Goggle-Eyed Bee

Naoshima Got up really early, made it to Kyoto station just in time for the 7.20 train Got to Okayama and found a bus to Uno straight away - a feat considering the tourist info office was closed. A nice old dude recognised our lost looks and helped us locate the correct bus stop. Bust Uno then a short, pleasant, smooth, ferry to Miyanoura Port. We walked off the ferry to the bicycle shop. Thankfully the booking was all good and we soon had an e-bike each. We were also able to leave our luggage there.  I found the bike challenging to start with but it was great in the end.  We rode round to the base of the Benesse section which you can't take bikes up. We walked all the way up to the top in the heat, murray and I argued on the way. It was shit. Then when we got to the top - just in time for the 1:00 booking we realised that the 1:00 booking was for the Time Corridors which was at the bottom of the hill. We caught a shuttle bus down and didn't get there til like 1:25. Thankfully...

 Didn't get out of the house till about 11 today. Went to Fushimi Inari Taisha - the fox shinto temple with all the red gates. Tourist nightmare. It would be beautiful, all these red tori gates going through the forest, up the mountain, but it was so congested with people, it was gross. So we decided to get back on the train and go to Nara, seeing as that same train (a JR line, so free with our rail pass) went all the way there. Nara was a nice little city. The whole deer park thing was clearly a big tourist attraction too, but it was open enough that it didn't feel overly crowded and the deer were very cute. We bought some deer biscuits and fed them. We saw a burger place on the way there, not far from home and near the train station so we stopped in there on the way back and had some awesome burgers, Murray's was cacao, Violet's yuzu and mine was wasabi. They were amazing, and great fries too. Murray also had a nice sangria and I had an odd iced ginger chai thing. At ...

  Murray suffering badly from hayfever. We went shopping and bought him a hat. Went to Kinkaku-ji and Ryoanji. Lots of tourists and the former, less at the latter and we managed to get some fairly peaceful sitting in front of the rock garden time. The gardens are as beautiful as I remember - massive pond (we saw a pair of geese, violet said they were on a date), beautiful small-leafed maple trees, moss. We had a quick 7/11 lunch, sandwiches, can o coffee, violet had a pork bun and a little doughnut thing. Violet and I walked to a local okonomiyaki place for dinner. We sat at a back table and ate off the hot-plate. It was a fun experience. 16,748 steps 11.26 klms

 Imperial Palace - big stately gravely paths, nice park-like surrounds, walls and beautiful gates.  I thought this was the place with the beautiful screens but when we got to Nijo-jo we found them there. Nijo-jo is wonderful. The screens are reproductions but they are still beautiful. Gold-leaf, peacocks, hawks, trees through clouds, splashing brooks, birds (geese and bin-chickens for the advisers rooms), chrysanthemums, fans etc. Waves and squares patterns which look quite modern. Nightingale floors. Great moat and spectacular gates. We found a random little garden with a lovely pond and bridge that had lots of large carp and also some turtles. Violet had never seen turtles in person before, so it was pretty special. Walked to the Gion District and down the really touristy road. Beautiful, but almost Disney-like buildings. Another lovely garden around a temple at the end in the dark. Train home, Wilson dinner again - I had bananas and yogurt. The bananas were so cute and smal...

Left Kanazawa, walking back through the samurai district to the train station. Took a pic of the huge sculptural tori-gate style entrance which is very cool. Bit sad to leave Kanazawa, really enjoyed it there and loved the place we were staying at. Train a bit smaller but called a Thunderbird Kyoto place is cute and has some nice features - nice bathroom area, a bath, soft comfy beds, not as nice as the last place and although close to the station, quite a way away from most of the temples and stuff, but possibly why it was well-priced I guess. Murray not feeling great so we spend the afternoon/evening in just chilling. Lawson shop very close had great cheap easy food options. We watched 'They Cloned Tyrone'. 10,061 steps 6.76 klms

Up early. Walked to Kanazawa Castle past Mr Doughnut. Another beautiful blue-sky day. The castle had some great cross-sections and exploded models and scale models showing the construction of walls, and the wooden joins used. Special windows for dropping rocks out of. Lead roofs. Kenrokuen gardens - huge. A few people wearing kimonos wandering through, including one couple who were clearly doing wedding photos. I love the wooden supports they use for tress here so they can grow their long horizontal arms, or just not fall over. So many beautiful little bridges and water, stone, sculptural features. There was a seriously grand house at one edge of the garden 'Seison-kaku' that the 13th lord of the Kaga clan built for his mother. It made the samurai house we visited yesterday look like a shack. There were beautiful kimonos and tortoise-shell hair pieces on display. I'd only ever seen tortoise shell look speckledy-black before but this looked like clear amber. It was very beau...

Murray and I walked up to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Beautiful morning, sunny, not too hot three of us had lunch at a little place where we had a table a bit like an izakaya with sliding doors and a foot-pit under the table. Lunch sets - sashimi, rice, miso, murray had a katsu curry, violet ordered an extra set of fried chicken Walked to the architecture museum. Amazing display of animation backgrounds from Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Metroplis, Patlabor... painted backgrounds, some layered with cell overlays, storyboards, photos of reference/inspiration (location scouting), plus videos of interviews from the artists. The illustrations were so beautiful. You could see the brush strokes and the colour/paint testing on the borders. It was really interesting hearing about the way they collected inspiration, and their thoughts on animation styles and future. Murray and I walked around the samurai district and visited a samurai house and garden, then walked up to a small gei...

Got the shinkansen to Kanazawa. Cute little ekiben lunchbox. Spacious seats. Listened to my audio book. Walked to the airbnb past lots of beautiful old little buildings. Looking forward to exploring more. Very different feel to Tokyo. Our place is AMAZING. Spacious, cute little mini-garden, tatami lounge room, steep steep, tiny-treaded stairs to two upstairs rooms with tatami and nice beds. Chilled for a bit then walked up the road. Violet had a bad headache so murray and I went out and found a woodfired pizza place and brought pizzas back. Cute little bar the place had. It would have been a nice spot to eat if we'd all be out. Got ice-creams and snacks from various conbenis. So many cube cars. Cutest little mini-police station, with mini-police car under it. Nice river, bridge etc. 12,695 steps 8.53 klms

Got to Disneysea around 11... probably should have got moving earlier but hey The little Disney train that took us from the main Park Resort entrance around to Disneysea had Mickey silhouette shaped windows and hand strap dangles. Everything in Japan is cute but doubly so at Disney. It's a magical place. I have loved every visit to a Disneyland I've ever had. It's like dress-up-make-believe-land. I have never seen so many people wearing matching outfits, and almost everyone was wearing ears/hat/headband thing of some sort, usually themed/coordinated with outfits and groups. We saw a group of lolita girls who even had different height platform shoes so that they could all be the same head-height. People were in full cos-play costumes. It was awesome. First ride was the Journey to the Centre of the Earth which was awesome fun. We all loved it. Black lit, fluro mushrooms and creatures and beautiful stuff, then 'oh no, the rails broke and we're going where we shouldn...

Tokyo Day 2 Can of coffee for breakfast. Violet had french toast from the 7/11 Walked to Harajuku to go to the Pompom Purin cafe but was closed cause of aircon failure. Fatal in this weather. We got a bubble tea - mine had milk froth on top with a sprinkle of brown sugar which they then burnt with a dinosaur-headed blowtorch. The harajuku street was so full of tourists. Crazy area. We went to a nearby temple and there was a funeral going on there. We walked in the gardens which had a big pond with lots of koi and a heron. The Japanese do gardens so well. Caught the train out to Mitaki for Ghibli museum. Nice to see a smaller sort of suburb-feeling section of Tokyo. Had an egg and salad roll for lunch and sat in the park while we waited for our entry time. The Museum was beautiful - the whole thing just radiated with playful, whimsical, child-like joy. His drawings and paintings were gorgeous. The storyboard books were lovely. There were some great displays of zoetropes, like dioramas, ...

Got the best seats on the plan - right in the front of the economy section, so lots of leg room (no seats in front of us) and an empty seat next to me. Watched Renfield and a few eps of Halo Got in late and couldn't sort out rail passes so got a bus to our airbnb in Shinjuku. Small place but has two bedrooms which is nice - tatami mats and futons. Day 1 20 Sept 2023 Sorted rail passes, figured out train systems and buying/topping up tickets to metro systems Had breadtop type of bakery stuff for lunch with iced chocs and iced matcha latte. Walked around Toyosu park and watched fish jumping out of the water, sat under a nice tree near Teamlab. Teamlab was amazing - black beanbag room I could have sat in all day I think. Very sensory. Different textures underfoot, lighting, sounds etc. The fish and flowers wading pool was beautiful and so were the infinity LED room and the flower universe room, but the latter was a bit dizzying. Garden section was nice (orchids and ferns on vertically...