Escape to the mountains

Matt here.

Well, the constant rain in Tokyo shows no sign of abating, so today's plan is to head to the Japan Alps in the hope that it's drier there. The chance of rain in Tokyo today is, according to the weather forecast, "100%", so we can't do any worse.

Enjoying the scenery in the rain

Karuizawa is a small resort in Nagano Prefecture, famous mainly for 2 things - hot springs and booze. What's not to like? It's only about an hour from Tokyo on the 'Asama' Shinkansen, so that's an easy day trip.

As is usual for our bullet train trips, I'm blogging while N & T carry on with his school scrapbook, which is coming along nicely. This morning's train is one of the "old" E2 type Shinkansen, which is nice enough, but we're hoping to come back on the very latest E7 type, which we haven't been on before.

Even if the rain doesn't let up in the mountains, sitting up to your neck in an outdoor hot spring bath is about the best way to put up with the situation.

Fast forward about 4 hours, and we're now on our swanky E7 Shinkansen, heading back to Tokyo after a very pleasant trip.

After arriving at Karuizawa station, we took a local train 1 stop and then a bus to Hoshino Onsen, arriving just after noon. We were all pretty peckish, so we went on a lunch hunt and ended up in a bakery, eating a selection of savoury and sweet pastries. All quite nice, and about a third of the price of the rather overpriced restaurants at the resort. You tend to get fleeced for food & drink at places like this. With tummies filled, we wandered through a forest alongside a river to "Tonbo No Yu" (Dragonfly Spring) for our main activity of the day.

Tonbo No Yu Onsen

Now, any decent, reasonably plush public hot spring should have the following features:

+ Elegantly constructed old-style buildings.
+ Large well-equipped shower facilities (for
   getting properly clean before your soak).
+ At least one large indoor bath at a relaxing
   temperature (I like 42°C or thereabouts).
+ At least one spacious landscaped outdoor
   bath where you can smell the surrounding
   foliage.
+ A sauna so hot that you could bake cakes in
   it.
+ A cold pool so cold that your legs feel as if
   they've turned to granite.
+ A fountain where you can drink the hot spring water straight from the source.

Red face

Tonbo No Yu had all of these features, which made for a lovely hour. It couldn't have been more different from the ultra-basic experience we had in Ito the other day. There were plenty of fellow bathers, but both baths were so big that it never felt crowded.

Floppy Matt

A good Onsen should leave you feeling floppy and slightly drugged, which I did, so I consider today a very successful trip.

As we were leaving the Onsen, we noticed a shuttle bus and asked where it was going. Straight to Karuizawa Shinkansen station of course, and free of charge, meaning that this morning's use of local train and bus wasted both time and money. Ho hum. しゃーないなー! as they say over here (well, in Osaka anyway).

Reviving beer

After reserving seats for the train back to Tokyo, we popped over the road from the station (still in the rain) to a little café, where Tom & Nik had a doughnut each and I had a draft beer. Cold beer never (and I mean never) tastes better than straight after an Onsen.

As has often been the case on this holiday, Tom nodded off on Nik on the way back. He's tired after so many stimulating days, and Shinkansen are very smooth and quiet.

Pint of water for the lad please

After dropping our stuff off at the flat, we then headed out to the streets of Hamamatsucho in search of dinner.  We found a likely looking izakaya and headed in after we were promised 10% off.  It was a dream of a dinner - everything exceedingly good quality.  We had:

+ Beef tongue on sticks
+ Chicken thigh on sticks
+ Chicken wings
+ Leek on sticks
+ Shiitake mushrooms on sticks (well Tom and I anyway!)
+ Edamame
+ Caesar salad
+ Croquettes
+ Chicken karaage
+ Pork stew
+ A grilled hokke

All washed down with 4 beers.

It was heaven, pure heaven.  The most expensive dinner yet, but wholly worth it.  We then headed back home to collapse, a good day.

Location: Karuizawa

Quiet Day

After all the frantic travelling we've been doing, we decided that we should have a quiet day.  We had a very lazy morning and then asked Tom what he would like to do.

Super Hitachi

His answer was to go for a short ride on an express train.  Matt looked up the options, showed him pictures of various ones and he decided.  So today we went for a ride on the Super Hitachi which goes from Ueno in Central Tokyo to Iwaki somewhere on the coast near Fukushima.

We got off at the first stop: Mito which is famous for its wonderful gardens.  However, today the temperature has plummeted to 20 degrees and it is raining hard.  Certainly not weather for exploring gardens, so we did what we do best: searched for somewhere nice to eat lunch and then went shopping.

Fairy Tale Cake which I loved

I by luck noticed a poster advertising a cake show, which happened to be free entry, so we headed to that shopping mall, had lunch and then went to the cake show.  It was quite a small show, but interesting none the less.  The cakes on show were much smaller than any you would see in the UK - maybe 8 inch at the base, but then tapering in to 6 inch at the top.  The models were absolutely miniature and pretty good.  (I don't have the skill to produce them so small!)  I was a bit curious to what medium they use for their sugar models, as the colours didn't look quite right on them.  Luckily as I was pondering this, Matt and Tom turned up so Matt asked, they don't use sugarpaste here (maybe to do with availability or the humidity and heat??) they use marzipan instead which explains why the colours weren't quite true.  All the tools they used were British though - FMM cutters and PME tools, so I guess the art has crossed from UK to here.  Anyway it was good to see and very lucky.

We carried on searching through the shops, we came across a Muji where Matt got excited as he found some lovely soft jimbei (Japanese style pyjamas in the same style as the ones Tom has), he couldn't resist, so bought them along with a tatami cushion for his office back home.  This really has become a massive shopping trip!

We then bought some good looking buns from a bakery for breakfast tomorrow and then headed back to Tokyo on the train.  Tom did about half an hour's scrapbooking and then collapsed in my arms.  He was fast asleep when we arrived back at Ueno, took both of us to wake him up - I guess he has been playing hard recently!

Oh, and do you know how I judge a good relaxing holiday...if I manage to read a book, then it's a good one and today I finished a book - hurray!  First book in absolutely ages.  Now I wish I had bought 2 with me as I still have the best part of a week to go.  It's these lazy mornings, I LOVE lying in bed reading and not feeling guilty that I should be doing something.  Tom will pop into bed with us, but amuse himself with an ipad and therefore let me carry on reading.  Didn't manage it in Australia, but seem to remember doing ok last time we were here.

More trains and bentos

So today the weather turned, it has got cool (hurray - only 20 plus degrees rather than 30 plus degrees) but rain clouds were forming and there was a 90% chance of rain.  We thought we would spend the day inside and where better than the train museum in Nagoya.  We went there last time we were here and had a fabulous time.

So we were up early and got the 8.30 shinkansen to Nagoya.  Tom and I scrapbooked whilst Matt worked on the laptop, so we were in perfect harmony.  We arrived in Nagoya (another ridiculously large station) and got the (ironically) private train line out to the JR Central train museum.

Lots of noses

As I said we came here last time so we knew what to expect, however, in the last two years they have changed things around a bit.  There is now a 700 in the main hall so I guess something has been moved out (not sure what), and there are more hands on exhibits - working out the best shaped wheel to use for a train, to tilt or not to tilt, how to make a bridge etc etc.  With Tom being a little bit older than last time we were able to do a little more reading and certainly we could sit down and watch the mini films / take part in the Maglev simulator, all of which were difficult last time.

Guess who?

Dr Yellow of course!

We still didn't see all the museum though, there were some rooms that were still untouched by us (they were last time as well).  I think we just about got to see all the big trains and of course spent quite a bit of time on Dr Yellow.  Tom was able to sit through the presentation on board about Dr Yellow this time and enjoyed seeing all the different maintenance trains that are used on the lines to keep the track in good order.

Plarail!

A lot of time was spent in the playroom making layouts with Plarail and an enormous amount of time was spent watching the model railway.

A tiny part of the model

Now having already seen a number of model railways this time, we can safely say that the model railway in this museum is the best.  There are so many little things going on and things to spot that you really can spend hours looking at it.  This time I found some nursery tales: the three little pigs, red riding hood, snow white and the seven dwarfs, the tortoise and the hare (I guess they are the same here than back home), there was a building that set alight in the evening time and an ambulance and 2 fire engines that sped to its rescue.  We found a bear holding a crab under a tree, some monsters in Odaiba looking over the harbour, a dog sniffing a boy's bottom, a number of weddings going on, a sea monster under a bridge etc etc.

Which nursery tale do you see here?

All very intricate and great fun,  The diorama spread from Tokyo in the East, Nagoya in the Centre and Kyoto and Osaka in the West so lots of familiar landmarks to find and lots of lovely trains to watch (of course).  It even included a maglev and a huge array of maintenance trains that came out during night time to work on the track (including workers who appeared for the night time and then magically disappeared in the morning).

50th anniversary bento

For lunch we got some bentos from the museum cafe and ate them overlooking the trains - I got a special 50th anniversary bento as the first shinkansen was launched in 1964, very nice it was too.




We entered the lottery for a go on the N700 simulator, a crew training course and a go on a local train simulator.

Tom concentrating hard

We were lucky that we won the crew course and a go on the simulator each.  Matt did the crew course so he learnt to be a guard (shaky start but he got better with practise) and then we all had a go on the local train simulator.  This was a little confusing (especially for Tom and I) because it was all in Japanese and it wasn't obvious what to do.

Matt gave us some clues, but he was confused too - for example nowhere did it tell you how fast to go, but it quickly told you if you were going too slow or too fast and then penalised you!  Anyhow, Tom did ok but needed improvement, I did ok and Matt also needed improvement (although he did the intermediate course rather than the beginners course that Tom and I did).  All good fun.

And the next station is...

Time went quickly and before we knew it it was time to leave and go through the shop.  Now last time we came here, something happened to Matt and he went completely bonkers, buying one or two of nearly everything - I have never seen him like that before or since.  This time we were more sedate: we bought some shinkansen theme biscuits for school, a flannel for me (Tom was displaying signs of tiredness so I knew he was going to fall asleep on me on the way home and a flannel is a good way to stop the sweat running between us!) and Tom bought himself a little zero series shinkansen cutie goodie bag of sweets with some of his money from Grannie.

Having fun running up and down

We then headed back - poo it was raining hard and we didn't have coats or umbrellas - luckily most of the walk was under cover but we still got quite damp.  It then rained all the way home.  Tom, as predicted, fell asleep on me as soon as we got on the shinkansen (an N700A by the way) - he had a good hour and then we had our bentos and then we were back in Tokyo.  As it was raining hard we got the train to Shinbashi and then the Yurikamome to Hinode.  We then rain from the station to the flat and got very very wet.  Everyone thought it was funny (phew!).  Another great day.  We are going to take it easy tomorrow!

Totoro

Phew - another long day.  We've only just got back at 8pm.  We popped Tom in the shower and he went to bed without a story or talk about the day, was asleep in seconds.

So today was an exciting day as we had tickets to go to the Studio Ghibli Museum.  However, our allotted time slot wasn't until 4pm so we had to fill the day before hand but not tire ourselves out too much.

We had a quiet start to the morning.  As it is school time now we spend the mornings doing reading, writing and maths.  It is the best time to do it as Tom is fresh and keen.  It also gives Matt a chance to do some work (although how much he can concentrate with us doing lessons in the same room I'm not sure).  I basically feel like a teacher now and to be fair to Tom he isn't a bad student.

After a little discussion about what to do this morning, we ended up deciding on visiting the biggest Daiso we can find in Tokyo that isn't ridiculously out of the way.  So off to Kinshicho we went where there was a Daiso 5 times the size of the one we went to in Odaiba.  As is always the case it was an Aladdin's cave full of things we didn't realise we needed until now.  For me it was basically a business trip as I bought loads of things for my business - about 50% of my tools at home are from a 100 Yen shop, the trend is continuing...

We didn't go completely mad, but did end up with a basket full of goodies.

We then headed up to the top of the shopping centre in search of lunch and ended up with a hamburger, ebi fry, pork katsu and chicken karage to share between us all (guess who go the lion's share of the ebi fry?!), then we worked our way down the shopping centre, got a pair of shorts and another train t-shirt for Tom from Uni qlo and then took a look around a baby / children's shop we knew from Kobe.  We thought we would be able to pick up some nice Japanese pyjamas for Amber, but for some reason all girls sizes stopped at 95 (we think she is probably at least a 100 if not a 110), whilst boys sizes stop at 130????? This seems to happen in all stores we've been in.  Good for us but annoying if you have a girl? (Makes a change)

Nice architecture

We then decided to head to Miazaki, the location of the Ghibli museum.  We got there early, it is located in a nice park (yes they do exist - although this is the first we have seen to date) so Tom had a play in the play area and then we headed over to the museum to see if they would let us in early.  They would but only half an hour early and we were earlier than that.  We had a look around the outside of the building which they had modelled to look as if it had popped straight out of one of their films - it reminded me a bit of Gaudi architecture, no straight lines and lots of higgles and piggles.  We found a huge Totoro manning the ticket office so took some pics and then waited to be allowed in.

Totoro

Unfortunately you aren't allowed to take any photographs inside the building, I can see why - the building is over half of the attraction, so well done, so much to see, so much exploring to do - we got over excited and at one point Matt found himself in the ladies toilet thinking it was another room to explore.  There were a lot of murals, stained glass etc.  There were a lot of details (eg the knobs of the water taps had little jijis (black cats) on them.

Cat bus play area (from their website)

The first place we found was the cat bus playroom.  A MASSIVE soft cat bus that children can clamber around on - including the roof.  It was gorgeous, Tom loved it (we weren't allowed on it as you have to be 12 and under) and we looked on jealously!  Of course, this being Japan, it was immaculate, with staff brushing the carpet around the bus as the children were playing on it.  It was completely soft inside and out.  It took quite a bit of pursuading to pull him off it.

In the roof garden

We then had a look around the roof garden and then headed back in to find the cafe for a sit down and bite to eat - it was full, so we headed to the cinema.

Here Ghibli show 15 minute presentations that can only be seen in the museum.  The one we saw was about Mai and a kitten bus.  Of course it had Totoro in it too.  It was lovely, Tom was so excited that he was exclaiming at things, including at one time shouting 'I wonder where it is going too?' as the kitten bus flew away and exactly when the soundtrack to the film was silent!  Oops - he got a few laughs though so it wasn't too bad!  The detail here was great too - it wasn't just projected onto the screen from a regular projector, it was projected from a mock up of a European looking tram - of course.

Monster

Once that was over, we went back to the cafe and found ourselves a table.  I had a rhubarb soda served with a bamboo straw (quite refreshing) and Matt a coffee and both of us a freshly baked bread bun (strange, served with no knife, no butter - just as well it was fresh!).

Pumping water from the well (as per Totoro)

We then were made to go back to the cat bus playroom where Tom had another play until we reaslised the museum was only open for another 20 minutes, so we rushed around the exhibits to make sure we saw everything before it closed.  My favourite was a mock up of a studio, with lots of artwork covering the walls of all our favourite films.  I could have spent hours in there discovering bits and bobs.

We sadly left at closing time and headed back to the station, stopping off at Yoshinoya on the way (thinly sliced beef and onions on rice served to you seconds after ordering).  Then the long trip home (the Ghibli Museum is quite a way West from the centre of Tokyo).  Tom almost fell asleep on me but suddenly perked up and happily walked the 800m home from Hamamastu-cho station.  

Onsen on a shoestring

Matt here.

Girl and boy infront of train

No trip to Japan would be complete without a trip to an Onsen (hot spring), and today was the day. We chose the hot spring resort of Ito partly because I've never been there before and partly because we fancied a ride on the "Super View Odoriko" limited express train. Nik spotted this striking-looking train on the model railway layout at the train museum and decided she'd like a go on it.

View from back carriage

It was a fairly leisurely morning, and we left the flat around 10.30, got the Yamanote line up to Tokyo, where we boarded our express. It was certainly very plush, with the passengers sitting up very high in the coaches and all 10 coaches having huge wrap-around observation car-style windows.

Soft play area (or bunk beds?!)

We had reserved seats near the middle of the train, but I'd found out in advance that one of the end cars had a kids' room on the lower deck, so we headed there. It was comfy, with lots of brightly coloured sofas to loll about on, but the view wasn't as good as from the upper deck, so we headed upstairs. The train was far from full, so we actually nabbed the seats at the very back of the train, where there was a great view out through the huge cab windows, back down the line. We stayed there all the way to Ito (almost an hour and a half), and got off feeling very relaxed. Not nearly as fast as a shinkansen, but what it lacks in speed, it certainly makes up for with great views and good looks.





Ito is a sleepy little hot spring town on the Izu Peninsula, one of Japan's most seismically active areas. The population is only about 70,000, but there are apparently about 700 individual hot springs within the town. Fortunately, the town centre is quite compact, and we found lunch in a little local restaurant only about a minute's walk from the station. Tempura donburi for me, Chinese style fried noodles for Nik, generous portions of both for the boy (of course).

After lunch, we headed to the tourist information centre, to ask about where we could take the waters. As it happened, there was a public bath house only a couple of minutes walk away, but it didn't open until 2.00, meaning that we had about half an hour to kill, which we did by wandering round the shopping streets and getting a couple of chores done (buying garlic and printing off some photos).
The bath house turned out to be a dead loss. Despite turning up exactly at opening time, the surly woman behind the desk informed us brusquely that all the family bath rooms were full, which was clearly nonsense. I think she just didn't want 3 foreigners in her facility.

Red faced onsen boy!

So, back to the very friendly lady in the information centre, who didn't seem surprised by grumpy woman's reaction and happily pointed us in the direction of the next nearest bath house, which we found easily. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being budget and 10 being luxury, this ranked at about 0.5 - probably the most basic Onsen I've ever visited. All in, including towel purchases, it was less than a fiver for the three of us. It was very far from luxurious, but the feeling of being immersed up to your neck in natural hot water is still fantastic. Natural spring water always leaves your skin feeling great.

As is often the case though, you do see some ghastly sights in onsens, and I'm not talking about Tom's skinny white body. While we were soaking, an old guy who looked like the walking dead got in with us. Hard to guess his age and weight, but I'd estimate about 160 and 3 stone respectively. The ghastly bit, however, was the catheter tube he had crudely taped to his hips, which he then dipped in the bath. I made a mental note not to drink the bath water. So frail did he look, I was half expecting him to expire in the bath there and then.

Splashing in the sea

Nik here - pretty much the same experience for me, although no catheter.  I was at least 40 years younger than anyone else and certainly the fattest.  It was the domain of very very old ladies going there for a good scrub and gossip.  One came for a look at me, but the others were fine and one even lent me some soap - as Matt says it was a very basic onsen.  I think many would have taken one look and refused to go in, but as Matt says we all left feeling pretty good.

We all came out looking like freshly boiled lobsters - the bath temperature was pretty much perfect for me. After a refreshing drink outside, we walked the few yards to the beach, where we spent a pleasant half hour or so splashing in the sea (Nik & Tom) or enjoying the feeling of the dark, abrasive volcanic sand giving our feet a good scrub (me).

Our train home, not as good as the one we got here in the morning

We then wandered slowly back to Ito station, stopping to buy tea, beer & rice crackers for the journey home. We had a good yak with a JR guard while waiting for our train. He seemed to take a shine to Tom (surprise surprise), and even offered him his train conductor's hat and his job (saying it was very easy). Tom declined, but it was an amusing exchange.

The lad remembered that the shinkansen stop at Atami, another hot spring town just up the line, and ordered us to change there on the way back so that we could have a high speed ride. We spent about 25 minutes on the platform, watching the Nozomi trains pass through at high speed, before getting a Kodama stopping service back to Shinagawa. We passed the journey by blogging (me) and scrap-booking (N & T).

Nice pic of the two of us

Chewing on chicken wings

A tower of potato salad

Well, we're now back from dinner, and what a dinner it was. We'd already decided to eat in one of the myriad of eateries around Hamamatsu-cho station, but our decision was somewhat forced upon us by someone suddenly saying he was desperate for the loo (despite saying he didn't need to go about 3 minutes earlier). So, we headed to an underground Yakitori (grilled chicken) restaurant about 2 yards from where our toilet discussion took place, and we lucked out big time. Every one of the 8 or so dishes we ordered was delicious, the service was excellent, and the first round of beers came with shōchū (rice whisky) chasers. We all loved it and came home with very happy tummies.  The place was full to brimming with salarymen.  Apparently Tom was the first child the waitress had ever seen in the place!

A good day all round.

Location:Ito

Trains and Ramen in Yokohama

We decided to have a quieter day today after such a mammoth trip yesterday, so after a lazy morning we headed a couple of stops down the line to Yokohama.  Yokohama is apparently a different city from Tokyo, but there was no break in buildings whizzing past, not sure how you define where one ends and the next begins.

First stop was the Model Railway Museum just round the corner from Yokohama Station.  This is one that Matt found out about recently (or was it on Tokyo Eye?), once we knew of its existence we had to visit to find out more.  It is actually located in an office building, but it was quite easy to spot - there were lots of mums with small boys heading in the same direction.

The museum displays many model trains collected by one person (Nobutaro Hara) over the years.  He went all around the world collecting trains, and as a result there are a lot of display cases.  All very interesting, but none of them are moving - Tom tugged at us to move faster as he was sure there would be something better around the corner.

He was right.  Around the corner was a massive model railway, modelled on 'somewhere in Europe' in 1 gauge (quite big).  It had a number of big locomotives going round which were frequently changed.  We even recognised one from our videos at home of SP4449 - a big orange steam train from the US.  There was lots to see - the landscape went from city to beach, to cable car and mountain and everything in between.  There was an engine shed with a working turntable, and the lights kept changing to represent night and day.  Tom was in his element and very happy.

The large layout

It took a while for him to realise that there was another room in which there was yet another model railway - this time in HO gauge and modelled on Yokohama.  This also had lights changing to represent the day, in fact between midnight and 6am nothing moved at all.  This was my and Tom's favourite of the two.  He wasn't able to explain why it was his favourite, but it was mine because there were lots of quirky things going on:  a horse rearing up whilst pulling a carriage, people actually moving across the road at a crossing, some people practising callisthenics in the park and levitating as they did it.  There were people on each train as well which made it all the more interesting.  We ended up spending 1.5 hrs there, with Tom running between the two layouts until he was tired and hungry.

The smaller layout of Yokohama

Ramen Museum

Now, there was only one place to go for lunch as we were in Yokohama and that was the Ramen Museum.  This has always been my claim to Japanese fame with Matt as I have been there and he hasn't.  He put that right.  The museum hasn't changed at all in the 14 years since I last visited it, it is still dingy, olde worlde type place, with 'pretend' dirt over everything and the whole place kitted out to look like a nasty old square of restaurants from the past.

Excited boys

Happy boy

SLURP

Ramen is one of Matt's favourite foods, and there are 8 restaurants to choose from here, so it took a while for him to decide where to start.  He plumped for a Tonkotsu one first (his favourite) and then one called Ganja second. Ganja was different in that the noodles and the stuff and soup are served separately (tsukemen).  Matt was very happy and I enjoyed them too - the quality of the noodles made it - really firm, so so different to the instant ones we get in the UK.

Tom with HIS noodles

A new addition to the museum was an opportunity to put together your own ramen.  We had to do this as it included a photo of yourself on the pack.  He chose thin noodles, pork soup, and leek flavouring, but most of all he played along and happily put on a coat and a hachimaki (bandana) to make Tom's Ramen.  Very cool.

By now it was 3.30 so we decided it was time to leave and head home.  As we were in Shin-Yokohama we decided to get the shinkansen home - it was only one short stop, but hey why use a local train when you can use the shinkansen (and it was the very latest N700A series).

Then home, dinner at home (yet more noodles as I had got some spaghetti in!), shower, bath and bed.  Tom was asleep in seconds again, he was so tired he couldn't even remember that he had been to a train museum in the morning!

1000 mile day trip!

Matt here. I'm blogging today (in real time) while Nik helps Tom with his holiday scrapbook.

Today we're really pushing the boat out in terms of travel. Tom's wanted a ride on the amazing Hayabusa ever since he saw a picture of it several years ago. So, we're heading to Aomori, the current end of the Shinkansen line (but not for long).

Quite fast then!

The GPS speedometer on my phone tells me we're currently doing 199 mph (320 kmh), but the ride is smooth enough for me to write postcards and Nik & Tom to do the scrapbook for school.

Now that we're finally clear of Tokyo seemingly endless suburbs, the scenery is very pleasant too. Steep jagged mountains on the left, which should stay with us pretty much all the way to the end of the line.

Snow and paddy fields

This is the part of Japan I know least well, so I'm enjoying watching the scenery pass by, even if you do need the reflexes of a ninja to pick out anything specific at this speed. One surprising thing is the amount of snow on the mountains. With temperatures on the plains well above 30°C, it's strange to see so much snow not very far away.

We're not far from Aomori now, and the train has been lovely and empty all the way from Tokyo, meaning that we haven't needed to have Tom sitting on our knees at all. Fingers crossed it's the same on the way back (less likely).

---

Right, we're on our way back to Tokyo, after a very pleasant few hours in Aomori. The weather was beautiful, and a few degrees cooler than Tokyo. We had a good lunch at Aomori station - ebi curry for me and ebi donburi for Nik. Guess who pilfered a substantial portion of each? Less than a tenner all in, including a nice cold beer.

After eating, we walked a few yards to a very modern artisan craft centre, full of lovely hand-made stuff, and all very expensive. The only reasonable thing in there was a small ice cream parlour, so we partook and shared a trio of different flavours outside on the sea wall.

I can see the sea!

Tom with a train on a ferry

A few yards up the road is the Hakkōda-Maru, one of a fleet of large train ferries that used to operate between Aomori and Hokkaido until 1988, when Japan opened a ridiculously long tunnel under the sea (longer than the Channel Tunnel), but is now a floating museum in Aomori Harbour. Now, I like museums where you can clamber on everything and play with stuff, and today didn't disappoint. We rang the bell on the bridge, walked all around the train deck and the engine room, and even managed to climb inside the funnel for a great view from the top. All for less than £3. Bargain. There was a section dedicated to a terrible event in 1954, when a powerful typhoon struck the area and sank the Tōya-Maru, with the loss of nearly 1200 lives. Truly horrible, but you do wonder why the ship was out there in such conditions.

Bang the gong

Ringing the bell

Arty pic of the architecture

Fish!

We didn't have a great deal of time left after the museum (but this is a 1000 mile day trip from Tokyo!), so we took a quick stroll in the blazing sunshine along the seashore and popped into the Nebuta Cultural Centre - dedicated to a local festival. There were some fantastic art installations, and plenty of beautiful things for sale, including T-shirts, but they were £30 a pop. Tom, as usual, charmed the locals and was given a hand-made fish charm with a bell on it. He's definitely still got it when it comes to attracting attention over here.

There was almost a catastrophe on the way back. I herded us onto a Hokkaido-bound express train at Aomori station, assuming it would stop at Shin-Aomori, where we change to the Hayabusa. In the very nick of time, I overheard the guard saying the first stop was Kanita, miles up the coast, so we had to grab our stuff and jump off pronto. It would have been a night in the provinces otherwise.

Aomori is famous for apples

Aomori is famous for apples, and we came across a shop selling "dry" alcoholic cider (5% ABV), so I picked up a couple of bottles to have with our bentos on the journey home. Dry eh? Not in my world. Even sweeter than Magners (which I can't stand), so I won't be wasting any more money on it.

We're now at Morioka, about a third of the way back, and the train is completely full. I'm in the middle seat of a set if three, and I have Nik and Tom (both fast asleep) on one side of me and a man with a fidgety 3yo (or so) on his knee on the other side. I won't be moving much for the rest of the journey. Even eating my bento could be fairly tricky.

It's been a busy day!

Still, it's good Tom's having a nap. He probably needs it. I've never seen him fall asleep so quickly though. He was doing a bit of reading with Nik, announced he wanted a kip, put his head on her bosom (an excellent pillow), and was out cold within 10 seconds, 15 at the most. I wish I could do that.

Well, we're nearly back to Tokyo, and the train has emptied out a bit, thankfully.
Another cracking day out. Where else could you manage a 1000 mile round trip, without getting up too early or getting back too late, and with plenty of time for sightseeing at your destination.

Location:Aomori