We left Tatsuta Ryokan around 9:30am – about 11 hours before our expected flight for a two hour drive to Haneda and then another two hour drive to Narita. But knowing what we know now about Japan traffic and how unreliable Google Maps and Sandoro (all GPS units are called Sondra, like bar maids – but I digress) can be, we felt it wisest to just set the whole day aside for the transit.
Which turned out to be largely okay… the weather was glorious as we left the Izu Peninsula and Mt Fuji was my constant friend out the passenger side window. Just stunning with clear blue skies today – these were the best views I have ever had of the mountain in four trips and multiple opportunities for viewings.., and we’re stuck in the car!
Weirdly as I was earlier complaining about Sandora, I was reminded just now of how she unexpectedly said at one point on the drive ‘Warning, there is congestion ahead due to a car on fire!’ Mr K and I just looked at each other and said, ‘Did she just say…?’; ‘Yeah, yeah she did.’ Weird. But sure as eggs ten minutes down the highway, there was a burned out car on the back of a tow truck with several emergency vehicle and personnel around. Sandora can’t seem to tell us how long it will take to get from A to B accurately, but magically she can give us live updates on a burning car on the side of the road.
No I didn’t take a photo of the car wreck.
We noticed this on our way out of Tokyo – all the buildings looked like they were in 8bit due to a type of mesh barrier that is in use along vast sections of the highway. But now we are seeing Mt Fuji in 8bit, we are starting to ask ourselves if Tokyo’s civil engineers got together with various community artist and designed the road furniture this way deliberately to create a cool, and very Japanese style, 8 bit landscape! It’s very cool but also weirdly like looking at the world through one of those halting flick motion books. 🙂 
We’ve seen some fun traffic signs on this trip – but I think this one takes the cake. Not only is that a convoluted as fuck depiction of the Shuto Expressway, but it’s live and shows congestion points – no doubt sometimes the entire thing is lit up red like Christmas tree. 
We made it back to Haneda to return our rental car around 12:30pm – so as expected the two hour drive was more like three, and decided to try and find some one last fabulous sushi meal before we boarded our sad flight home… Google to the rescue and I found a well located sushi restaurant at Haneda Gardens (a shopping centre across from Haneda Airport’s Terminal 3). The place is called Tsukji Sushiko Takumi.
It was unexpectedly quiet, but perhaps not for midday on a Sunday, so we were pleasantly surprised by that – in no small part, because it feels a bit like every other time I picked a restaurant, we ended up waiting for a table for ages! Mr K had better luck with his eatery choices, though he may not have been heading for the high end of town like I was. 
Menus were in English, ordering on an ipad, ad we started with a little salmon, tamago and ikura sushi starter. 
Mr K ordered at tempura rice bowl set, and I tried a bit of his eggplant which was delicious.
I ordered the tuna four ways, and OMG if it wasn’t the best damn tuna sashimi I’ve ever had, it was damn close. For a shopping mall restaurant, it was quite ten times better than any sashimi I’ve had in Australia, which is both fabulous, but also sad as.
Definitely saving the details of this place here, in case we find ourselves with time to kill near Haneda at some time in the (hopefully near) future. It was fantastic and cost roughly the same as a weird and disappointing hamburger meal we had a couple of days ago!
We then dropped off our car and met up with our driver – a step that was necessitated by Qantas changing our flight on us. We booked back in April on sale fares, which is the best way to do it if you can. However, at that time QF62 our flight home was operating from Haneda Airport – so we booked to fly in and out of Haneda because that would make the region we needed to travel to more accessible. IE: we didn’t want to have to drive the two hours across Tokyo from Narita. :/ A couple of months ago though, we received notice that all QF62 flights were being moved and would now be coming back from Haneda – turns out today, and our flight, was the first QF62 out of Narita.
So we meet our driver who was thankfully going to expertly manoeuvre us the rest of the way – a solid 1hr 45mins to 2 hrs – across Tokyo as the cost of returning the car to somewhere other than where we picked it up was going to be roughly the same as getting someone to collect us. Plus we figured a professional driver would be way better at driving in Tokyo than we would be, We may have overestimated on that – because instead of taking the Shuto and skirting around the entire city, we found ourselves on some of those inner spokes of this previously displayed nightmare and literally driving on an elevated highway right past Shibuya and Shinjuku! WTF?
But also, comforting to know it’s not just useless foreign tourists who fuck this up!
Anyway, we got to the airport in plenty of time to check in early, and thank goodness for that – seems half the ground staff were in training given the flight was newly moved from Haneda. So there was some unusually be-suited management types trying to train and guide the staff in checking people in.
After that, we sailed through customs and security (yay, express passes) and got to potter around a couple of duty free shops before installing ourselves for a while in the JAL First Class Lounge – which was quite okay actually. Saké on tap, literally and a touch screen to order curry, noodles or sushi. Best things about it – it is the quietest airport lounge I’ve ever been in. The Japanese and their inherent politeness manifesting in doing things like – taking phone calls in private booths designed expressly for this purpose, having conversations in what Westerners would call ‘indoor’ voices, and not having Sky News blaring at you whether you like it or not. Take note Qantas!
Boarding went smoothly and it was out with the bubbles to say good bye to Japan. For now.
Last Japanese selfie complete with obligatory cutesy filter. It’s tradition! 
Dinner options were pretty good and there was a Japanese set menu on offer, that I was certain was going to be disappointing after my fabulous sushi lunch, but when else am I going to get offered a Japanese meal on a plane?
The starters were in a neat little bento box and consisted of some shrimp, tofu, pickles, vegetables, beans,and all sorts of beautifully presented tasties. I was pleasantly surprised – this was airline food after all – but it’s obviously been prepared by people who care. It was really quite lovely with some crisp saké on the side.
There was also a Main course of Dainomono, seasonal grilled fish (mackerel I was told), served with rice, miso soup, and pickles .
Followed by a desert: wagashi which came with a cup of green tea. Nice job Qantas… I was actually quite impressed with an airline meal; first time in years.
Unfortunately our flight wasn’t as comfortable as it should have been – there was an ungodly glow coming from the ‘no smoking’ sign over our head which was a multiple of lumens brighter than any other ‘no smoking’ sign in the rest of the cabin! I was wearing an eye mask and trying to hide under my pillow and still couldn’t block it out. Also the cabin temperature was too warm… which is weird because we always travel expecting to freeze on flights, but at one point when I got up to use the bathroom at 2am, I walked down the aisle and noticed that nearly everyone had kicked off their blankets, so it wasn’t just me being Goldilocks (for a change!).
Other than that our flight was uneventful, which is just how we like them. Getting through Brisbane Airport was no problem and our cabbie was even super friendly and competent! All up it was a great transit* taking about 22 hours from leaving Izu to walking in the door at home.
Sayonara, Japan – for now.
* One slight hiccough of my own creation … I left my iPad on the plane! I never do things like that. Ever. But the stupid thing has a grey cover, the exact same colour of the side table of the business capsules so I can see how after not enough sleep and feeling a bit fatigued, I totally didn’t notice it. Oh well, thanks to the “find my device” and a bit of Googling to find the international airport’s lost property, I managed to get it back a few hours later – but that did mean driving back to the airport again! I swear our cars know the way tot he airports on autopilot.
We checked into our hotel, admired the view and how spacious the room was (for Tokyo), before heading out for a wander for a late dinner. We found a quaint little restaurant (not a noodle bar, not a sashimi restaurant, not a teppanyaki grill?) that served various soups, stews, grills and general Japanese fabulousness. Enjoyed a lovely meal of yakitori and broiled eel washed down with a nice junmai sake before heading back to the hotel to decompress after our transit day.
*I wonder how many times that damned Wave has been posted to this blog…
Once we had our bags all sorted we jumped the subway into town to pop into the Odakyu Department Store to hunt for homewares (of all things). Odakyu is a 16 floor department store with an amazing food hall in the basement and plenty of fancy restaurants on the top floors. In between is just about everything you might find in an enormous Myer/David Jones but with a Japanese flavour.
I love the plastic food outside of restaurants – there should be more of it in western countries, I say. 🙂 
The fresh food hall was amazing – and the seafood looked incredible.
None of us fared particularly well on the flight – being 8 hours of overtired, announcements in three languages and a few too many unhappy babies on the flight. But we arrived on time in Vancouver and were happily greeted by an unexpectedly smooth customs/immigration* and then transfer through to our smaller flight to Victoria.
All good, we eventually took off, survived the rather bumpy short flight to Victoria and picked up our rental car and before you know it we were driving across the Malahat Highway towards Duncan. Now, when we booked this trip, we were aware that we were coming to Canada for a White Christmas that was unlikely to be white at all due to Duncan and surrounds being not far off sea level and hardly ever having snow… .but Mr K’s Parking Fairy seems to have kicked it up a notch and the further we got from Victoria, the more of the white cold stuff we saw! Seems the region had a very unseasonal snow dump on Tuesday and was scheduled for even more to come! It is currently even predicting it to be actually snowing on Christmas Day too – so we are expecting a White Christmas after all! The kids are so excited… oh screw it – I’m excited! And from the reactions of some of the Canadian relatives, they are pretty excited about a White Christmas too. 🙂 
TIL snowy and speed landscape photography out the car window, do not mix.
We pulled up to Mr K’s uncle’s house and were greeted by this tree… which I had to double check was actually real, because it looks like something out of a store. But yes, apparently it’s real.
As night fell, it started to gently snow some more and the front yard looks like something from a movie.
Back out on the street, even your regular little corner agift store is packed to the gills with merchadise in every nook and cranny. Everyone is a bull on the china here, there’s no avoiding it. They have so much merchandise all crammed into such tiny little stores that you can’t help but knock half the products… which is why they are all secured to shelves using clips and hooks and everything swings and moves as you walk through the store.
And of course, EVERY store has its adults-only upstairs areas (which are sometimes as many as three or more floors bigger than the floor of Dragonball Z toys and Pokemon plush that attracts people into the place! So much porn! When I wondered out loud, ‘Who actually pays for porn in this day and age?’, the Teenager replied, ‘Well, if you want something specific, you have to pay for it.’ 😮 
Gaming and vending machines are everywhere… throw in your yen, and manouvre the dodgy gaming controls for a chance to win an enticing soft yellow squishy thing! 🙂 
Or throw in slightly more yen and get a chance to win this off license Pikachu. 🙂 
Racks and racks of toy dispensing machines line the streets. They usually take between Y200 and Y500 and dispense a random little plastic toy-in-a-ball. They must be profitable, but I can’t help but wonder who is buying all these toy-in-a-balls? They’re obviously designed to be collectable but still…
This one is a corker – there are five plastic wearable badges in this machine, with one of five cute anime girls on each button which you will get at random…
…and on the bottom of the machine are pictures of a man having a sad/tired rough time. We used the Google Translate over the text and basically, it was saying that if you buy this badge, you can escape the drudgery of your everyday life and be happy! Happiness! This little machine is selling escapism and happiness… that’s one helluva badge!
Manga stores everywhere.
Even more floors of porn…
Mr K lost in the back of the porn floors… I didn’t go up, but he said, the higher up the floor the more ‘extreme’ the content gets.
Phew after all that searching through figurines and anime and dodging the porn, we stumbled onto the Mocha Cat Cafe. Now I am not a cat person as many of you will know, but the whole concept intrigues me somewhat.. why would you pay to go hang out in a cafe full of cats?
A lovely lady helped us with some hand sanitiser, slippers and of course, the Rules (rules? for being around cats?!?) and explained the cost – Y200 for every ten minutes you stay, and you must buy a refillable drink for Y350, so a minimum of Y550 per person to go in and ‘relax with cats’.
Inside was a space with a lovely decor, delighfully Japanese’d Christmas Carols playing quietly in the background and a huge anime library where you could sit down and watch some tv while you cuddle some kitties.
The anime library – with a huge selection, no doubt designed to keep you in the kitty cafe as long as possible.
Cats chillin in their weird little hanging birdcage things… very well fed cats btw. You can feed the cats for an additional Y500.
For 1pm on a Wednesday, it was amazing well patronised. There were quite a few people there, even one lady on her laptop who had obviously settled in for quite a while to get some work done.
After, oh I’d say about eight and a half minutes of quality looking-at-cats time (Nope – didn’t pet any, me and cats, meh), we went looking for somewhere for some cheap and cheerful brlunch. It was pretty cold today so we went looking for some small Japanese curry bowls which we thought would fill the bill given we were planning a very late dinner tonight. 
We came across this place down the road from the cat cafe that looked perfect – nothing on the menu but curry. So in we went. From the pictures on the menu, portions looked perfect for lunch and it was chicken, pork or prawn curry… order your curry and biru from the little machine and go take a seat.
We were right about this being a great curry restaurant but not so much on the polite portion sizes. We got huge plates of curry, which I have to admit did not look so appetitisng… but once you tried it, absolutely delicious. Probably the best katsu curry I have ever had. 
The Teenager was very happy with his wash, probably the first meal we’ve had that filled him up!
After I was waiting outside and found out from the signs that this place has prize winning curry in 2015 for some big curry conference/competition – so no wonder it was good. I have no idea what the place was called though. Couldn’t fathom it for love or money.
After lunch, we went for a wander into Shibuya, just because we could – to do a bit of shopping and have a look around.
Oddly, this slick black store is a Disney Store… and no, I didn’t go in. The retail pain of working the Disney Store over Christmas is still altogether too raw.
Then it was back to Shinjuku for our booking at the Robot Restaurant. When we were in Tokyo two years ago, we had booked tickets to take the then, Small Child, to go see the Robot Restaurant as we thought it would be quite the spectacle for a kid. Unhappily at the time, it was closed for renovations the week we were here. Now, we come back and I thought he’d be over it, but unhappily he still wanted to go. So we duly went and bought tickets.
Right from the front door you get an inkling of what you are in for – more glitter, sequins, neon and mosaic mirror tiles per square inch than you would have thought humanly possible.
We were then welcomed into the Guest Waiting Room whereupon it took my eyes a full ten minutes to recover from the visual assault on the senses. It’s like Versace and Las-Vegas-Fat-Elvis had a litter of tattooed, vajazzled love children, and they vomited all over the place in here.
This is his, ‘somewhat overwhelmed but trying to be blase about it look’. 😉 
Neon ceilings floors and walls, golden seashell glass-topped tables, gilded rose embossed chairs, massive tv screens and oh, so so many mirrors just on every surface.
Even the bathroom was a sight to sore the eyes.
Then the bell went and it was time to descend into the basement of the building for the show itself. We were treated to quite a few Christmas Carols in the waiting area while we sipped on our freebie sake (which tasted nothing like sake…?) and I was getting concerned that we may actually have been stuck with an entire Christmas themed show… I definitely would NOT have signed up to sit through that.
Upon being shown to our seats – the first thing wheeled in front of us? The souvenir cart swiftly followed by a drinks cart. Then it was a few safety rules (keep your hands in, don’t touch the robots, no flash photography) and it would soon be on with the show. 
We then had a fifteen-minute interval where, you guessed it, they tried to sell us more souvenirs and drinks. 🙂 The next vignette appeared to have some sort of post-apocalyptic theme running through it – robots had taken over the earth but the humans were fighting back or some such. It was all a bit obscure, to be honest, and passed in a blur of lights and loud noises.
You may think these photos are out of focus or dodgy, but I like ’em!
And yet, through all this noise and lights and pyrotechnics and craziness… these two beside us slept through the lot!
By the way, if anyone is interested in going to this overpriced tourist trap, err, I mean unique Japanese cultural experience – there is a Tourist Information centre at Shinjuku bus station that has tickets for about Y2,000pp cheaper than you can buy online or at the RR. It’s well worth a couple of bucks on the subway to head down there to pick up discount tickets.
We were headed to the Kachi-kachi Ropeway to go up to view Mt Fuji. 🙂
The Kawagauchiko Ropeway takes travellers up Kachi-kachi Yama, which translates roughly as ‘Fire-crackle Mountain. The ‘kachi-kachi’ bit being an onomatopoetic word for the sound a fire makes, and ‘yama’ meaning mountain. The cute little hiking rabbit and his tanuki (Japanese racoon) companion are a cutesy little theme that run through the complex. 
Lake Kawaguchiko and the town of Fuji-Kawaguchiko.
Mt Fuji. On our last trip, Aunty Mary, Mr K and the Teenager all hiked to the top of Mt Fuji, but this is the first time they have actually seen it! The weather was so poor they climbed the entire mountain in raid and clouds and fog, so they never actually saw the peak of the mountain after their arduous journey.
The Usagi shrine dedicated to the rabbit from the Kachi-kachi Yama myths… must have been one special rabbit!
It is said that if you ring the Bell of Tenjo while watching Mt Fuji and make a wish, your wish will come true.
The rabbit helping the poor, crying tanaki.
No idea what is going on in this one…
The two friends looking off the mountain, farewelling guests.
I couldn’t tell you what they are exactly, but apparently, there are a smattering of references to this myth in Super Mario Sunshine.
At the base of Kachi-kachi Yama is the world famous Fujiyama Cookie shop! Where, you can buy all manner of Fuji styled cookies and candies.
Camembert cheesecake… sounds amazing. Amazingly suspicious!
Also – the widest variety of weird KitKat flavours known to man… Wasabi flavour, Strawberry Cheesecake flavour, Sake flavour, Apple flavour. 
Nearby was the Ide Sake Brewery, unfortunately, we spent too much time up Kachi-kachi and missed the last brewery tours, but we made a mental note to make up for it this evening.
After this, it was back into town for a little shopping and then the bus trip back to Shinjuku bus station, whereupon we did a little more shopping 😉 and then went hunting for dinner.
Saw this on the menu. Obviously, we had to order it to find out what it was… turned out to be a tasty tasty Martian alien octopus thing.
And the most delicious and affordable sushi platter ever, Y990, which at the moment is around AUD$11. Fabulous food in a busy little restaurant – I would highly recommend hunting this place out if you are in Shinjuku.
Another wonderful day in Japan over it was back to our shoebox hotel room for… another soak in the tub. 🙂 This time with extra sake!