Steve & Ella's Excellent Adventure

From Kyoto to Osaka! This morning was our last wake up in Kyoto.  After breakfast we had just one more thing to do here before we boarded the train towards Osaka. On our walk through the shopping district a couple of days ago without realising it we had found our way into Nishiki Market. Unfortunately, it was so late in the afternoon that most of the stalls had closed or were closing.   After making tidy of our room and our wardrobe in our cases we did a last minute scan  of the room and bathroom to make sure we hadn't forgotten anything and as a priority checked out, asked the hotel to mind our luggage and headed to breakfast again! I had set my mind for a visit to Starbucks this morning for a decent coffee, but also had eaten some yoghurt there a couple of days ago which I was keen to have as my morning snack today. Unfortunately, when we got there (it was around brunch time), the yoghurt was nowhere to be found. ;o( Never mind... so I just...

Kyoto : Did someone say temple?   Seriously, after today if Steve and I ever see Temple or Shrine ever again - it will be too soon! I know, I know Kyoto in particular is a temple and shrine central not surprising we have seen heaps of them over the last couple of days! Our day started in the usual way, with a search for breakfast. We enjoyed our breakfast so much in the café we visited yesterday at breakfast time that we chose to grace them with our presence again this morning - but for me it was minus the terrible coffee which was substituted by a nice hot lemon tea. Steve seemed to persist with the terrible coffee but for me it was just too much!   As I have mentioned in previous posts now that Steve's brain is free to absorb other information and its full of tech stuff, he's been reading up the Lonely Planet for details and planning our days. Who am I to complain right? I don't have the patience for planning much and he seems to be extremely good at it and it ...

    Kyoto Tower & Nijo Castle!   Hello Kyoto! Good Morning! Today - Steve woke up in our hotel ready to take on the day. I have to admit that I have been terrible to get up in the morning. Two reasons - a) I have never been nor will I ever be a morning person and b) as I mentioned in my previous post I've been burning the midnight oil with the photos and keeping up with blogs... so I've been a bit of a grizzly lion most of the mornings since we arrived in Japan.   The previous evening when we had purchased our salads from FAMILYMART, I also anticipated a grizzly morning wake up and had also included a Starbucks iced coffee drink when buying dinner for this morning. So, first thing I ingested this Starbucks caffeinated beverage to get me going... Steve just detests how slow I am in the morning, but I think he has just come to accept that I will just get there... eventually...and no amount of huffing and puffing and grumpiness on his part will make m...

Shinkansen - Trip to Kyoto! Finally, after years of hearing about these Japanese super bullet trains - today was going to be the day we would finally experience the smooth and seamless ride! This morning Steve and I awoke to our last morning in Tokyo. After a little bit of a sleep in ( as checkout time was 11am), we checked out and asked the hotel to hold our bags briefly while we went out searching for breakfast. We also wanted to just figure out how to purchase the correct ticket for the Shinkansen train to avoid any fare problems later. We also were free of our luggage and had the flexibility to wander around without being weighted down with our cases. Breakfast ended up being at the Vie De France café just outside Akihabara station.   What I have forgotten to mention is that the Japanese are still very liberal when it comes to smoking in public areas - perhaps a bit like the French but with more structure as in places they have designated smoking rooms or areas. ...

The beauty of Mt Fuji! This morning - I woke up feeling rather fatigued mainly because while the giant sleeps, I've been up either blogging or dealing with the days photographic memories. As you can see above, we were truly in for a special treat. We had looked into and planned our trip to Mt Fuji today and had decided that the method of transport would be train. This decision was influenced by me because of my distaste and impatience to travelling by bus. I really just hate it and passionately avoids it as much as I can.   The day started with breakfast at Café Veloce just around the corner from our hotel. After the previous days terrible coffee at McDonalds, neither of us were keen for a repeat event so chose a little more wisely for our breakfast destination. Steve and I had also planned to look for an ATM in the local area as we were both running low on cash. Japan surprisingly a country that prefers CASH transactions to those of credit/EFTPOS cards what we didn'...

  Ginza, Shinjuku and beyond Roppongi! Today, Steve and I woke up in our quaint shoebox like hotel room for our first full free day in Tokyo. On impression the day before, we felt Tokyo to be a very well kept city. I think prior to arrival in a city you really create a picture of "What it might be like?" but when you get there it seems to be always the opposite of what you actually might have imagined in to be.  I woke up around 8am with my stomach growling and screaming to fed while my brain was urging me to get out and get coffee as quickly as humanly possible. The APA chain hotel we booked in the locality of Akihabara did not include a breakfast in the room deal. The previous night we had completed a quick scan of the neighbourhood and sourced potential breakfast option for the following morning. I think with an arrival to a new city these days provided that there is one, its almost compulsory to make at least one visit to the McDonalds - the Golden Arches becaus...

Introduction to Tokyo!   Today, Steve and I woke up in a bit of a daze really. Its a feeling hard to explain, but if any of you have had those incidences where you've had to sleep in a strange new house you have to reacquaint yourself to the new lay out. Wire in a new navigational map for those middle of the night moments when you wake up needing a trip to the bathroom and wonder to yourself "Now which house is this one?" Perhaps that is the feeling we had this morning.   Our first real day in Tokyo started at the Narita Airport Resthouse with an included breakfast as part of the room deal. We both ventured out inspired to see what was on the breakfast menu in Japan . Quite honestly as Steve mentioned in his post - I was not yet awake enough nor adventurous enough to sample the local diet. I chose to stick to a Western style breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausage followed up with a delicious croissant and a questionable coffee!! Steve on the other hand made his fir...

Our first day in Tokyo started with breakfast a Narita Airport Resthouse. Ella kept to the western menu of bacon and scrambled eggs and I tried some Japanese items such as a mackerel piece, bean curd and a cream coloured ball that tasted like chalk.   After finding our way to our second hotel in Akihabara (thanks to street view we knew the way, because we couldn't read the street signs) we set out to ride the subway to the city centre. Tokyo metro is a lot like other big cities like New York and London. Coloured lines, numbered stops and multiple interchanges. You just need to ensure you go in the right direction. The city centre was quite today, owing to a public holiday, so it was easy to get around. We took a walk around the imperial palace and stopped for a rest by a statue of a samurai, with drinks from a vending machine (cold milk tea is an acquire taste).   In the evening we walked the park in Ueno before hitting the neon lights down nearby alley ways. The numb...

Welcome to TOKYO!! Today's journey started in Melbourne - actually it started at the RIDICULOUS and INHUMANE hour of 3am. Yep - that's it, you heard it here we were up and at the airport before the birds! The day before after a complete panic and last minute preparations we arrived at the Ciloms Airport Hotel just a hop, skip and a jump away from Tullamarine Airport. This morning we were forced to comply with the somewhat crazy hour of the morning wake up call for our scheduled flight departure time of 6AM.  Thanks JETSTAR...  ;o)   I don't know if any of you have ever attempted to get up at such an hour? Frankly, its a bit of a rude shock to your brain when that alarm goes off - you sort of think to yourself "Hang on, didn't I just get to sleep?" At this point you realise you've actually been asleep for maybe 3 hours max but it really feels like its only been about 20 mins because your brain has not had its scheduled number of REM cycles. So he...

The BLOG is BACK!   The blog is back - after a long hiatus or perhaps from your point of view, a large time frame of sheer procrastination since 2008. We never got around to finishing our blog from the big European Tour of 2008 which lasted from early April right up until October. A lot has happened since then - a hell of a lot of time has passed and well somehow have found ourselves on some level completely different people. Where to start?   This trip has somewhat been a long time in the making or at least it has been in the back of our minds for some years. I've always wanted to go to Japan since I was a teenager, Steve (and myself to some small degree) has always had South America in his dreams or plans. So here we are...  Circumstances have perhaps pushed this trip forward a bit and  partly the need to get  to Poland to visit family has somewhat inspired us to go crazy (and quite honestly - we never seem to do things by halves when we travel!) ...