Alyssiumbaby

Today we were heading out to Nakano Broadway, most stores there only open up past midday so we had the morning to spare. As we were heading through Tokyo station to get to Nakano I decided to take the gang over to character street. Keep in mind that Tokyo station is huge, so make sure you leave enough time to try and find it as well as shop, its well worth the visit if you can find it. You may need a couple of hours especially if you have a thing for Japanese characters and mascots! I think Mimi’s face sums it up pretty well! Continue reading…

Today we were heading back to Tokyo so as you imagine it was a bit of a rush/mess getting everyone out of the hourse. To complicate things I had also arranged to meet up with Kenji, Sayuri and their Continue reading…

Today I was really excited and eager to get out early! Before we left I had already prebooked for the entire group to do a “Maiko Makeover”, or Samurai for the guys. Chris and I had been here on our previous trip so we had a fair idea where we were going. We decided to walk from where we were staying and I was a little concerned about how grey the sky looked as we left the house.  It ended up being a pretty decent distance and we are started to get pumped as we walked through some fairly large wooden gates that seemed to signal that we had hit Gion! We had left plenty of time to get there so we had a leisurely walk to the studio and stopped many times on the way to take photos, check things out and to buy lots of souvenirs. Gion is quite an old section of Kyoto Continue reading…

We slept in late today, a couple of long days walking and late nights took its toll! We were meant to get out and visit two places, but since we were out late we decided not to rush both and just went to the Osaka Aquarium. Its lucky we picked today to go the Aquarium, it rained almost the entire day! I think it was the only day it rained in the time we were there. We had to hop in and out of 4 trains to finally get there and when we got off at the closest train station(Osakako station) it was slightly confusing as there was all these signs pointing to the Aquarium but in different directions. Some said they were wrong, others were bigger, we just choose a direction and started walking. You cant really tell from far away but you know you are getting close when you see the large ferris wheel. Before we went into the Aquarium we stopped off at Tempozan market which was next door and had lunch. It was like a small shopping center with a petting zoo, stores and restaurants. They had a Jump store which was completely filled with only One piece merchandise that Mimi and Georgina had a field day in! They also had a  Continue reading…

The plan for today was to shop in Osaka! There were quite a few places that we were eager to get to. Unfotunately as most of the day was shopping and because alot of the stores dont allow pictures, we did not get many shots.

We got off to a late start and half way to Kyoto station Chris and I realised that we left our rail passes back at the house! We still could have continued but we would have had to pay for all tickets and Continue reading…

Yesterday was a long day of travelling so after a good nights sleep and a late start we headed off to our destination Arashiyama. For the first week of our trip we had activated our Japan Rail passes, however these passes were only available for use on JR trains and while it covered the main rail to Arashiyama, the JR Sagano Line, it did not cover the local lines we used to get from where we were staying to Kyoto station. To cover these lines we purchases a Icoca card, the card initially costs 2000Yen, 500Yen is a deposit for the card and 1500Yen is a balance. The card can be recharged at any station and all you need to do is swipe it going in and Continue reading…