Blogs from Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, Asia - page 5

Today was an all-Disney day. We headed out by bus (air-conditioned and blissful, of course) to the park. Part of our package included a tour guide for three hours, which got you into the "fast pass" lane. That basically meant you had a separate line you could use to get onto rides faster. I probably shouldn't mention that our tour guide was beautiful Japanese women and spoke perfect English, but I am going to anyway. I believe I mentioned in an earlier post that I thought the entire population of Japan was visiting Universal Studios while we were there. I was wrong. They saved that for Disney day. Of course, everyone was polite and amazing! No thugs trying to pick fights or giving people the stink eye! So much different than America. Everyone there was just ... read more

Japan IS like a warm blanket. A warm, wet blanket that they throw on you as soon as you get off the plane. At least, that is Japan in August. "Hello, sir! Welcome to Japan! Do you like hot, steamy action? Great! Because that describes our weather today! What's that? You want your shirt to stay dry more than two minutes? Hey, Kenchi, this guy wants his shirt to stay dry! HAHAHAHA! Americans..." It is very humid here, but that can't diminish the excitement I feel to be here. When we began our final approach to the airport, the plane dipped its wing a bit and out of the window I saw green fields - my first view of Japan! Got our luggage and made it through customs in about 15 minutes, which must be a ... read more

Day 1: Landing at Narita, Eleanor was very excited about seeing her dad. We had seen on le news the previous night that Tokyo was going to be hit by a typhoon (well, my rudimentary French picked that up, although Tokyo could have been about to be bought by a tycoon as the predictive text on the tablet seems to think). I hoped our flights wouldn't be delayed but all was well - I think the tycoon purchased some, but not all of Tokyo! We caught an express bus to Shinjuku because I wasn't ready to take on the railways yet and that was easy. Dean was in the hotel foyer doing something unusual for a change - reading a newspaper! Surprised to see us, it was a happy family reunion. He didn't have quite the ... read more

I suppose you have all been wondering - where is Mike and Paula’s blog! Well I can tell you the hotel that I suggested said it had wifi but when you tried to connect you just could not do so. Not only that we had to get a taxi to it - the hotel Mike suggested was across the road from the train station and probably had wifi! Does not stop there as we try booking in at the hotel reception and they have no booking for us - they can find a room but it was a smoking room and not a Japanese Room that we booked - Decided that keeping head down at this stage was a really good thing as anyone who has seen steam coming from Mike’s ears knows this was a ... read more

Well talk about jet lag we kept on waking up and then finally woke up at 11.44am. Still in work mode we jumped out of bed and rushed out the door to catch the bus into Shinjuku metro station. When we got there we suddenly remembered we are not a timetable anymore ha ha. Anyway first stop was to the Imperial Palace where the emperor and imperial family live. Anyway as anyone knows trying to read Japanese is extremely hard (and that is being nice) so we asked at a travel agency and they did not even know what we were talking about, even when I showed the lady in Japanese where we wanted to go. So true brits we eventually found it (just like the true brit Sherlock Holmes). Attached a photo for you to ... read more