Day 1 | Flight
'Hanna' means flower in Japanese. I know this because a Japanese woman in the Jetstar goldcoast lounge told us. She had a daughter called Hanna as well. Her daughter had a 'Dora the Explorer' bag. God, I hope this blog gets more interesting. 3 hours sleep last night. Knackered.
It may be Jetstar policy for passengers to remain belted in at all times but it seems to be Hannah's requirement to sit on the parent who she is not buckled to. This made our 10 hour flight fun.
Hannah wasn't happy to be buckled in on the plane and she made this perfectly clear. We got some mouth from the woman sitting behind me. Conversation went something like this;
"Can't you shut her up?"
"I'm afraid they don't come with on/off switches"
"Can't you make her pass out?"
"Do you want me to bash her over the head? Idiot."
Then she went to sleep.
Day 2 | 1st night in Tokyo
We had a bit of a hairy journey to the hostel last night - we knew where we wanted to go, but there are very few stop names on the subway map in English. 9.30pm lost and very tired on the Japanese subway with a grumpy baby is not fun. Luckily we found an English speaker who put us right. Finally we checked in and put Hannah to bed. Both busting for the toilet but both failed to locate the flush mechanism on the strange electronic toilets here. In the end we decide to hold it in to save potential embarrassment and go to sleep...
Today was spent getting out shit together (no pun intended) and escaping the pull of Tokyo. We took the shinkansen (bullet train) 'super express' to Kyoto which was great experience in itself. Bang on time, very frequent, very fast and incredibly clean. This is how cross country transport should work. This journey is an overnight bus ride. Under 3 hours on the shinkansen! You pay for it though.
Day 3 | Kyoto
Staying at K's hostel again. We headed to the Arashiyama/Sagano area/monkey park for some excitement. Hannah had great fun on the long, dangerous slide in the childrens play area. So did the monkeys. We stumbled upon a nice temple on our walk back to the station (not hard in Kyoto)
We hit rush hour on the train back home. The Japanese really know how to pack 'em in. Hannah was alseap in her backpack on the floor of the train when the train stopped and hundreds of people pushed their way onto the train It took all my strength to prevent her from being crunched.
Fantastic pork ramen for dinner at a place open 22 hours a day. The 'waiter' was wearing overalls and white rubber boots for some reason. Each choice as they only served one dish. Noodles, 700Yen.
There is some kind of 'bamboo xmas' celebration going on here in Kyoto. Everywhere we go there are bamboo sticks decorated with thin strips of paper.
Day 4 | Kyoto/Hiroshima
This morning we decided to do our mandatory bit of wandering around Kyoto temples. We took a bus to Kinkaku-ji - the famous 'golden temple' - one of Japan's best known sights, and a pretty nice temple as temples go. If you are into temples that is. Far too many people to be classed as enjoyable in my book Here is a photo of the golden temple in Amritsar. It was far more pretty.
Cool Golden Temple
In the afternoon we took the shinkansen to Hiroshima. People keep giving us stuff. They are just too nice. It's the travelling with a baby that does it. We got 2 keyring/mobile bling/soft toy things on the train and then at the station we asked some random bloke directions - he insisted on taking us to the station exit to point the way out and then proceeded to give us a box of sweet potato cakes!
A school girl at the station gave Hannah a carebear and our waitress tonight gave us a small plastic figure of a Japanese football player. If we carry on at this rate we will go over out luggage allowance!
Tonight's meal was fantastic (1800 Yen total) 'Okonomi-yaki', Hiroshima style - a local dish apparently, made with egg noodles, chinese chives, bacon and egg fried with the magic Japanese Worcestershire-type sauce. A winner. Tonight gets the prize for the most dangerous meal we have yet eaten with a 1 year old. Foot high tables with scalding hot plates (teppan) as tops. Lots of them. They all have deep wells below where you put your feet. If I wanted to create a baby trap to capture and maim, I couldn't think of a better setup.
I did my responsible father bit and refrained from ordering alcohol with our meal.
We got away injury free. Tubbys - 1, Japan - 0.
Hannah attempts to reach the hotplate
Back at the hostal we discovered the bamboo xmas trees with the paper strips are for the tanabata 'star festival' on July 7th
Waving at randoms, the A-dome
Day 06
In the morning we took a local bus to the main attraction here - A museum built around the remains of a building that survived the atomic bomb in 1945 - the 'A' dome. We met a guy who had had first hand experience of the radiation - in a wheelchair with no limbs.
We had heard that we could camp on a small island close to Hiroshima. This would give us an opportunity to use the camping equipment we have been lugging around with us so we decided to give it a try. A train/ferry combo later (all free with our JR rail pass) we were at the campsite - a huge place clearly designed for the occasional school camp trip. We were the only ones there. We discovered a fantastic toilet block complete with baby changing facilities and coat racks. Seems a little out of place...
I had been assured that we would be able to get fuel for our MSR stove at the site, and sure enough we were able to get some kerosine from the nice lady at the desk. It was only alter we discovered that this was the type of kerosene that didn't actuallt burn! Dinner was cold noodles, bread and bananas we had luckily brought along with us.
Day 07 Miyajima
The Japanese stick vending machines everywhere. This campsite has one so we were able to have a chilled drink in the morning after a night of not much sleep (and a nice cold beer last night).
As we are camping a busride from anywhere we decided to take the local 'nature' walk to the other side of the island, described by the only other guy here in the campsite as 'hardo'. He was correct. 40 minutes uphill in tropical heat with a baby on your back is not an easy thing.
The island has many tame deer wandering about, sniffing for food. Hannah loves them. She screams 'DEER!' each time we see one (which is quite a lot)
We arrived back at the campsite around 7pm and went straight to bed, knackered and very hot.
Knackering walk
We left Miyajima as early as possible and got on the bullet train headed for Nara - we need to start making tracks back to Tokyo as our 7 day JR rail passes expire tomorrow and due to the horrendous price of shinkansen travel we need to be close to Tokyo for our volcano climb and flights home.
Hannah got given some more tat on the train by various admirers. We had a photo frenzy at the Miyajima ferry terminal when a group of around 12 women all wanted to have their photo taken holding her. For the train ride Kerry bought Hannah what she thought was a healthy (although rather strange) white bread yoghurt sandwich - this turned out to be a super sweet jam and cream sandwich - basically baby drugs which had her bouncing off the walls for most of the 3 hour journey.
We reached Nara around 3pm and decided upon a hostel favoured by our guide book - the Nara Youth Hostel which turned out to be a strange military tyle establishment with a 10.30 pm cur-few, set meal times (although there are signs in the kitchen saying it is forbidden to cook here), communal showers etc.. pretty nasty but it will do.. Dinner was a selection of microwavable dishes from the local supermarket
Campsite costs were YEN300 each - less than a tenth of the cost of a double room
'Hanna' means flower in Japanese. I know this because a Japanese woman in the Jetstar goldcoast lounge told us. She had a daughter called Hanna as well. Her daughter had a 'Dora the Explorer' bag. God, I hope this blog gets more interesting. 3 hours sleep last night. Knackered.
It may be Jetstar policy for passengers to remain belted in at all times but it seems to be Hannah's requirement to sit on the parent who she is not buckled to. This made our 10 hour flight fun.
Hannah wasn't happy to be buckled in on the plane and she made this perfectly clear. We got some mouth from the woman sitting behind me. Conversation went something like this;
"Can't you shut her up?"
"I'm afraid they don't come with on/off switches"
"Can't you make her pass out?"
"Do you want me to bash her over the head? Idiot."
Then she went to sleep.
Day 2 | 1st night in Tokyo
We had a bit of a hairy journey to the hostel last night - we knew where we wanted to go, but there are very few stop names on the subway map in English. 9.30pm lost and very tired on the Japanese subway with a grumpy baby is not fun. Luckily we found an English speaker who put us right. Finally we checked in and put Hannah to bed. Both busting for the toilet but both failed to locate the flush mechanism on the strange electronic toilets here. In the end we decide to hold it in to save potential embarrassment and go to sleep...
Today was spent getting out shit together (no pun intended) and escaping the pull of Tokyo. We took the shinkansen (bullet train) 'super express' to Kyoto which was great experience in itself. Bang on time, very frequent, very fast and incredibly clean. This is how cross country transport should work. This journey is an overnight bus ride. Under 3 hours on the shinkansen! You pay for it though.
Day 3 | Kyoto
Staying at K's hostel again. We headed to the Arashiyama/Sagano area/monkey park for some excitement. Hannah had great fun on the long, dangerous slide in the childrens play area. So did the monkeys. We stumbled upon a nice temple on our walk back to the station (not hard in Kyoto)
We hit rush hour on the train back home. The Japanese really know how to pack 'em in. Hannah was alseap in her backpack on the floor of the train when the train stopped and hundreds of people pushed their way onto the train It took all my strength to prevent her from being crunched.
Fantastic pork ramen for dinner at a place open 22 hours a day. The 'waiter' was wearing overalls and white rubber boots for some reason. Each choice as they only served one dish. Noodles, 700Yen.
There is some kind of 'bamboo xmas' celebration going on here in Kyoto. Everywhere we go there are bamboo sticks decorated with thin strips of paper.
Day 4 | Kyoto/Hiroshima
This morning we decided to do our mandatory bit of wandering around Kyoto temples. We took a bus to Kinkaku-ji - the famous 'golden temple' - one of Japan's best known sights, and a pretty nice temple as temples go. If you are into temples that is. Far too many people to be classed as enjoyable in my book Here is a photo of the golden temple in Amritsar. It was far more pretty.
Cool Golden Temple
In the afternoon we took the shinkansen to Hiroshima. People keep giving us stuff. They are just too nice. It's the travelling with a baby that does it. We got 2 keyring/mobile bling/soft toy things on the train and then at the station we asked some random bloke directions - he insisted on taking us to the station exit to point the way out and then proceeded to give us a box of sweet potato cakes!
A school girl at the station gave Hannah a carebear and our waitress tonight gave us a small plastic figure of a Japanese football player. If we carry on at this rate we will go over out luggage allowance!
Tonight's meal was fantastic (1800 Yen total) 'Okonomi-yaki', Hiroshima style - a local dish apparently, made with egg noodles, chinese chives, bacon and egg fried with the magic Japanese Worcestershire-type sauce. A winner. Tonight gets the prize for the most dangerous meal we have yet eaten with a 1 year old. Foot high tables with scalding hot plates (teppan) as tops. Lots of them. They all have deep wells below where you put your feet. If I wanted to create a baby trap to capture and maim, I couldn't think of a better setup.
I did my responsible father bit and refrained from ordering alcohol with our meal.
We got away injury free. Tubbys - 1, Japan - 0.
Hannah attempts to reach the hotplate
Back at the hostal we discovered the bamboo xmas trees with the paper strips are for the tanabata 'star festival' on July 7th
Waving at randoms, the A-dome
Day 06
In the morning we took a local bus to the main attraction here - A museum built around the remains of a building that survived the atomic bomb in 1945 - the 'A' dome. We met a guy who had had first hand experience of the radiation - in a wheelchair with no limbs.
We had heard that we could camp on a small island close to Hiroshima. This would give us an opportunity to use the camping equipment we have been lugging around with us so we decided to give it a try. A train/ferry combo later (all free with our JR rail pass) we were at the campsite - a huge place clearly designed for the occasional school camp trip. We were the only ones there. We discovered a fantastic toilet block complete with baby changing facilities and coat racks. Seems a little out of place...
I had been assured that we would be able to get fuel for our MSR stove at the site, and sure enough we were able to get some kerosine from the nice lady at the desk. It was only alter we discovered that this was the type of kerosene that didn't actuallt burn! Dinner was cold noodles, bread and bananas we had luckily brought along with us.
Day 07 Miyajima
The Japanese stick vending machines everywhere. This campsite has one so we were able to have a chilled drink in the morning after a night of not much sleep (and a nice cold beer last night).
As we are camping a busride from anywhere we decided to take the local 'nature' walk to the other side of the island, described by the only other guy here in the campsite as 'hardo'. He was correct. 40 minutes uphill in tropical heat with a baby on your back is not an easy thing.
The island has many tame deer wandering about, sniffing for food. Hannah loves them. She screams 'DEER!' each time we see one (which is quite a lot)
We arrived back at the campsite around 7pm and went straight to bed, knackered and very hot.
Knackering walk
We left Miyajima as early as possible and got on the bullet train headed for Nara - we need to start making tracks back to Tokyo as our 7 day JR rail passes expire tomorrow and due to the horrendous price of shinkansen travel we need to be close to Tokyo for our volcano climb and flights home.
Hannah got given some more tat on the train by various admirers. We had a photo frenzy at the Miyajima ferry terminal when a group of around 12 women all wanted to have their photo taken holding her. For the train ride Kerry bought Hannah what she thought was a healthy (although rather strange) white bread yoghurt sandwich - this turned out to be a super sweet jam and cream sandwich - basically baby drugs which had her bouncing off the walls for most of the 3 hour journey.
We reached Nara around 3pm and decided upon a hostel favoured by our guide book - the Nara Youth Hostel which turned out to be a strange military tyle establishment with a 10.30 pm cur-few, set meal times (although there are signs in the kitchen saying it is forbidden to cook here), communal showers etc.. pretty nasty but it will do.. Dinner was a selection of microwavable dishes from the local supermarket
Campsite costs were YEN300 each - less than a tenth of the cost of a double room
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