Category: Trip

Tokyo Four

January 17, 2019

Today we visited ‘the happiest place on Earth’:

When I was planning this trip I’d wondered if Disney was even open in winter and not only is it very much open it’s also very, very popular! The lines to get in were much longer than I remember from previous Disney trips and the park was every bit as active and busy as a summers day!

Our first ride was Star Tours (the Star Wars ride) which had been updated to contain material from the current trilogy which was a pleasant surprise. We followed with Space Mountain which was significantly faster, darker and more thrilling than I recalled and sent Bernard into a spin! No more thrill rides for him!

No worries, there were still many more rides than we’d have time for: Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Snow White, Pinocchio, Small World, Tiki Birds, Jungle Cruise and Pooh. As always happens at Disney the hours flew by and 7 hours after arriving with the sun setting and a great chill descending it was time to leave.

Bernard’s favorite was Pooh’s Hunny Hunt, and his least favorite was Space Mountain. For me today I loved Jungle Cruise since the captain of our boat was a young lady that loved to perform (in Japanese of course) and really hammed it up 🙂

And speaking of getting into the spirit…

Disney here is a bit different from in the USA in that there are very few kids. Most of the guests are young women who are more often than not decked out in Disney clothes with Disney accessories and wearing some type of Disney hat. There’s loads of different ones, and we couldn’t help but try some on:

Should we have bought them??

Anyway I’ll put a bonus photo in today’s only-five-photos-a-day Japanese blog series, and of course it’s the one you’re waiting for…

You’re welcome 🙂

Tokyo Three

January 16, 2019

Today we headed across town to the korean part of Tokyo where Bernard was near-overwhelmed by the multitude of K-Pop shops:

And left his mark on the local economy in a frenzied ninety minutes of shopping:

As if that weren’t enough we then – after a brief stop at the hotel to store the loot – headed over to Akihabara where I found out Gundam kits have become so big they now include handles:

That a Virtual Boy game is pushing a grand:

And that the ‘electric city’ still dazzles at night:

Bernard needed a rest so didn’t stay in Akiba too long, and I ran myself ragged looking for games and books and didn’t even enter an arcade!

No worries: we’ll return on Sunday 🙂

Sydney

January 12, 2019

I arrived in Sydney yesterday by train, and after checking in to an extraordinary hotel room wasted no time seeing the tourist sites.

I walked from Central to Darling Harbour to Circular Quay and back – some 30k steps – and by the time I crashed in my room after dark I was ruined ?

This morning I was up bright and early to pack, before heading to the Star Wars Identities exhibit at the Powerhouse Museum.

This is a remarkable exhibit of original props, costumes, models etc from the entire Star Wars saga (including Clone Wars). It is beautifully presented and it was magical to be so close to iconic items like the Millennium Falcon model actually used in Empire:

Or costumes worn by most of the major characters:

In addition, via interactive stations throughout the exhibit you create your very own Star Wars character!

I suppose the idea is to reproduce yourself in Star Wars firm, but I found myself compelled to spawn a uniquely original creation. Dear readers, I present my own Star Wars creation, Gab Frogger:

The name was my creation, and I’ll humbly suggest it’s much better than what others used (I saw an Ewok pilot named Brendan). Here’s Gab’s bio:

As with all Gungans, Gab is immediately endearing despite his dark side tendencies, and I’ve grown to love the froggy scamp already. I hope he turns up in Episode IX!

That’s Sydney Tower, which has stood since 1981 in the center of the city. I’ve been up several times but not in quite a few years and figured it was time once again.

Admission includes a surprisingly good (but short) 3D film which you watch before going up. I’m not quite sure why it even exists since it has almost nothing to do with the tower but I imagine the purpose was originally line-management which is redundant now since the tower doesn’t seem too popular.

But it was good! Today was sunny and clear and I could see forever. It wasn’t busy up top and I spent much longer than I’d expected up there. If you like observation towers, this is probably worth it at the slightly elevated price.

This will be my last post from Oz this trip, as early tomorrow I head to the airport for Tokyo where I’ll meet Bernard for the next 8 days! Stay tuned for our eastern adventures…

Robot Claw