Hello from Tokyo! Well, we’re nearly at the end of the holiday. Too short. We want to stay here for a while!<\/p>\n
The north was nice. The sleeper train was the worst we’ve been on for sleeping. No compartments, just four bunks with curtains; annoucements were made until 10pm; we stopped in loads of stations with bright lights, loud announcements, and music; at 6.30am a loud announcement was made and about half an hour later they came around and moved our bedding so sleeping in! Gosh. But getting up that early meant we saw a bit of the coast from the train window which was nice. Straight through Akita with no time to look around and off to Kakunodate. Kaunodate was a nice little town with streets of saumari houses still as they were about 250 years ago – except most of them are now tacky tourist shops. We spent half a day there, saw one saumari house which was very nice. The family still live in it and we were shown around by a 12th generation decendant of the family. He apologised for his English then gave us a tour in excellent English! After that we decided we didn’t need to see any of the other places so we walked down to the river and walked along the cherry avenue which was lovely even if there were no blossoms. Very nice half day. Then we were off to Lake Tazawako. We stayed in an onsen (cheap onsen) and the baths there are sulpher so everything smelled of sulpher. Tazawako is very spread out so we had to use the bus to get anywhere – it’s sort of two resorts: the lake for summer and the mountain for skiing and baths in the winter. We were in the mountains so had to travel down to the lake. Spent a day at the lake doing a bit of walking and took the sightseeing boat round the lake. It’s a beautiful blue, quite striking agains the green and with mountains all around. Joe says ‘it was interesting’. We did a 1.5 km walk to see ‘Frog Stone’ and not a froggie anywhere around it! But it was a nice walk.<\/p>\n
Then off to Kawaguchi-ko to see Fuji-san. We came up and actually saw Fuji – no cloud! We got an excellent place right on the lake with a view of the lake and Fuji – wonderful. We also found a wonderful little place to eat where we could see Fuji and the lake and drink loads of saki. Watched the clouds move in to cover Fuji and by the next morning we couldn’t see it at all. Took the bus up to 5th station where we got to see all the tourist shops. Met a Swiss bloke on the bus who was going up the mountain a bit, said he didn’t know how far. We headed down Yoshida trail. And down. And down. It was a bit longer than the woman at tourist info had said. We finally lost the trail at a road, found the main road down and a bus stop with a bus due in 10 minutes – the last bus down off the mountain. So we caught it and who should be on it but the Swiss bloke we met that morning. Turns out he climbed to the summit – it should take 4 to 4 and half hours but he did it in 2 and a half hours! Gosh. Must have run up and back down again to catch that bus. It was a beautiful walk and we got to see the snow on Fuji – up close like.<\/p>\n
We are now in Makuhari just outside Tokyo. Disneyland tomorrow. But today we’re heading back into Tokyo to see the Greenpeace office, maybe.<\/p>\n
Back home on Sunday. May be an update on Saturday but definitely one when we get back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hello from Tokyo! Well, we’re nearly at the end of the holiday. Too short. We want to stay here for a while! The north was nice. The sleeper train was the worst we’ve been on for sleeping. No compartments, just four bunks with curtains; annoucements were made until 10pm; we stopped in loads of stations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-1w","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":93,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/07\/our-last-week\/","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":0},"title":"Our last week","date":"Saturday, 7 June 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, we're fairly well sorted now - our last week. We are just now getting ready to head up north where there may not be any internet access. If we can find computers we'll keep you updated! Joe is waiting at the train station while I get this done. We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":468,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/30\/meeting-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":1},"title":"Meeting Up","date":"Saturday, 30 June 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"K - So Friday went slowly, slower than a normal Friday. Once I finally finished work I grabbed my bag and headed off for Liverpool Street Station to get to Harwich and the ferry. Got to Harwich too early to board, so had a biscuit and a coffee while I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":148,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/10\/a-room-with-a-view\/","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":2},"title":"A Room with a View","date":"Thursday, 10 April 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Well we made it and for some photos check out Joe's Panoramio section. Or his Google web album. First stop St Pancreas which is lovely. I had my first real walk and gawp around the station since it's been redone and it is quite nice. We also got to see\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":86,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2003\/05\/14\/posting-from-outer-mongolia\/","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":3},"title":"Posting from Outer Mongolia!","date":"Wednesday, 14 May 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Posting from Outer Mongolia! We made it to Mongolia after a couple of days on a train. Have now run into our first contact with Sars prevention - all the border control\/customs\/immigration people were wearing masks and our train was sprayed with something nasty and disinfective smelling. People in Ulan\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/15\/is-this-lower-waker-drive\/","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":4},"title":"Is this lower Waker Drive","date":"Sunday, 15 October 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Right, got up early and on the road by half past 7. Not a bad a drive, the bit we thought was going to be bad and had taken us over an hour to get through on the way to Kentucky took us 20 minutes at a steady 30 to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4232,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2023\/12\/04\/still-sleeping\/","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":5},"title":"Still sleeping","date":"Monday, 4 December 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday got up had breakfast and then headed for the nifty cliff lift and the saltwater pool They lie when they say it's heated. But we swam. Well, I eased in, squawked, then swam. Then lay in the sun for a bit, then swam again. That water is cold! 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