Day 14 Miyajima and Tokyo

Last day in Japan! Woke up to fogged up windows, a sea of scarlet and gold leaves across the road, the murmur of water, a great breakfast and regret. I felt sad to leave Auberge Watanabe after being so well taken care of. Yuki and Shigeo had been very kind to us and we were sorry to leave. I also felt sad to leave Miyajima - I'm glad we decided to splurge out and stay the night. More than that, I knew that our trip was certainly coming to an end with Tokyo in sight for the night and our flight home waiting for us the next day.







We left our bags in Auberge Watanabe and walked across the creek to Daisho-in. Unlike many other temples we've been to, Daisho-in had a very comfortable air of being well-used - like a neighbourhood parish church instead of say, the town cathedral. Instead of being elegant and reverential, it bordered on the quirky, whimsical and cheeky.


For one, even before we passed through the big gate, we were already charmed by the tiny stone statues of little bald monks in varying playful poses scattered throughout the grounds. These impish little guys were sleeping, praying, grinning, dressed as a samurai, practising kung-fu, sitting, meditating, holding gold ingots and so on. The kids had a nice time running around looking for ever more of these cute little statues. I think we found easily more than 50 of these scattered everywhere - under bushes, beside paths, next to gurgly streams, on a bed of moss and so on.

Even the many sub-temples on the grounds were more fun, like a huge gathering of every Buddhist saint and deity under the sun, in various little houses. I thought it was fitting that Daisho-in was like a summary of all the temples and all the things we did at the temples throughout Japan this trip. So we got the omikuji (in English!), rang the huge temple bell for blessings, ran up and down stairs to twirl the Buddhist sutras for luck, doused the Jizos for the last time, ran the entire 88-temple Shikoku pilgrimage in one hall, said a silent prayer at the Kobo Daishi sub-temple, descended to the bowels of the main hall in another attempt to 'gain enlightenmight' or good luck - whichever works best! And of course, I got my lovely henro!


I also got to say a nice goodbye to Miyajima, fittingly, high up on Daisho-in in front of Kobo Daishi's shrine, where the hills of Miyajima spread around and the silver glints of the sea a little beyond.

Down from Daisho-in, we collected our bags and said goodbye to the good people at Watanabe. Shigeo was kind enough to give us a lift in his MPV down to Omotesando. There, we bought a typical Miyajima souvenir - momiji manju - soft buns shaped like maple leaves with filling inside. I liked the one with chunks of apple filling while the kids gravitated to the chocolate and cream cheese filling.

We also chanced upon a stall selling skewers of deepfried 'fishcake'. Particularly loved the prawn and veggie mix. It was so good the kids were clamouring for more. Had to go back and buy about two more skewers.






Back on the mainland, we retraced our steps to Hiroshima station, collected our bags from the lockers and took the shinkansen back to Shin-Osaka. From there, we changed shinkansen to one heading back to Tokyo. By this time, we had grown a lot savvier about shinkansen-hopping without the need for reservations, managing to find the right platform, the right carriage (non-smoking! Lesson learned after choking for more than half an hour on two separate occasions where we ended up in the smoking car!) right down to the right door. We could have taken the shinkansen from Okayama, several stops earlier than Shin-Osaka, but figured that Shin-Osaka being the busier station, we would have more chance at getting seats.


And we were right! Shin Osaka was a lot busier than Okayama but being early at the head of the queue meant we could get our choice seats. The work day was clearly ending by then as hordes of commuters also crammed on board the shinkansen. It was so packed that people were standing in the aisles - pretty much like a town bus or a commuter train - except that this was the shinkansen and the commute was a 2-hour journey all the way back to Tokyo!

So passed our last evening in Japan with the day's dying light casting long shadows on the platforms of Shin-Osaka. We passed the two hours napping, talking, eating. The crowd on the train never got less.

By the time we got to Tokyo station, it was night. But the place, the nexus of train transport in the city, was still buzzing with commuters hurrying off to their appointments. From Tokyo, we hopped on the Yamanote line two stops down to Shinbashi station. From there, we walked about 10 minutes to our hotel. We walked on a raised pedestrain walkway that led us beneath the Yurikamome monorial line and through the heart of Tokyo's futuristic city, Shiodome, encircled by towers of glass.


KH and the kids were wondering what kind of posh hotel I was leading them to since this area of Tokyo clearly looked expensive. I had a nice chuckle to myself since the Hotel Villa Fontaine is a nice, value-for-money find. I enjoyed watching their jaws drop as they saw the sprawling marble lobby and the soaring atrium. I could see the calculator ticking in KH's head! But in truth, the hotel offered decent-size, comfortable business-class rooms in a fantastic location at a fraction of the cost of its neighbour hotels in the same locality. It was great value and unlike other business hotels, also included a buffet breakfast in the price.


Lobby of the Hotel Villa Fontaine


Once the kids had gotten over their excitement and KH's jaw had been lifted off the ground, we dropped our bags off and headed out for dinner. We backtracked back to Shinbashi station. Lots of action going on there with a lively nightlife and restaurant culture. Packed into tiny slots beneath the JR tracks are smoky bars and izakaya filled with penguins (the black-suited corporate warriors) of nearby Ginza having a post-work drink. It was very atmospheric and I wish we could have walked around more but stomachs were growling and the natives were restless.


We settled on a small izakaya filled with locals, the red lanterns outside the door giving a welcoming glow. We were led upstairs to a small room with low tables. As usual, we had to take off our shoes and were shown to a low table with cushions next to a window. On the menu - DIY BBQ with salad, different cuts of chicken, pork and beef. The grill was on the table. The waiter could speak some English and could produce an English menu! The other tables in the room were filled and the sizzle of the grill and the smoke of cooking meats filled the air. The mood was quite festive.




This being our last night in Japan, we decided to splurge it. It was a great meal, memorable because it tasted good and was a novel experience. It also ended up costing us more than S$250!! But okay, no regrets!

As with the end of all wonderful trips, I felt wistful and nostalgic on the last night. I hadn't even left and yet I felt like I already had. We walked back, satisfied and bellies filled. The night air was cool and the lights and neon of Ginza glittered. We were in the heart of Tokyo's (perhaps the world's) most expensive bit of real estate, nestled in a future city of steel and glass. What a nice way to end the trip - looking to the future. It would not be the end, I reminded myself, just as I did two years ago on the Narita Express heading back to the airport. I will look towards the future and plan for a day when I would come back.

Day 3 the happiest place on earth - Disneyland!

Rise and shine cos today is Disney day! As usual, no problem getting the kids up and going that morning because they all know we're headed for Disneyland. Unlike the first time, we took our time getting ready and getting there. Maybe the excitement factor has waned a bit since this is the second time.

After a good brekkie at Family Fifty's (I still love their simple salads with soya sauce dressing and big hard-boiled eggs with orange yolks!), we took the bus to the station and got on the next train to Maihama. We were late getting there and the hordes had already stormed the gates. We bought a 2-day passport for 10000yen per adult with the second day allocated to Disneysea. Once through the gates, as usual, there were lines galore for picture-taking with Mickey and his pals.

Now, the wise - no, sane - strategy would be to AVOID these lines and just stand about a metre or so away and just snap a picture or go for the less popular characters since Mickey and Minnie et al have lines that stretch past 50m! But because yours truly was so caught up with Disney fever, I insisted that we should have have a picture properly posed with at least ONE character. So I made a beeline for the three pigs who did not seem to have as many people crowding around them.

Well, after my porky experience, let the record show that I've now officially put the three pigs on my personal hate list. Pork will be big on my menu from now!

There I was, tugging Trin alone, swinging her here and there to try to get to ONE pig. They don't have lines but they do have people milling about them. If there was a line, it must have been an invisible one because I patiently waited, and waited... and waited and those bloody pigs (whom I mentally made into 24 types of sausages already) did not give us the time of day. Whenever I went up to one, they would turn away and face someone else, or wave at me but sign another girl's autograph books (who knew pigs could sign autographs?! Can their little trotters actually hold pens?) and so on it went. The last straw came when a protective pig minder came and gestured for me to give way to a disabled kid in a wheelchair. I have as much compassion as the next guy when it comes to people with disabilities but dammit I have been waiting for that stupid pig to take a picture and by God, I WILL take a dang picture even if it kills me!

Long and short of it was, the pigs won and I gave up. The last picture I have of that darn pig is this:

Kena scolded by a pig!

We finally made it into the park but all the fast passes for the new Monsters Inc attraction were gone and the line wound on and on for several hundred metres. Waiting time? 240min. Forget it. We had other stuff to do.

Finally in the park!

We were a little overwhelmed and this time, less ready with a clear strategy. The idea was to spend a bit more time in Tomorrowland since we usually miss this area. So we ended up taking a fast pass for the Buzz Lightyear Astro-Blaster attraction and went off to do something else while waiting for our FP time slot. This was everyone's favourite because it was interactive - you could shoot Zorgs and tote up your score at the end. Heh, for the record, Isaac later scored the highest while daddy, to his dismay, ended up near the bottom of the table. And as for me, hah! Zorgs fear me!!

We picked the attraction with the shortest queue and ended up with the Microadventure - a 3D ride with glasses. Here's how cool we all looked in our glasses. Or at least, how cute Owain looks:

Microadventure was okay, but not great. Was never a fan of the 3D or 4D rides. We spent the rest of the morning at Toontown, in the Go'coaster and Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin. Happy to say that roller-coaster phobic me survived the ride. Can see the kids eyes' rolling now at their wimpy mom.

Lunch was Mickey Mouse pizza. We took great delight in chomping his famous ears off. Really loved the packaging that Disney has. Not exactly environment-friendly in that they do not use recyclable plastic trays to transport your stuff to your table, they use nicely printed paper cup and food holders instead. But then again, the concept is nice and at the end of the meal, the left-overs and waste are carefully sorted out into bins for food waste, paper waste, ice etc. You'd never see this at McDonalds here.

For some reason, the park was really crowded that day. The last time we were here, it was not as bad. The queue for Monsters Inc never got better, even as the day waned. By the time we left - around 8pm, the queue was still stretching for at least 2hours!! Regretfully, we just had to leave it for another day.

We watched the parades (from afar. We have many quasi-parade shots with lots of other people's heads in the frame which will never be published in this blog) and went on our favourites - Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion and checked out some new ones - Star Tours, Grand Race Circuitway, Peter Pan, Pooh's Hunny Hunt, the Western River Railroad and a couple more - generally those we never covered the first time we were here two years ago. We also made time to eat - the smoked turkey leg was as ginormous and just as delicious as I remembered.

Some tips to enjoy Disney:

1) Make use of parades. The Japanese love parades and would stake out their spots well in advance of the actual parade. So when people are watching the parades, go for the rides. I tugged Trin over to the lovely Pooh's Hunny Hunt and it was empty - queue time only 10min. The minute the parade ended, we tried to go for the same ride with the rest of the kids (who were busy watching the parade) and wait time had swelled to 70min!

2) Use the FastPass wisely. Once you take the FastPass, you can only get your next FP after a certain time has lapsed. We got ours for Buzz Lightyear ride but then could not get a FP until hours later when we finally got another one for Haunted Mansion.

3) When the night falls, people start to leave and the place is far less crowded. So by 4.30pm when it got dark, biological clocks start chiming for dinner and exits so the place thinned out. We could get a ride for the Grand Circuit Raceway for a wait time of only 25min. We also got a ride on the carousel for a 10-min wait time.

4) Queue, queue and queue. Even for photo ops and toilet stalls. The Japanese are too polite to tell you off if you potong jalan, but icy looks can prevail. I did the Japanese thing and queued even for a photo op with the Monsters Inc car for Trin! And even then, no matter how long you take, no one actually chases you to hurry up with it. Maybe because of all the queueing, people feel entitled to take their time.

5) Strollers are very useful for sleepy and cranky tots and tired moms. While I do not relish dragging a stroller through Japan, I think renting one in Disney has a great deal of merit.

6) Don't dismiss the 'easy' rides. In all our visits to all the Disney parks, KH and I have never taken the Jungle Railroad, believing it to be just a joyride round the park. But this time, because the queue was non-existent, we checked it out and had a good time. Disney's impeccable theming again, works to create a realistic yet fun ride into the wild west.

Because we'd been to Disney already, and pretty much seen/done what we wanted, we left the park early - around 8pm. Trin was sleepy, cranky and a deadweight - in no particular order. So we left and had dinner at the same ramen joint we dined at the night before. Just across the road from the hotel.

Fukurou was a simple set-up but churned out great food. Kids loved the ramen and I loved mentaiko rice! The ramen also came with a bowl of rice which I had no difficulty polishing off accompanied by the yummy condiments on the table - preserved veg (like kiam chye buay) and a kimchi-like chilli dish of koo chye. Very nice.

Trin slept through the meal, too tired to rouse and eat. The kids gobbled everything in sight and had seconds. I wrestled with the vending machine but triumphed thanks to the very kind waiter/chef whom we discovered, came from Malaysia - Ipoh to be precise! The young man had come to Japan to study but because the economy back home was not that promising, he had stayed on. Its been 10 years already and he's gone native, marrying a Japanese woman and having a 3-year-old daughter with her.

I found it a bit disconcerting that the guy would get a degree but end up serving tables in an obscure ramen joint in a Tokyo suburb. But I think it can't be easy for him to get a salary-man type of job in Japan since he is a foreigner and the Japanese are notorious for closing ranks against foreigners. I don't think though, that he would ever go back to Malaysia (although I think his prospects can't be as bad as he thinks) now that he has a family here. It would take too much effort for his wife and child to settle down there in an unfamiliar climate and amid unfamiliar customs.

It was a nice conversation we had and although we'd been in Tokyo only less than a week, it sure felt good to hear a familiar accent! He could not speak English that well but his Mandarin was delightfully Malaysian! I think I felt a bit sad at leaving the restaurant and breaking the nice connection we had made. A bit like leaving home behind again.