Tokyo - where dreams come true!

Joined by my wife, I was in steamy Yokohama. Not as steamy as last August where the heat was unbearable. Not much different this time around, but those two or three degrees were noticeable. Suddenly I was catching trains and waiting for people at Yokohama station as I had less than twelve months ago. It was a very strange déjà vu.

Tokyo from the tower.

 Saturday the 11^th and it was into Tokyo for lunch and shenanigans with some of my wife’s friends. Tokyo, how crazy does it get in August? Anser: Pretty bloody crazy. So many people wherever I went, the familiar-ish area if Shibuya where the Haichi dog lives is where we met. Haichi is a dog who used to come to the Shibuya station every day to meet his owner. When his owner died for years the dogs used to come and wait on him regardless. They made a statue to the dog  which is now a very popular meeting place in the area.

Lunch went well. The next day I returned to Tokyo and visited Akihabara again where the street was cordoned off to traffic and people could walk where they liked. I also went to the Tokyo tower. It’s the tallest tower in Japan, a telecommunications type deal with a great observation deck. Hot though it was, the day was pretty clear for Tokyo standards and I could see well across most of the giant, sprawling city.

 On the last day my wife and I went to a place so many Japanese people believe is heaven on Earth – Tokyo Disneyland. We bought a ticket for around half the normal price which only allowed entry frim five pm to close (ten) and I thought that sounded extremely reasonable.

Yokohama at night. Not bad at all!

Welcome to Tokyo Disneyland!

 Not wanting to be overly critical I have to say that Tokyo Disneyland is just one big grab for your money. Don’t mind how much entry was, the car park alone was $25. Then you have to pay to take the train from the car park to the entrance. The queues were already banked up a long way. Japan sometimes is nothing more than a big wait! They open the gates at 5pm, not before, and everyone piles in. Slowly, because every ticket must be checked. Once we were in we headed to the famous splash mountain. Wait time for the ride? 160 minutes! What the?

In fairness I was warned the wait times would be very long. I just presumed that meant 45-60 minutes. I hadn’t envisaged 160 minutes! But we were lucky, there was a fast lane for those who didn’t have to go together, that was 30 minutes or so. We decided to take that lane, and the ride was the best one I took. The wait was indeed only about 30 minutes. The queue went up into the mountain and around inside it, but the end was outside. I couldn’t believe it was so long. Really, who would wait 3 hours for a ride? That’s what the wait was at Space Mountain, so I had to pass on hat one,

Tokyo Disneyland is pretty much what you’d expect a Japanese Disneyland to be. They have the castle and so forth. The food wasn’t too expensive which is a bonus. Must have been 200,000 people there or so, but I’m only guessing. I tried Thunder Mountain, Peter Pan, a steam train ride and finally the Haunted House, which managed ti break down when we were on it.

We left at around 10.15pm. Train back to the car, then, as if the waiting hadn’t been long enough, we had to get out of the car park. This took nearly an hour. No-one around to direct traffic, just a non-moving free for all,. Ended up (following a woman’s lead) picking up a witches hat to allow cars to cross from the non-moving left lane to the right which was at least slowly moving.  We had gone 20 metres in 45 minutes. Well, they recaptured what it was like to be in Tokyo Disneyland in the carpark.

At lest they could have had a man directing traffic. The I had a three hour drive to Utsunomiya  Once we were clear of heavy traffic it was actually good going, and we were glad to be able to rest for the night....

Splash Mountain

Driving to Yokohama is not fun.

Gracious forgiveness is begged for the lateness of this blog post! I’m so sorry it’s been so long. It’s been three weeks since I arrived back in Ichinoseki and since then it’s been back to school and lesson planning and correcting like crazy.  Also, I lost the SD card with the photos from Tokyo and Yokohama on it and I didn’t want to post without them.

However, memory card found! Where? Ummm.... oh.... under some papers on my desk. Whoops! So here is the rest of the story of my August sojourn  - Part One.

If you recall I was in Hakuba. I left on the morning of the 10^th of August to drive, via Fuji-Yoshida, to Yokohama. Well, that was a task and a half of full cream dairy milk let me tell you! The first part, however, wasn’t too bad. Lots of tunnels as I headed eastward and downward where the air wasn’t so cool. The traffic was okay though, so that was good.

Fuji-Yoshida is in the shadows of Mount Fuji, the closest I have got to this mythical mountain. However, again clouds and mist prevented a great view, although I did get the best pictures of it thus far. After that the traffic slowed right down for an hour or so. I drive past a lake and many holidayers. It was the season.

Finally it sped up again and I was moving along one of the better routes that isn’t an expressway in Japan. Double-laned at times, I felt confident of getting to Yokohama by 6pm. Then, as I approached and was within 50km or less, things got slow again. I decided to hop onto the expressway, not too far too go shouldn’t make a huge dint in my pocket, and would move me very quickly to my destination.

Wrong. After five kilometres I suddenly was in non-moving traffic. Just sitting there. Every five minutes we moved 50 metres. Surely not! What’s the point of paying to go on an expressway if it’s just as slow, if not slower than the normal road. I was on for forty-five minutes before I got to the next exit. Off I hopped and back to the normal roads. Sure, I would get lost and not move fast but at least I wouldn’t be paying for the privilege.

Lost I got. But I wasn’t far from my destination when I got lost. I had to guess at points, got on to route one to find it was just as bad as the expressway. Got off and just tried to head in the right general direction. When I got near to the end, my google map became pretty pointless and I didn’t know what road I was on, their aren’t a lot of street names in the Yokohama suburbs such as Sugita. I had to meet my in-laws at the Shin Sugita station.

I went too far along one road and turned back. Maybe this way? That way? The map was useless and I was lost, stressed and over it. I had been driving for ten hours by this point. I tried to sense my way to the right place. I followed signs to suburbs marked on the map in the right direction. Somehow I made it. I found places I recognised and I was there. Driving in Japan can clearly be a nightmare. I have learnt my lesson. I won’t do that again.