Japan
#76
Re: Japan
Hey, Scamp - have you seen/read about this place?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/tr...onal-Park.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/tr...onal-Park.html
Last edited by hnd; Aug 2nd 2017 at 9:50 am. Reason: Wrong link
#77
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Re: Japan
Hey, Scamp - have you seen/read about this place?
Domes at Aso Farm Land in Japan's Aso Kuju National Park | Daily Mail Online
Domes at Aso Farm Land in Japan's Aso Kuju National Park | Daily Mail Online
The national park they are in as a whole looks unreal too.
#79
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Re: Japan
Mount Aso: Japan's biggest active volcano could erupt at any point, scientists warn | The Independent
#80
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Re: Japan
Not wanting to piss on your lava flow, but:
Mount Aso: Japan's biggest active volcano could erupt at any point, scientists warn | The Independent
Mount Aso: Japan's biggest active volcano could erupt at any point, scientists warn | The Independent
#81
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Re: Japan
It was flippin' awesome.
Some things we enjoyed / that stand out;
Wonderful country.
Wonderful people.
Incredible scenery.
Bullet train was a total dream come true.
Tokyo is monstrous. From the top of the Skytree you can't see the edges.
The people are welcoming, warm, helpful and inquisitive.
Hiroshima was upsetting but positive. Displaying a humbling positivity that having spent only a few days there I can't imagine any other nation doing with such sincerity.
Shrines, temples, places of worship, places of significance on every corner.
Eki-Bens and Bento Boxes.
Asahi is the single greatest lager on earth. I'm convinced. The others are bang average (Yebisu particularly).
Sho-cho is rocket fuel and I love it.
Golden Gai bars.
Perfect road markings, like they are repainted every night.
Shibuya crossing chaos.
Serenity in Ueno park.
Kyoto as a whole, just wonderful.
Gion, seeing a Geisha.
Kobe Beef. Drool.
Osaka and the Glico Man. Dintonbori (sp) street and the food.
Horsemeat and mane sushi. (5 dirhams a plate, listen up Yo Sushi thieves).
Metro, subway, commuter trains, rapid services, shinkansen. All perfect.
Warm bog seats and the joy of finding out how nice the bum gun is.
Cleanliness of the streets, yet a total lack of bins.
Appreciation of any attempts at phrases / words in Japanese.
The deafening noise in any large store of staff and speakers constant shouting about offers (one can presume).
Car parks.
Piss Alley.
The Imperial Palace and gardens.
The train stations, good heavens above. Kyoto Station is a masterpiece. Tokyo station is a total maze housing everything you could need for a week. Osaka station, colossal.
Umeda Sky Building and it's space style viewing gallery.
Watching re-runs of the Saints game in an Irish pub in Kyoto with signed Yoshida shirts on the wall, meeting a Japanese chap and telling him I'm from Southampton, being told I'm the first he's met from the greatest city on earth and that I'm his 'soul mate' from 'soushammtun'. What a guy.
Sizzler restaurant, what a find on the last day.
Plum wine.
Pickled vegetables.
Odaiba and the weird statue of liberty.
Rainbow bridge, Tokyo at night.
Wagyu. Actual wagyu
Deep fried wagyu burgers.
Eki-Bens. I loved eki-ben on the train.
175.5mph on a train.
Honestly. I could go on and on.
Just an unforgettable holiday in one of the most incredible, historic, ultra-modern, fascinating, welcoming and serene countries.
Nobody at any point made us feel uneasy and anything less than welcome.
I thoroughly enjoyed being the biggest on 99/100 of the subway / metro / bus / tram journeys....and ducking to get on every single one of them and through many doorways. It was fun.
The only...and I mean only...downside was the sheer number of ****ing Spanish and French tourists. Horrid. Barely any Brits, which is nice. Lots of Yanks, which is nice.
In terms of hotels;
Shangri-La in Tokyo was wonderful. Great service from concierge to sort our rail passes and other bits. Great location.
Hotel Kanra in Kyoto was a mixed style Japanese / Western. Really cool. Beautifully decorated and very stylish. Decent location again between station area and downtown.
Hyatt Regency in Tokyo for the last night, was alright. Worn and can tell it doesn't try to be anything other than the 4* businessy type hotel that it is. Club room gave us the late check out we needed and was in the only location we hadn't covered in Tokyo so was perfect.
Trains;
JR Rail Pass is a must, but not for the cities, only for bullets and local trains I think.
In the cities there are so many private metro lines / subways that we barely used the JR Pass when hopping on and off. So cheap anyway.
We did 7 day green class and it paid for itself by the time we'd got from Tokyo to Kyoto to Osaka and Back. Let alone the Hiroshima trip, back to Tokyo and the airport train.
Would love to go again....once I've saved up again, hotels not cheap, some food very cheap but others very expensive (we didn't do many dinners in the latter category). Getting around adds up, lots of incidentals add up but so what, same everywhere....Nowhere needed to be expensive but some places were higher than here in price, but generally pretty reasonable.
There you have it. A rambling review and if you read it all and make sense of it then I'm pleased. Go visit Japan if you haven't.
Mission?
Some things we enjoyed / that stand out;
Wonderful country.
Wonderful people.
Incredible scenery.
Bullet train was a total dream come true.
Tokyo is monstrous. From the top of the Skytree you can't see the edges.
The people are welcoming, warm, helpful and inquisitive.
Hiroshima was upsetting but positive. Displaying a humbling positivity that having spent only a few days there I can't imagine any other nation doing with such sincerity.
Shrines, temples, places of worship, places of significance on every corner.
Eki-Bens and Bento Boxes.
Asahi is the single greatest lager on earth. I'm convinced. The others are bang average (Yebisu particularly).
Sho-cho is rocket fuel and I love it.
Golden Gai bars.
Perfect road markings, like they are repainted every night.
Shibuya crossing chaos.
Serenity in Ueno park.
Kyoto as a whole, just wonderful.
Gion, seeing a Geisha.
Kobe Beef. Drool.
Osaka and the Glico Man. Dintonbori (sp) street and the food.
Horsemeat and mane sushi. (5 dirhams a plate, listen up Yo Sushi thieves).
Metro, subway, commuter trains, rapid services, shinkansen. All perfect.
Warm bog seats and the joy of finding out how nice the bum gun is.
Cleanliness of the streets, yet a total lack of bins.
Appreciation of any attempts at phrases / words in Japanese.
The deafening noise in any large store of staff and speakers constant shouting about offers (one can presume).
Car parks.
Piss Alley.
The Imperial Palace and gardens.
The train stations, good heavens above. Kyoto Station is a masterpiece. Tokyo station is a total maze housing everything you could need for a week. Osaka station, colossal.
Umeda Sky Building and it's space style viewing gallery.
Watching re-runs of the Saints game in an Irish pub in Kyoto with signed Yoshida shirts on the wall, meeting a Japanese chap and telling him I'm from Southampton, being told I'm the first he's met from the greatest city on earth and that I'm his 'soul mate' from 'soushammtun'. What a guy.
Sizzler restaurant, what a find on the last day.
Plum wine.
Pickled vegetables.
Odaiba and the weird statue of liberty.
Rainbow bridge, Tokyo at night.
Wagyu. Actual wagyu
Deep fried wagyu burgers.
Eki-Bens. I loved eki-ben on the train.
175.5mph on a train.
Honestly. I could go on and on.
Just an unforgettable holiday in one of the most incredible, historic, ultra-modern, fascinating, welcoming and serene countries.
Nobody at any point made us feel uneasy and anything less than welcome.
I thoroughly enjoyed being the biggest on 99/100 of the subway / metro / bus / tram journeys....and ducking to get on every single one of them and through many doorways. It was fun.
The only...and I mean only...downside was the sheer number of ****ing Spanish and French tourists. Horrid. Barely any Brits, which is nice. Lots of Yanks, which is nice.
In terms of hotels;
Shangri-La in Tokyo was wonderful. Great service from concierge to sort our rail passes and other bits. Great location.
Hotel Kanra in Kyoto was a mixed style Japanese / Western. Really cool. Beautifully decorated and very stylish. Decent location again between station area and downtown.
Hyatt Regency in Tokyo for the last night, was alright. Worn and can tell it doesn't try to be anything other than the 4* businessy type hotel that it is. Club room gave us the late check out we needed and was in the only location we hadn't covered in Tokyo so was perfect.
Trains;
JR Rail Pass is a must, but not for the cities, only for bullets and local trains I think.
In the cities there are so many private metro lines / subways that we barely used the JR Pass when hopping on and off. So cheap anyway.
We did 7 day green class and it paid for itself by the time we'd got from Tokyo to Kyoto to Osaka and Back. Let alone the Hiroshima trip, back to Tokyo and the airport train.
Would love to go again....once I've saved up again, hotels not cheap, some food very cheap but others very expensive (we didn't do many dinners in the latter category). Getting around adds up, lots of incidentals add up but so what, same everywhere....Nowhere needed to be expensive but some places were higher than here in price, but generally pretty reasonable.
There you have it. A rambling review and if you read it all and make sense of it then I'm pleased. Go visit Japan if you haven't.
Mission?
#83
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Joined: Jan 2015
Posts: 3,520
Re: Japan
Glad you had a great trip. It is a nifty country, isn't it? Very unique in its own way. I'd love to go back someday soon.
#84
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Re: Japan
The conformity got me at first, everyone following the rules but you soon realise that Tokyo (and other cities) need it. Everyone playing by the rules and following the paths and standing in line means it works and can work well.
Yet...I never found it sucked the fun out of anything. Maybe that's rose tinted.
The only thing, but this may be relevant in all major cities now, is the total addiction to phones. Only I had data when out and about so she used her phone sparingly and only for photos. I used mine for train info and google maps but emails were off and it was utterly liberating to bowl around cities and the country not worrying or being glued to it. Japan as a whole was among the worst I've seen for people being buried in phones.
#85
Re: Japan
Thanks. It's a joke how cool it is.
The conformity got me at first, everyone following the rules but you soon realise that Tokyo (and other cities) need it. Everyone playing by the rules and following the paths and standing in line means it works and can work well.
Yet...I never found it sucked the fun out of anything. Maybe that's rose tinted.
The only thing, but this may be relevant in all major cities now, is the total addiction to phones. Only I had data when out and about so she used her phone sparingly and only for photos. I used mine for train info and google maps but emails were off and it was utterly liberating to bowl around cities and the country not worrying or being glued to it. Japan as a whole was among the worst I've seen for people being buried in phones.
The conformity got me at first, everyone following the rules but you soon realise that Tokyo (and other cities) need it. Everyone playing by the rules and following the paths and standing in line means it works and can work well.
Yet...I never found it sucked the fun out of anything. Maybe that's rose tinted.
The only thing, but this may be relevant in all major cities now, is the total addiction to phones. Only I had data when out and about so she used her phone sparingly and only for photos. I used mine for train info and google maps but emails were off and it was utterly liberating to bowl around cities and the country not worrying or being glued to it. Japan as a whole was among the worst I've seen for people being buried in phones.
#86
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Joined: Jan 2015
Posts: 3,520
Re: Japan
The phone is bad, agreed. I have been focussing on reducing my dependence on the phone. It's hard because at the same time I'm increasing my dependence on it in different ways.
I'm off to Scotland this Thursday night for a week's trekking on Skye and the islands and my goal is to not use the phone beyond a quick look in the AM and in the late PM, assuming there is even connection. And I'm hoping there isn't. We're camping and staying in bothys so there won't be wifi.
* this is the only advantage I can see to camping/bothys in a cold, damp, wet, windy climate.
I'm off to Scotland this Thursday night for a week's trekking on Skye and the islands and my goal is to not use the phone beyond a quick look in the AM and in the late PM, assuming there is even connection. And I'm hoping there isn't. We're camping and staying in bothys so there won't be wifi.
* this is the only advantage I can see to camping/bothys in a cold, damp, wet, windy climate.
The only thing, but this may be relevant in all major cities now, is the total addiction to phones. Only I had data when out and about so she used her phone sparingly and only for photos. I used mine for train info and google maps but emails were off and it was utterly liberating to bowl around cities and the country not worrying or being glued to it. Japan as a whole was among the worst I've seen for people being buried in phones.
#87
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Joined: Feb 2011
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Re: Japan
The phone is bad, agreed. I have been focussing on reducing my dependence on the phone. It's hard because at the same time I'm increasing my dependence on it in different ways.
I'm off to Scotland this Thursday night for a week's trekking on Skye and the islands and my goal is to not use the phone beyond a quick look in the AM and in the late PM, assuming there is even connection. And I'm hoping there isn't. We're camping and staying in bothys so there won't be wifi.
* this is the only advantage I can see to camping/bothys in a cold, damp, wet, windy climate.
I'm off to Scotland this Thursday night for a week's trekking on Skye and the islands and my goal is to not use the phone beyond a quick look in the AM and in the late PM, assuming there is even connection. And I'm hoping there isn't. We're camping and staying in bothys so there won't be wifi.
* this is the only advantage I can see to camping/bothys in a cold, damp, wet, windy climate.
But out and about with someone or doing something or having dinner, forget it.
Even out and about on your own where there are things to see and take in, forget it.
Enjoy Scotland, I reckon it will be lovely this time of year....maybe stock up on some 50% deet jungle formula?
#88
Hit 16's
Joined: Mar 2010
Location: Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine
Posts: 13,112
Re: Japan
Great review, Scamp.
#89
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Joined: Jan 2011
Location: Dubai
Posts: 3,467
Re: Japan
I'm off to Scotland this Thursday night for a week's trekking on Skye and the islands and my goal is to not use the phone beyond a quick look in the AM and in the late PM, assuming there is even connection. And I'm hoping there isn't. We're camping and staying in bothys so there won't be wifi.
* this is the only advantage I can see to camping/bothys in a cold, damp, wet, windy climate.
* this is the only advantage I can see to camping/bothys in a cold, damp, wet, windy climate.
As for the weather you never know up there..... I have had superb weather the last few times I've been back and August is often one of the better months.
Great advice. Skye and Mull are the worst I've ever seen for midges, although September is normally the worst month so you may get away with it. I'd still take one of those head net things and something to allow you to cover your skin just in case. They are the most annoying things in the world.
#90
Re: Japan
Spent 2 years on Skye building that awful bridge 25 years ago . Great place to see and get around .The local Jockanese are as mad as a bag of ferrets .
Those Midges will eat you alive , seen nothing like it .
Those Midges will eat you alive , seen nothing like it .