Day 1-3

Day 1 April 25, 2012, Yoshiko, our Tokyo Free Guide, met us at the Ryokan at 8am on our first morning. Even though we were tired from the flight via Singapore we enjoyed her support and knowledge and went to some great places including the Nezu Shrine (by community bus and walking through amazing little streets), Zensyoan Temple, Shitamachi Museum, Jyomyoin Temple commemorating lost children, Kan-eiji Graveyard where the last Shogun is buried and lots of other places.

We have been eating well too and coping with lots of Metro and train rides.

Day 2 April 26, 2012 saw us travel with Gray Lines tour guide Hitomi to Mt Fuji-Hakone region and despite the low cloud and rain we did get to the 5th Station and got a glimpse of the peak, lots of snow and low cloud with steady rain. It was enjoyable but the country needs more tourists:)

Day 3 April 27, 2012 our friend Shakti flew in from Australia to do some rehearsals with her Dance School. We went to Tomato in Nippori Fabric Town and a vintage kimono store nearby. We bought a magnificent Obi to take home. We are now looking for a lacquer Obi stand. Shakti also took us to a beautiful restaurant in Koiwa, "Ime no Hana" specializing in tofu dishes.

The rain has been steady for 2 days now, their is a big market for umbrellas, but hopefully it will lift for the start of Golden Week on Saturday.

Off to Tsukiji Fish Market tomorrow with our guide Miki and his girlfriend
Cheers Gerry and Sue.

Technical problems ;)

We are struggling to come to terms with the issues that have arisen in trying to use Blogger on the tablet:
The language keeps going back to Japanese in Google; the table will not allow the blog to publish with photos (previous blogs were created on a PC).
We have decided to do text only and then add photos we we can.

Cheers Gerry

Shopping for dressmaking material

One of the days we will be in Tokyo (Day 3) Shakti will take on the subway to Nippori where the feature will be shopping for dressmaking materials for costumes and daywear. Sue is very keen to get some good materials as it is a struggle to get good material in Adelaide.

So from Asakusa we will take the subway to Nippori

Changi Airport, Singapore

We have made it to Changi and hop on the plane for the next leg shortly. It is amazingly quiet and very spacious :)

Only one more sleep :)

Well, we had a great wake-up today with the Australian Air Express van delivering our ASUS tablet back form Sydney after requiring a new power adapter.

The guys at Dingotech in Silverwater have been fantastic and pulled out all stops for us. The turnaround time for repairs is usually 10-15 days - they repaired our tablet and got it back to us in 5!!! Service is still there is some industries. Thanks Dingotech. It started up and  all the extra apps and ebooks are still there. Hooray

We've confirmed our Tokyo guides and will be meeting Yoshiko at our Ryokan at 0800. We hope to do some sightseeing after teriyaki burgers for breakfast :) Yoshiko sent us a website with a wonderful display of azalea flowers Azaleas at Nezu Shrine as cherry blossom will have finished by the time we get into Tokyo.

Miki is taking us to the Tzukiji Fish Market and on to the Hamarikyu Garden . We'll take a cruise back to Asakusa on the Sumida-gawa.

Himeji in Hyogo Prefecture is a sister city of Adelaide and we will be meeting Masahiro Sakaguchi, Chief, Cultural Exchange Section Himeji City Office, Himeji International Exchange Centre. We're both looking to visiting Himeji-jo (White Heron Castle) and the gardens surrounding the buildings. Gerry took a few photos of the Adelaide Himeji gardens including this signpost.

So, see you in Tokyo.

Counting down the days

We picked up our tickets and voucher for the tour with Destination Asia from Tokyo to Mt Fuji. Flight Centre have been quite good as travel agents go.

Sacred-destinations -japan/mount-fuji
We'll travel by subway from our Ryokan in Asakusa to our pickup hotel as they're the expensive hotels on the west side near Ginza. The tour is all day on our Day 2. We come back to Tokyo on the Shinkansen -Bullet train.

As we travel around Japan we intend to use the WiFi and intenet provided by the hotels, fast food places and convenience stores with the ASUS Transformer Prime tablet, that we bought a month ago. Well that was the plan, until yesterday, when it wouldn't power up, despite having a full battery. Somewhere along the line we have had, we suspect, "Early-life failure". Anyway the ASUS Call Centre requested that we send it to their Service Centre in Silverwater Sydney for the technicians to check. We will see if we get it back in time, have to buy a new one or have a "Plan B"

Himeji: I have been in touch with the Sister City secretariat at the Adelaide City Council and they have put us in touch with the Himeji Prefectural Office and so we will make a personal visit and reinforce the sister city relationship that Adelaide has with Himeji.

You may not be aware that the Adelaide -Himeji-gardens were a gift in 1982 to commemorate the link between Himeji and Adelaide:

We love this garden and hope to see similar gardens in Japan. The other big attraction is the famous castle Himeji-jo, which is currently undertaking a major renovation but is still available to visit. Trevor told me about the steps being quite high so we will try and take them in our stride :)

Himeji Castle

So as you can see we are very excited about our trip.

How people live in cities

One of the things we're looking forward to seeing is how people live in their city.

Here in the leafy eastern suburbs of Adelaide we have plenty of room. Adelaide is a city of  1.2 million people spread over the same area as Tokyo with its 30 million. We have very little high rise and spacious blocks of land. Infill building is happening in our area and blocks are reducing in size to average 500 square metres. Our living space and outdoor environment is influenced by many things.

In our garden, over the last 5 years, we have reduced concrete and lawn and introduced some structure. This has been influenced by Japanese gardens we've seen in books and the Himeji garden in the Adelaide City South Parklands. We are looking forward to seeing and feeling what gardens, which may be many hundreds of years old, look like in the temples and parks in the Japanese cultural setting.

Front and back yard features in our Unit: