Miscellaneous Photo Dump
First, for great justice, miscellaneous photos of the trip that didn’t make it into specific entries.
Table of Events
Because I’m organised like that.
| 8 Jan 2014 | Day 1 | We arrived in Tokyo, checked in at Hotel Villa Fontaine Ueno, and had dinner at a CoCo Ichibanya nearby. Crappy rainy weather in Tokyo! |
| 9 Jan 2014 | Day 2 | The weather cleared up enough and we went sightseeing all day. We had an unpleasant experience at a cafe. We also picked up some ski gear from Kanda, and had dinner at Ippudo in Ginza. |
| 10 Jan 2014 | Day 3 | We checked out of our first hotel, stored our luggage in some coin lockers, then went to have all-you-can-eat sushi lunch at Tsukiji Tama Sushi plus did some shopping in the Shinjuku Takashimiya department store building. We met up with the other ski tripmates and had a big group dinner at Kakoiya in Shinjuku. |
| 11, 12, 13 Jan 2014 | Days 4, 5, 6 | First time skiing, ever! Breakfast and dinner were provided at the ryokan, Yamasanso. I ended up with a lot of bruises, but made a lot of new friends and had a lot of fun. A lot!
On the last night, we went back to Tokyo and stayed at Hotel Princess Garden. We grabbed food from the Famima nearby for dinner. |
| 14 Jan 2014 | Day 7 | Last day! We took the Narita Express to the airport and went on our separate flights back to Sydney (me) and Hong Kong (brother and his friends). Goodbye, Japan! |
Final Thoughts
Public baths! Not as embarrassing as I thought because I’m very comfortable with my own body, but I did get just a little self-conscious when I got those epic purple bruises the size of Australia on my bum after the first day. My belly button piercing did get some attention, though.
Vending machines! Love love love them. I wouldn’t have survived without my hot black coffee in a can, available in almost every corner of Tokyo. They were certainly handy when shops weren’t open for any reason and I just needed that warmth and caffeine hit.
Public transport! The Tokyo public transport system was convenient but also somewhat confusing with all their different lines and companies that didn’t all share the same tickets — and I’m already one who could read enough Japanese to get by!
Smoking! Eck. I didn’t like how much the Tokyo population smoked, and the pretty much non-existent separation between smoking and non-smoking areas.
Overall, this has been the best trip in my entire life so far. The brother and I didn’t murder each other (we had a fight of about 5 literal seconds; okay, we just raised our voice a little tongue ) and I came home with over a dozen more friends than before the trip. What a great start to the new year!
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