Our final destination in Japan, and for the trip as a whole, was Hakoné, a mountainous region just south west of Tokyo. This was a little slice of heaven, and a perfect way to finish our trip.

Getting there involved re-tracing our steps on the mountain train from Takayama back to the nearest bullet train station, then a bullet train, then a local train and finally a cute switch-back train to cover the steeper gradient of the (very scenic) final 15k to our destination.

We were staying in a tiny mountain village called Gora, at a ryokan called Gora Kadan. This was the same idea as the ryokan in Takayama, but was in another league in terms of style and facilities. Like the one in Takayama, this place also had its own indoor and outdoor hot springs (onsen). I could get used to the daily hot baths experience. It’s incredibly relaxing! The Japanese have the whole spa thing down.

For obvious reasons, I couldn’t take any photos of the hot springs, but this place also had a private hot spring bath in each room, so you could have a good soak in your own room instead if you preferred, so here’s a photo of that instead:

The Boy got into the dress code very quickly here too:

As did DW:

Hakoné is a weekend destination for Tokyo folk, known for its ryokans, wonderful mountain scenery and great opportunities for outdoor pursuits. It’s also generally regarded as the best place to come to get glorious views of Mount Fuji. But the guide books do warn you that this particular mountain is “notoriously shy”. How very true. In three days here, this was the best view we got of it (if you look carefully you can see the bottom of the snow-cap in the distance):

Just as well we got a great view of it on our train from Tokyo to Kyoto!

Aside from trying to glimpse Mount Fuji, we didn’t just relax in the onsen. There’s a nice transport loop that you can do around the region, so we did that on our first day here. First, you take the switchback train I mentioned (we’d already done this bit the day before):

Then you take a funicular cable-car straight up half a kilometre. The gradient is so steep for this bit that the tram has steps inside:

Then you take a gondola up to an active sulphur springs section of the mountain:

We got off here to go look at these springs, and to eat some of the black eggs sold here. They hard boil eggs in the sulphuric steam. This turns the shells black. Local lore says that eating one of these adds seven years to your life. All except The Boy ate one. Thankfully they tasted just like normal eggs:

Then you take another gondola over the top of this mountain and down to Lake Ashi on the other side. Here, you board a “pirate” ship to take you across the lake. You can then take a bus to complete the loop, or just re-trace your steps. We did the latter.

The pirate boats were funny. It was very odd to see this kitsch version of an English tall ship this far from home. Have a look:

It was a bit disconcerting to bump into this map onboard:

The Boy liked helping the crew though, and the ladies liked posing on the throne:

When we crossed the lake, we walked along a remaining part of the original Tokyo to Kyoto road, and visited a reconstruction of one of the shogun-era road checkpoints. It was an interesting diversion. The section of road was lovely. The shogun of the time had the route planted with cedar trees, to provide travellers with shelter from the sun in the summer and the snow in the winter:

I took this photo on the return boat journey. On a clear day you get a beautifully framed view of Mount Fuji. Not this time!

The visibility got steadily worse as the afternoon wore on. By the time we were on our last gondola stretch, you could hardly see in front of you:

This was that same view on our way up that morning:

The following day was similarly cloudy, so we gave up on trying to see Mount Fuji. Instead, we went to a kind of hot springs theme park nearby. Here we went around a circuit of bathing in different themed springs – from coffee, to red wine, to green tea, to sake, and so on and so on. It was good fun. Gimmicky, but fun. When we got back, I treated myself to a proper onsen at our ryokan before dinner.

On our final day (today!), it was a beautiful clear start to the day. So we ditched our pre-arranged plans for an early train back to Tokyo, and instead headed back up the mountain to see if we could finally catch a cloud-free view of Mount Fuji. Sadly not! While the whole of the rest of the area was cloud-free, the mountain itself and its surrounds had a bank of low-level cloud all around. It truly is shy!

I’m typing this up from our very exciting (not) airport hotel at Narita airport. Before we head for dinner, I’ll just pop in this one last photo which I snapped this morning at the gondola station in Hakoné. I think it’s excellent advice, both practically and philosophically:

Tomorrow morning, we fly back home!

After Kyoto we headed to Takayama, a small town in the Japanese alps. Neither DW nor me could quite remember why this town was on our itinerary, but we’re now so glad it was.

Getting there involved another bullet train and then a change on to another train up into the mountains. It was a beautiful clear day so the scenery on the second train was very pretty:

We were staying at a ryokan. This is a traditional Japanese guesthouse, not a hotel. When we arrived they had a friendly welcome for us:

And they beat the welcome drum too!

The kids had a go at this too:

The change of scene from the big cities of Tokyo and Kyoto to this small mountain town was striking. It’s a really pretty place. It was a fairly isolated place for much of its existence, so the town centre contains several streets of preserved old buildings from several centuries ago. It also has a delayed cherry blossom season because of its elevation, so we arrived to find the blossoms at their peak. It’s quite a touristy place, and the cherry blossoms meant it was especially busy while we were there, but the tourists were almost exclusively Japanese.

After we’d settled in, we went for a walk to soak up the atmosphere.

After our stroll, the rest of the crew decided they’d like to relax for a bit, so I headed off by myself for a longer walk around a forest park in the grounds of the castle ruins overlooking the town. It was glorious – fresh mountain air, a nice crisp day, and very quiet. The whole town had excellent signage in both Japanese and English, and the forest park was the same. You don’t get signs these clear at home:

After my brisk walk, I rejoined the clan back at the ryokan. As I mentioned, a ryokan is a traditional Japanese guesthouse. By traditional, I mean the whole gig. You change out of your normal clothes to relax in traditional garb:

And you get served a delicious, beautifully presented multiple course Japanese meal in the comfort of your own room, at traditional low-level tables:

After dinner, they clear away the tables and lay out mattresses for you to sleep on the floor:

Ryokans are also typically located at a hot spring. Japan has many of these dotted all over. So in the spirit of tradition, I headed off for a nice soak in the ryokan’s outdoor (male) hot spring bath (there’s a separate one for the ladies). There’s a strict etiquette to public hot baths in Japan so I did my best to follow it. It was a superbly relaxing way to end the day.

The next day we took it pretty easy. There are a few temples and shrines dotted along the outskirts of the town, on a mini “philosopher’s path”. The original philosopher’s path is in Kyoto, and we had been hoping to walk along it on our last day there, but Thing One’s doctor visit meant we weren’t able to. The Takayama version is no doubt a pale imitation, but it was a very pleasant stroll indeed.

One of the temples had a small zen rock/gravel garden. Unlike the other specimens of these we’d seen in Kyoto, this one didn’t have a fence around it. While I was taking a photo of part of it, The Boy decided to run across another part. The whole point of these gardens is to facilitate meditation through studying the patterns – so a three year old stomping across these intricate designs is definitely not ok. Luckily, I managed to grab hold of him before he started digging into one of the mounds. That would probably have been a deportation offence.

Here’s the one he DIDN’T run across (I was too embarrassed to linger to photograph the one he did):

After we’d finished our philosopher’s path walk, we figured we’d earned our lunch. After our full-on traditional Japanese fare the night before, we decided on a burger joint. Not just any burger joint mind you, but Takayama’s finest (and only). An obscure recommendation in the guide book, stuck at the back of an antiques shop. You would never find this place on your own. It was a real feast of Americana, with delicious homemade burgers. Even better, it had a fine selection of Japanese craft beers (all the rage in Japan right now apparently), so of course myself and DW had to try some:

After lunch, the girls did a little shopping and kitted themselves out in new kimonos to wear to dinner instead of the ryokan-provided ones:

That evening we had another gorgeous traditional meal in our room. Takayama is a lovely, lovely place. Although a lot cooler than Luang Prabang, it has a similar charm.

One last photo from here – this is at an Inari shrine that I came across on my forest park walk. Not quite the same scale as the one in Kyoto, but the same basic idea:

Oh, ok, one more:

We had a bit of a mix-up on the way to the train station to get our train to Kyoto. We had to take two taxis (because there are six of us, and Tokyo taxis are these antiquated 1970s style vehicles). In the confusion of deciding who was travelling with who, we forgot to allocate out the train tickets and rail passes. So I had all six rail passes and tickets on me in my taxi, and DW had none in hers.

So I ended up arriving at the train station first with Eldest Girl and The Boy, and to no sign of the others. And then thought, well that was dumb! And then thought, we’re going to miss our train. Tokyo station is huge and the chances that the others had been dropped at a completely different entrance seemed high. As DW still hasn’t gotten her phone fixed, we would have been struggling to find each other for quite some time. I figured that she would eventually find a pay phone and call me, but that might take some time. Luckily, they appeared at the same entrance a few minutes later. Phew!

To get to Kyoto, we were due to travel by the bullet train (Shinkansen). We were very much looking forward to travelling on the world’s fastest train. We took a photo before we boarded:

The journey was (as billed) super-fast, but also super-smooth. It was also a direct train (no changes along the way), so very straightforward. It was a lovely clear day, so we were fortunate enough to get some great views of Mt Fuji along the way:

After settling in to our hotel, we took it easy for the afternoon. We did venture out for dinner, heading to a place where you cook your own food on mini gas stoves set into the tables. The kids loved it.

We had a guide booked for our second day in Kyoto, so for our first day we set off by ourselves. We had tickets booked for one of the geisha dances in the afternoon (these only occur on certain dates each year, but luckily April is one of the main times), so in the morning we visited Nijo castle. This was built 400 years ago and is right in the middle of the city. One of the things it is famous for is its “nightingale floors.” The shogun was worried about others sneaking up on him to kill him, so he had the hall floors designed such that they squeak when walked on, in a manner that sounds like nightingales singing. It’s quite something to hear them.

At the castle gate:

There were loads and loads of school tours there as well, which led to yet more requests for photos with the white kids!!

Afterwards, we headed over towards the theatre for the geisha dance show. We had time beforehand to explore the nearby Kennin-Ji temple. This temple is famous for its zen rock and gravel garden (which is indeed splendid), and also for a painting on one of the ceilings of two dragons. The Boy really liked this – he thought it was the good dragon fighting the bad one. And maybe it is…

Then we headed to the geisha dance. There was some confusion when we were organising the tickets for this. Trailfinders thought we wanted a private dinner with a geisha. This is incredibly expensive, and involves a translator so you can converse with your geisha, and also seems to involve Japanese drinking games. For a different sort of client I think!

The geisha dances are totally different. They are held several times a day for several weeks at a time at different times in the year, April being one of them. We ditched Trailfinders on this one, and arranged the tickets directly through our hotel concierge. The ladies of the family were especially looking forward to this hour-long spectacle of traditional dance and music.

Before the performance itself, we got to attend two of the geishas carrying out the traditional tea ceremony. This involved being herded into a room with 60 others to watch said geishas do their thing:

We did at least each get a bowl of the traditional thick green tea for this event (same colour and consistency as puréed peas), and a kind of mushy bun designed to mask the harsh taste of the tea. I kid you not, that is the purpose of the bun. Which begs the question as to why you drink the tea at all then. Anyway, we all gave it a go, including the kids:

The Boy was not amused:

The ladies even less so. Look for the reaction of Thing One here:

After three minutes (yes, three minutes), they herded us out to let in the next lot, so we took our seats, but only after visiting the tuck shop. The attendance was about 95% female and mostly middle aged or older, with hardly any other kids. So the shop didn’t know what hit them when we put in our order for multiple soft drinks and assorted sweets. I think we were the only ones actually eating anything in the theatre…

I’ll be honest here. This show was not my thing. It got better towards the end, but the first 20 minutes consisted of a few ladies playing out of tune instruments to the “tune” of a dead cat’s wail, with the occasional confusing whoop thrown in, while 20-odd (indeed, odd) ladies did some very slow, stylised moves on stage. Towards the end the scenery and colour brightened up, and there was one stage where the music threatened towards harmony (though they quickly backed away from that). The Boy was equally unimpressed. The ladies though apparently loved every minute of it. Which just goes to show that the fairer sex are truly patient in having to put up with us philistines.

They had held a sign up before the show started to say no photographs. DW saw that and said to me, oh yes, good reminder, please pass me your phone so I can take a couple of photos during the show. Yep. The Japanese, being very good at following rules, didn’t quite know what to make of it when she actually started taking photos, but they quickly intervened to nicely ask her to stop. She had her photos by then though 🙂

For dinner that evening we had intended to go to a yakitori restaurant (grilled chicken skewers basically), but it was full so we ended up in a nearby Italian. This proved popular.

First decent meal I’ve had in days:

The next morning we met up with our guide for the day. She was a lovely lady and had arranged a great day for us, at a good pace for the kids. First stop was a temple called Tenryu-ji. This is (another!) world heritage site, and is very beautiful, with spectacular gardens. I learnt also that if it’s a temple it’s Buddhist, whereas if it’s a shrine it’s Shinto. So now you know.

After Tenryu-Ji, we walked to the nearby bamboo forest, and from there back down a mountainside to a beautiful riverside area and to lunch. It was a glorious sunny morning and a lovely walk.

For lunch, she brought us to a local soba noodle bar. DW and I absolutely loved it. I had delicious noodles in a light broth with chicken, vegetables and an egg mixed through. You use your chopsticks to eat the chicken, veg, and egg strands, and then lift the bowl in your hands to drink the broth. Delicious, and very nutritious! The kids hated it though, so we ended up bringing them to an American style coffee shop in the train station there, which luckily had hotdogs. Everyone happy, eventually!

After lunch she brought us to Fushimi Inari shrine. You’ll have already spotted so that this is a Shinto site. “Inari” shrines are dedicated to the white fox, which is believed to aid in gaining and keeping prosperity. There are 30,000 Inari shrines in Japan, and this is the main one. At this shrine, you can donate to have a red torii gate erected. This is believed to bring you much help in achieving/keeping prosperity.

The resulting donated gates have created “tunnels” stretching all over the mountain at the shrine. Each gate is made of cedar wood, and decays and needs to be replaced after about fifteen years. If you were the donor, you can choose to donate again or not. If you don’t, then someone else gets your slot. There’s a two year waiting list apparently.

They have different size gates. The largest cost about $100,000 and are mainly from companies. There are lots of companies who do this apparently, and indeed there was a ceremony going on for one company the day we were there. Here are some of these largest gates:

The next size is a lot cheaper – about $3,000. These form the bulk of the site. It’s really cool to walk through the tunnels. From the front (as you head up the mountain) they are blank, while on the back as you head downwards it lists the donor, their address, and (in Japanese) the date of the donation:

The actual shrine itself is at the bottom of the mountain before you come to these tunnels, and is gorgeous too. There’s also a side shrine where people go to pray for good results in exams. As part of this, you can make and leave behind an elaborate and colourful origami paper chain. At the shrine itself, you’re supposed to throw in a small coin, pull a rope to ring a bell twice, bow twice, clap your hands twice, make your prayer silently, and bow once again (at least, I think that’s the order). The girls each had a go. Anything involving ringing bells and clapping hands also attracted the attention of The Boy, so he did it too!

The kids were shattered by the time we got back to the hotel, so they mutinied and demanded room service. Fair enough!

For our last day in Kyoto, we had to take it easy as poor Thing One was not feeling at all well. Some insect bites she had gotten in Vietnam were swelling up and she had a high temperature, so DW took her to the doctor. Nothing serious, thankfully, but rest for the remainder of the day was called for. She’s much better now thankfully.

While DW and Thing One went off the the doctor, I took the others to the big park in the middle of the city to just run around and have fun. There were lots of cherry blossom still out here, so we did the Japanese thing and picnicked underneath some. The Boy discovered that if he shook the branches or blew on the flowers then he would be showered with petals. I don’t know if this was a serious etiquette breach or not, but he liked it anyway.

At the playground, he also found a little mound where he could do his own zen meditation. At least, I think that’s what it was….

For our last evening in Kyoto, we made it back to the yakitori place, this time with a reservation. The tables were low-down, but with a hole in the floor underneath, so you could choose to sit Japanese style on the mat, or western style with your legs under the table as normal, as you preferred. The food was lovely!

It’s a four hour flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo, and we then had to hang around the airport for a while getting our Japan Rail passes that we will use to travel around Japan over the next couple of weeks (you can only pick these up on arrival).

While waiting for the paperwork to get processed, I had a look at the nearby Tokyo metro ticket machines. They looked like a nuclear station control panel. Although they were printed in both Japanese and English, my brain was frazzled after a few minutes trying to decipher the instructions:

By the time we got to the hotel we were pretty tired, so we took the very soft option of eating in the hotel restaurant rather than venturing outside. Afterwards, we did go on a stroll to get our bearings – and our first view of the bright lights of this very big city. Our hotel was near the Ginza shopping district. This is the “high end” shopping section so thankfully the shops were closed!

DW had arranged an English speaking guide to show us some of the sights the next day. He started by bringing us into one of the metro stations, and explained how the ticket purchasing process works. It’s actually simple enough once you know what to do.

Our first stop was the Meiji shrine. This is the most visited shrine in Japan, but is only about 100 years old. It was built to commemorate Emperor Meiji. He reigned in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His reign saw the modernisation of Japan, the end of the shogun era of government and the switch of the capital from Kyoto to Tokyo.

Sake is considered a sacred drink in Japan. Inside the main gate into the shrine, there is a wall of (empty) sake casks that were donated by various sake breweries:

Meiji was instrumental in opening Japan up to the outside world after 300 years of isolationism (well, him, plus the very direct threat issued by American gunboats to open up for trade or else….). He used symbolism to help change the culture. So he wore his hair in the western fashion, wore western clothes, and sampled western food and drink. He was especially fond of French wine, so opposite the sake wall is a wall of empty Burgundy wine casks donated by various French wineries!

After Meiji shrine, we walked around the nearby teenage fashion mecca of Harajuku, Takeshita street. It was an interesting mix of goths, punks, lolitas, and others, all doing their best to pose in the spring sunshine. We stopped for lunch in that great home of international cuisine that is McDonald’s. Amazingly, even in McDonald’s, the entire menu was in Japanese with no English translation:

Outside of the large hotels, English is not widely spoken in Japan (unlike most other places on our trip so far). Trying to order plain hamburgers for the kids (no sauce, no lettuce, no tomato, no pickles – just beef and bun) was a challenge. We were thinking (a) thank goodness we have a guide with us and (b) how are we going to survive here for the next two weeks??

Our guide was a bit bemused by our lunch choice (kids driven of course). His clients usually want the authentic Japanese experience. It was his first MCD’s in over a year. Oh dear!

After our delectable lunch, we headed to another big shopping zone at Shibuya, with a stop along the way at a big toy shop called “Kiddyland” where The Boy picked up a small Lego set. Shibuya has a large multi-street junction where pedestrians mill across from all directions. I took a photo from inside the nearby train station:

The kids were tired by then so we called it a day on the sightseeing front. After relaxing at the hotel for a couple of hours, The Boy started up that he wanted to go back to the Lego shop. He was persistent so we decided what the hey, it’s his holiday too. We figured we’d attempt to get dinner on the same journey. So back we headed to Shibuya again (this time with no guide to help us with the metro tickets – we managed ok, yay!).

After picking up another small Lego set (he knows the “that’s too big” mantra by heart at this stage), we queued up to get into a conveyor belt sushi joint nearby. There were some tourists there, but it seemed to be mainly Japanese (of course, they may have been mainly Japanese tourists for all we know…). The nice thing about conveyor belt sushi is that you don’t actually need to be able to speak any Japanese to get fed – you just pick plates off the belt. But we did also manage to order a few dishes off the pictures menu they had!

Fed and watered, we headed back to the hotel, feeling good that between room service and conveyor belt sushi we at least wouldn’t go hungry over our two weeks here.

The Boy fell asleep on the way home:

We only had a guide booked for one day, so we ventured off on our own over the remaining two days. After a very slow start on the first morning, we visited Senso-ji temple. While Meiji is a relatively new temple, Senso-ji is the oldest in the city, dating back to the seventh century. Also, Meiji is a Shinto shrine whereas Senso-ji is Buddhist. Most Japanese actually practice both religions. Shinto is the “native” religion to Japan, and is based around a belief that everything is sacred so there are many, many gods and a huge respect for all forms of nature. People tend to visit Shinto shrines at important times in the year to pray for good fortune – during the three day new year celebrations (to wish for prosperity in the year ahead), when coming up to exams, and so on.

Before we went in to the temple itself, we got tempted into taking a rickshaw ride around the area. When in Rome and all that – we’d been on tuk-tuks in Laos, cyclos in Vietnam and so now it was time for rickshaws in Japan!

It’s not just a western tourist thing – honest! We saw lots of Japanese tourists taking them also, and even one wedding couple:

The temple itself was beautiful. Our of the main buildings there is a five-story pagoda, which is said to contain some of the ashes from the Buddha himself.

Afterwards, we visited another part of the city called Yanaka, which is an interesting contrast to the neon and skyscrapers elsewhere. Yanaka is an older residential district with many older, low-rise buildings and quiet streets. It also has many temples that were re-located here during a previous modernising phase downtown. Several of these appear to be in people’s back gardens.

We decided to bite the bullet and venture into a local neighbourhood restaurant here for dinner. The elderly lady owner didn’t have a word of English, and we only had three words of Japanese (konnichiwa (hello), arigato (thank you) and sayanara (goodbye)). Her menu was entirely in Japanese. Thankfully, and like a lot of restaurants here, she had plastic models of the various dishes in her front window. So off we went outside and pointed at this dish and that, in the hope that some of them at least would be edible. It was delicious!

A couple of other shots from Yanaka:

After dinner, we headed to the local train station to get back home. Unlike in the downtown stations, the ticket board here was entirely in Japanese:

You use the board to work out how much to pay for your ticket. The red arrow shows you what station you’re at, you then look at the station you want to go to, and the price to there is listed underneath. As we couldn’t read the station names, we made a rough stab at where we were headed to, paid for the next highest priced ticket, and got on the train. We got back in one piece.

The next day we decided we’d start the day with a walk in the park next to our hotel (the Conrad Tokyo). The hotel overlooks a park that was originally laid out by one of the shoguns three hundred years ago. This is the view of it from our room:

I’d been looking out at that view for the previous couple of days and really wanted to get a chance to stroll around that park, as it looked so pretty. It was.

One of the famous things about Japan is the cherry blossom season. The Japanese are fanatical about their cherry blossoms. They love the symbolism of these blossoms – they are very delicate, and only last a week or two before they are gone for another year. So for the Japanese, they represent the purity of life, and its fragility. So there are cherry blossom planted in all the major parks and in many other places too.

We knew when planning our trip that our dates meant we would miss the main season for viewing the blossoms, as it typically runs from late March to early April. But we’ve been pleasantly surprised to discover that there are still many blossoms around, typically of later blooming varieties, or of trees in shadier spots that bloom later. There were several dotted around the park which added to the scene. We also managed to get a shot in one spot that had the Tokyo Tower in the background. This is like a mini Eiffel Tower. It’s actually a tv broadcast tower, so it is definitely not a patch on the real Eiffel Tower, but it’s quite pretty and is one of the better spots to get up high for a view over the city. So that’s where we headed after the park.

On the way to the Tokyo Tower, we thought we could take a short cut through a shrine we came across on the way. It turned out to be a dead-end leading to a cemetery, but we did come across some very pretty statues with little knitted hats on them. I think these may be related to the cemetery in some way.

At the Tower, we only went halfway up as we wanted to make our way across town in time to make it to a slot we had booked in a mini-Legoland here (mainly for The Boy’s benefit). But we did get some fantastic views over the city, and through the viewing holes cut into the floor to let you see down to the ground from the viewing platform:

The mini-Legoland was tiny and all indoors. This is actually called a Lego discovery centre, so it’s not a patch on a proper Legoland like the one at Windsor near London. But it did have a couple of fun rides, a place to build Lego to your heart’s content, and a very nice mini world version of Tokyo. The Boy absolutely loved it – AND it had (another!) Lego shop at the end of your visit. So he got to pick up yet another small set. All these small sets are now seriously adding to the bulk of his and my shared suitcase. Hmm.

We were at Ocean Park today. This is another theme park in the city, but unlike Disneyland this is a sort of zoo/aquarium/thrill-rides combo. DW had arranged a particularly special start to the day for the three girls – they got to be apprentice panda keepers for the morning. It meant another early start for them, and another more leisurely start to the day for The Boy and me. As part of their duties, they had to muck out the panda sleeping enclosure. Rather them than me! They really loved it though – especially getting to feed the pandas their breakfast.

Myself and The Boy joined them later in the morning. We spent the rest of the day on the various rides and looking at some of the animal and fish displays. It’s now confirmed that The Boy is a complete thrill merchant. He absolutely loved the one proper rollercoaster he was allowed to go on, and anything else that involved adrenalin.

Himself and Eldest Girl also managed to win themselves a cuddly toy each on one of the stalls. They are absolutely positively not getting to bring these on the rest of this journey!

Tomorrow, we travel to Tokyo.

Wake up lazy bear!

After Disneyland the day before, yesterday morning the ladies headed off for some retail therapy in the malls of Hong Kong (of which there are many). Myself and The Boy left them to it. We did do something useful though – after a leisurely breakfast, I brought him to get a haircut in the hair salon at our hotel. This turned out to be probably the most expensive three year old’s trim in the history of hairdressing. About €55, all-in. I’ll be cutting it myself for the next three months!!

In the afternoon, we decided to have another crack at making it into Man Mo temple on Hong Kong island, only this time with the full family. On the way there, the girls decided to pose in front of this particularly apt tram:

We did actually make it to inside the temple this time. It’s a small place, but very peaceful. Locals come here to pray for loved ones who have passed away, and also for good luck in exams and other big life events. The coils on the roof are of burning incense, which further adds to the atmosphere.

The Golden Child? It’s certainly a gilt-edged haircut anyway….

Afterwards, we took the metro out to Lantau Island. This is where Disneyland is, but the next stop on that line brings you to a place where you can travel on a glass-bottomed gondola/cable-car over the sea and mountains. The purpose is to go visit the monastery of the Big Buddha – a massive statue on top of one of the mountains. Yet again, DW confronted her fear of heights to come along with us, although she was a bit freaked out by the glass floor. The rest of us all thought it was really cool. The Boy didn’t help DW’s mood by getting down on the floor to look for fish in the sea below!

Unfortunately, as we approached the top, a cloud bank started rolling in and quickly covered the Big Buddha, so this was as close as we actually got to seeing the big man himself, from the cable car before the clouds got him:

Afterwards, we took the train back to have dinner in the city. Things One and Two decided to try out the hand rings, and were proud that they were (just about, on tippy toes!) tall enough to reach them:

For dinner, we decided to try one of the guide book recommendations. We don’t normally do this, as they tend to be hit and miss. But this one was a hit. It was a Chinese food place in a shopping mall. We would never have found it by ourselves, and it was packed with locals (there was only one other table with non-Chinese people at it). We ordered far too much and ate extremely well, and all for less than €100 (or two boy’s haircuts). Lovely!

Getting around Hong Kong is a breeze. The city has an excellent metro and bus network. The metro is especially clean, efficient, and a very smooth ride. You feel like you’re gliding between stations. Our journey to Disneyland only took about 40 minutes, door to door. The last section was on a special Disney train, with cute Mickey Mouse shaped windows and hand rings:

DW had pre-booked us in to a 9.30am character breakfast at the main Disney hotel. The food was nice enough, but of course the main draw is to meet some of your favourite characters up close and personal. As you might imagine, this was a big hit with The Boy:

We had to leave though when Pluto started to get a bit too friendly with DW. I had to threaten a saucepan of water….

Afterwards, we headed over to the park itself. DW had (as ever) done her research, and had booked us a guide for the day. A very friendly girl called Eunice. I don’t know if you can do this at the other Disney parks, but it’s a great idea. For €300, someone will bring a party of up to six people around for the morning, and you get to skip all the queues and go as many times as you like on any of the rides, even the most popular ones. This is an investment well worth making. You spend most of the time actually on the rides instead of queuing for them.

So off we went to our first ride. The honour of picking it fell to The Boy. He chose a rocket ship type thing where you go up and down and fly around in a circle. Unfortunately for him and the rest of us, it started to absolutely lash just as we were getting on. Two minutes later, and we’re all thoroughly drenched. Like drowned rats, we tottered off in search of an INDOOR ride.

Now this is where the guide was invaluable. If we were just there by ourselves, I suspect we would have headed home shortly after that. It was pouring rain, with no sign of letting up for hours, and the queues for all of the indoor rides were bananas. Spirits were low. I felt bad for The Boy especially. It was just very bad luck that the rain came on so heavily when it did.

But our guide was peppiness personified. She brought us over to the (indoor!) Buzz Lightyear ride where you use a laser gun to shoot aliens. After a couple of turns on that we were (a) a bit drier and (b) a lot happier. We bought some ponchos and kept on truckin’:

We had a great time over the rest of the day. It dried up in the afternoon, so we extended our guide for a couple more hours, watched the parade and went to most of the outdoor rides as well. We were very tired by the time we got back to the hotel, and almost fully dry by then too! Although mine and The Boy’s shoes are still a soggy mess. Just as well it’s shorts and sandals weather today 🙂

Who let him behind the wheel??

On other rides:

Watching the parade:

After a short one and a half hour flight, we arrived into Hong Kong in the early afternoon yesterday. The city has had an unseasonable amount of rain in the last few weeks, and sure enough we arrived to a deluge that didn’t let up much through the afternoon. That suited the girls and The Boy just fine, as it meant they got to chill in the hotel room for the afternoon.

Sadly for them, and luckily for DW and me, the rain eased off later on, so we forced them all out of the hotel for a late evening stroll along the Kowloon waterfront. Our hotel is right on the water (Kowloon Shangri La) and we have a lovely view over the harbour towards Hong Kong Island itself. So the views were too tantalising to just sit in the room! Although the rain had stopped, it was still a bit murky:

I was loving it though. Hong Kong is one of those great world cities that I’ve always wanted to visit, so there was no way I was going to sit in my hotel room on my first evening here! I found myself feeling similarly to my first evening in New York back in 1998 – awestruck and mesmerised, and loving every minute of it.

Today also started murky, but dry, and stayed dry all day thankfully. We decided we would do the number one tourist thing in Hong Kong – journey up to the Peak for a panoramic view back over the city. And to journey there in true tourist fashion: a Star ferry across the harbour from Kowloon to Hong Kong island, a bus to the peak tram terminus, and then the peak tram (a funicular railway that goes on a very steep incline straight up to the summit). It was great fun getting there, with lovely views all the way.

On the peak tram:

Views from the tram on the way up:

When we got up top, we had the obligatory Burger King lunch. In our defence, we ARE travelling with kids, and they hadn’t seen either a Burger King or McDonald’s since Bangkok airport on the way to Laos. That’s, like, three weeks ago!!! Plus (and purely coincidentally), I fancied a bacon double cheeseburger.

Afterwards, we headed up to the viewing platform. No doubt the views are even more spectacular on sunny days, but I thought the misty conditions just added to the charm:

Before heading back down, we went on a short stroll along the 50 kilometre hiking trail that starts at the peak. We didn’t do the full 50k. Just the first 0.5k (and back!).

When we got back down, Eldest Girl was feeling under the weather, so DW took her and The Boy back to the hotel. Myself and Things One and Two decided to go in search of a renowned temple called Man Mo. In addition to the peak tram, the island also has a proper tramline that runs east to west using very narrow double-decker vintage carriages. Our journey to the temple involved going on this for part of the way. As there is a parallel underground metro line, I assumed this tramline was really just a tourist thing. But we were the only tourists on it – it was full of locals (perhaps something to do with it being rush hour). It was good fun though.

On the tram:

I took this photo out of the window, of another approaching tram. It’s very tall and narrow!

When we got off, we had a short walk to the temple itself. It was nice to walk through some of the smaller streets, and to see the mix of English and Chinese signs everywhere:

Sadly, by the time we actually got there it was 6.20pm and the temple was already closed (it closed at 6). Things One and Two did their best to hide their disappointment at not having to (sorry, being able to) look around yet another temple. So they decided to pose beneath a skyscraper across the street that they found particularly interesting:

Happy with that, we made our way back to the ferry back to Kowloon. It was dark by now, so all the lights were on and the island skyline looked absolutely fantastic:

We rejoined the others at the hotel. Thankfully Eldest Girl was feeling better so we went for dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant nearby. Myself and DW had very tender Australian rack of lamb, while the kids all had spaghetti and meatballs – made from wagyu beef if you don’t mind.

Tomorrow is all about the kids. We’re heading to the Hong Kong Disneyland!

On Sunday 30th March, we flew from Hanoi to our next destination – Hoi An. Same letters, just a different arrangement! The two couldn’t be more different. Hanoi is the big, bustling capital city of Vietnam. Hoi An is a sleepy seaside town about halfway down the Vietnamese coastline. It’s also warmer – back to 30+ degrees sunshine!

When we were planning this trip, we figured it would be a good idea to have a second week on a beach, about halfway through. This would break up the sightseeing, and allow us all to chill for a while before leaving Indochina for the contrasts of first Hong Kong and then Japan. Hoi An was an especially attractive choice for this for two reasons: 1. a fabulous beach and 2. the town itself is a UNESCO world heritage site. Yes, yet another one!

For our beach stay in Thailand, we’d said to the travel agent that we wanted somewhere really nice, with our own pool and great facilities. The Banyan Tree Phuket was his solution, and it was really fantastic. For this second beach stay, we set the bar even higher. We asked him to book us somewhere that would absolutely “wow” us. He did not disappoint. He booked us into a three bedroom pool villa right on the beach, in a resort called The Nam Hai. This is the view from our terrace:

We wanted somewhere where we could chill – you can certainly do that in style!

Chilling in the pool:

Chilling on a lounger:

Er, chilling by a statue (whatever, dude!):

Curiously enough, in communist Vietnam you can have private beaches, so the resort has a long stretch of this beautiful coastline all to itself – different to Thailand, where all the beaches are public and it’s common for high-end resorts to have their beaches visited by day trippers on tour boats.

The place is massive. Each of the three bedrooms is in a separate building to each other, and then there is another separate building with a living/dining room. Plus pool, plus gardens front and back.

Plus private butler. Yep. Private butler. A lovely lady called Khai. You know, to have nice fluffy towels waiting for you when you get out of the pool. Or to make your dinner reservations for you. Or to arrange your laundry. Or your spa appointments. That kind of thing.

It’s nuts. But very nice!

We haven’t just lazed by the pool all week. Sometimes we made it into the sea!

Well, we did actually venture into Hoi An itself a few times. The town is about 20 minutes away by taxi, past scenes of rice fields and small-scale fish farming. The town is a beautiful place. It was a major trading port with both Japan and China from the late middle ages until it silted up in the nineteenth century. It became a sleepy backwater after that, so it was spared the curse of modern development.

The result is a lovely compact town full of character. Lots of old buildings, narrow lanes and all the rest. The Chinese and Japanese influences are evident everywhere – there are some lovely Chinese assembly halls and temples, and a Japanese covered bridge.

One of the other things that Hoi An is famous for is bespoke tailoring, at cheap prices. There are loads of them all over the town. Eldest Girl in particular was looking forward to our week here for this reason. So I bought a couple of suits and some shirts, and DW and the girls each got some new dresses and tops. The Boy did not partake in this exercise – he preferred to get a toy car set at a nearby street market.

Thing Two getting measured up:

Thing One trying on the end product:

The ladies took this whole thing one step further than me, and also got some bespoke sandals and shoes (?) made up:

The shop we went to has arranged to ship all the purchases back home for us, so we don’t need to lug them around for the rest of our trip. Hopefully they actually do send the stuff and don’t just dump them! We’ll know when we get back home, although it’s encouraging that they’ve already sent us an email with a package tracking number so fingers crossed!

Tomorrow we head to Hong Kong. It’s a bit bigger and more modern than here 🙂

After getting back from Halong Bay on Friday afternoon, we just chilled for the rest of the day.

The plan was to do the same on Saturday morning too. However, the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam had other ideas. We were awoken at six am by speeches blaring from loudspeakers along the street outside. Apparently this is a daily event all over the city. It’s the government’s way of making sure everyone’s up in time for work (not very fair if you work nights though!). Our guide told us that the speeches are communist propaganda repeated over and over. Anyway, it meant we had plenty of time to enjoy the lovely breakfast buffet!

We had tickets to go see a water puppets show in the afternoon. Hanoi has a long tradition of water puppetry, and we figured the kids would probably enjoy this more than the visit to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum! It’s a short enough show – just under an hour – so it’s a good length for kids’ attention spans. They all seemed to enjoy it. The Boy especially enjoyed the dragons scene.

Water puppetry in action (it gets better (but not much)):

As it was our last day in Hanoi, we also decided to have another crack at the old town. This time, DW organised it (so you know it’s going to be good then!). She got the hotel to arrange three cyclos for us to escort us around the narrow streets in style. A cyclo is a comfy padded seat on wheels that’s pushed along by a guy on a bike. Here’s the crew all lined up and ready for the off:

It’s slow, but very pleasant. As we weren’t as worried about getting run over this time, we all enjoyed this tour around the old town much more than the first one. We got to actually take in some of what was going on around us:

The trip was so comfortable that The Boy fell asleep halfway along:

Later that evening, there was an open air concert just down the street from our hotel. Apparently this was to mark Earth Hour which was going on worldwide that weekend. In Hanoi, they scheduled this hour-long concert as the city’s participation. All of the streets around were in darkness with all lights turned out, so the concert venue itself (in front of the opera house) became a beacon of light for the hour.

Myself and the girls decided to join in the fun. There was a nice party atmosphere with everyone very relaxed and very friendly locals. Amazingly, and very different to back home, when the hour was up the concert ended bang on the nose, all the street lights came back on, and everyone started leaving to go home. In good form, but not out partying for the night. Perhaps something to do with the six am wake up messages!

This day in Hanoi was a much better and more enjoyable experience than our first day here. As ever, the lesson is simple: the DW organised tour is always better!