermal springs and our first monkeys.

There were about 50 of them, just running around, chattering to each other, picking tiny scraps of nuts and God knows what else out of the snow to eat and jumping in and out of the water.
The signs said not to go too close to them or stare into their faces but the monkeys ran next to us and around our feet, as if we were inanimate objects. They were totally unafraid and totally uninterested in us.

The ones in the springs were like people relaxing in a pool, chatting to each other, and the babies jumped in and out and splashed their parents and generally behaved like kids at the beach.

Here is a picture of us at the pools, taken by Tour Guide Daniel -

After this, we made our way back along the treacherous path to the car - but very satisfied with our adventure.
Our next stop was the Peace Buddha - an 80 foot high Buddha built to represent peace. It was a copy of a previous Peace Buddha at that site which had been melted down to make bullets during WWII! No irony there.

After this, Daniel took us to lunch at his favourite ramen cafe - and we had the best noodles and gyoza I've had for ages - and it was just a cheap little roadside cafe too.
While we were inside, it started snowing, which was truly amazing! The snow was quite heavy too and lasted most of the rest of the day.
The rest of our tour consisted of a visit to a sake factory, along with some tastings, of course, and then a walk around Shibu Onsen - a town of mineral baths, frequented for centuries by Japanese people for their healthful properties. All of this walk was conducted in the falling snow, which made everything ten times more interesting.
Once the tour was over and we got back to our hotel room, we decided we desperately needed to do some washing. The only place to do that was a local laundromat - which looked quite close on the map but which turned out to be down a confusing set of streets in the snow and darkening afternoon light. It was like a miracle to eventually find the place after twenty minutes of wandering.
The trip back was through fresh snow and we left our own special set of marks.

Day Four - Monday 15 December 2014

This morning we were up bright and early to bid Tokyo goodbye and catch a bullet train to the former Winter Olympic village of Nagano.

We had to squeeze into a local train amidst peak hour traffic to Central Tokyo and then transfer onto our reserved seats on the luxurious bullet train, which travels at 350 km/hour.
The cleaners who hopped on to the train just after it arrived were so polite! They were lined up along the platform, spaced out evenly so as to be in front of a door. They bowed to the train as it arrived and then bowed to us - the waiting passengers - and put up this sign: -

"Just moment please" - although it took more like five minutes.
They, of course, bowed to us once they finished and left the train.

Our first view of snow was intoxicating - but there sure is a lot of it. 

At Nagano, we transferred to another local train, as it turns out aren't staying at the main resort but at the one where the snow monkeys are. Cool!

This one had the seat heater on furnace setting. Our bottoms were on fire!

Outside the countryside started to look like a postcard - snow-covered trees and houses - and even apple orchards with snow on each apple. (Apples which sell for somewhere between $5 and $15 in fruit shops.) Some of the train platforms we passed were carrying a metre of snow!

We had one final train transfer before arriving at the small town of Yudanaka at the end of the line. 

We stepped out into a fairyland of snow (with quite a bit of slush around the taxi rank). 

We slithered and slid down the hill and round the corner to our hotel - the Hotel Tsubakino. 

We have booked into a traditional Japanese room - with sliding doors, futons instead of beds and a small table with a tea set and kimonos and Japanese sandals we can wear if we want to.

We were worried the room would be cold - but it's beautifully heated. Compared to our previous room, it's like a mansion.

When we sat down at the little table at the end of the room, we discovered the tablecloth is an electrically heated blanket - so you can sit with your legs under the table with a warm blanket over them. How luxurious is that!

The temperature here today is 3oC and it drops to about -2oC overnight.

We went for an exploratory walk and there's snow, snow everywhere!

The kids spent the whole time throwing snowballs - and never seemed to tire of it.

For dinner, we had an amazing traditional Japanese meal at a nearby hotel.

It was served by a traditional Japanese lady who spoke practically no English.

We had little burners where we cooked strips of wagyu beef and capsicum and, the most amazing thing was we picked growing mushrooms from a stump on the table and grilled those as well!

Every part of the meal was fresh and carefully prepared - strips of raw salmon and tuna, amazing kinds of tofu and taro and God knows what else. It wasn't all very nice - but certainly was very interesting.

After dinner, back at our hotel, we went up to the 5th floor to the public bath area.
There was no one else there in the women's section and it was absolutely amazing!
A long passageway with bamboo flooring, then through a sliding door a large changing area, then a beauty area with large mirrors and hairdryers and all kinds of lotions. Then through another door into the bathing area. The bath was about 20 foot long and fiendishly hot - but very luxurious.
I could see outside to the snow on the terrace.
A wonderful end to the day.

Day Three - Sunday 14 December 2014

Today we decided to visit central Tokyo - another dozen or so stops along the train line. This was a Sunday and the trains still came every few minutes and were as full as Melbourne peak hour. We managed to get seats this time though. And we discovered the seats are heated! Either that or the little Japanese schoolgirls who were sitting there previously had very warm bottoms. 

Our first destination was the Imperial Palace - which was rather a disappointment. You can only go into the Palace grounds one day a year - 23 December - the Emperor's  birthday. Instead we wandered around the outer gardens - very impressive but not quite what we were expecting. We gazed at some nice walls and gates and moats and the odd bridge. 

It was pretty cold but very sunny and it seemed some kind of fun run was in progress. Heaps and heaps of joggers everywhere and people in green jackets labelled "Palace Cycling Staff" cycling around. Not sure exactly what they were doing but they lived up to their name and cycled a lot. 

After this Jane went off to get her hair cut and the rest of us went back to Shinjuku to a real Japanese restaurant. 

We had bento box lunches - beautiful presentation, great service but I wasn't entirely sure what I was eating most of the time and can't say I really enjoyed it. It was certainly an experience though. 

We stopped off in the afternoon at a Coffee Art cafe called "Coffee Prince" - staffed by trendy boy band lookalikes, but very polite ones who still bowed to us when we left.
It was up on the 3rd floor of a building, as are lots of shops. As space is at a premium, lots of stores are on upper floors and advertise at ground level as 2F or 3F.  Took me a while to work out that meant 2nd Floor and 3rd Floor. 

I had a tapioca bubble tea and so did John - and the bubble tea art was quite impressive.

For dinner, I'm sorry to say, we hopped on a train and went back to Shinjuku to the Italian restaurant. 

It was excellent food. Pasta, pizza, octopus and mushrooms in garlic butter, fried yams (possibly not so Italian), Caesar salad, garlic bread and a glass of chianti. Delicious!