Tokyo and Kyoto in March and April 2015 – Cherry Blossom Time
Intro by Greg, Diary Mainly by Trenna, But Bits by Greg
If you want to go straight to the diary, click here.
Introduction
The Japan Travel Diary (which was done entirely on an iPad) itself doesn’t have an Introduction. I just wanted to set a bit of context and to let you know what to expect.
By the start of 2015 we knew that Trenna’s brother’s oldest daughter was to be married in Europe and that we were invited to the wedding. Trenna and I were both keen to go, but were both acutely aware that her strength and resilience were diminishing.
For Trenna this really hit home on 4 January 2015 when we decided to go for a swim in our pool. Here is an extract from her diary
“After Dad visit, had 1st dip & swim in the pool. I gracefully slid in, dog paddle a lap to get the small inflatable ring & ¾s into lap at deep end, I started going under. No stomach muscle, scarey & exhausting as hell. Once in the shallow end with ring I was too shocked to stay in. Near death lap!”
This incident really brought home just how physically weak she was getting. We didn’t know how she would be able to cope with the 24 hours or more it would take to travel to The Netherlands for the wedding.
We figured we could do a trial by taking a trip to a closer location to see how we traveled.
Where To?
“How about Japan?” I said, “That’s quite a long way, but not as far as Europe?”
“Oh! I like that idea. What time is cherry blossom time?”
“No idea. I’ll look it up”.
If you have looked into this before, or if you live in Japan you will realise that this isn’t as easy a question to answer as it appears on the face.
However, we found the forecast date of the blooms and determined we would try to get to Tokyo for that date.
Trenna’s diary of 1 February 2015 tells the story
“G holidays Fri 27/3 - Fri 17/4. Return to work Mon 20/4. Greg & me came to an agreement on holiday & flights to Japan. $3,234.04 Flight out of Perth Fri 27/3 @ 11.55pm on Cathay Pacific - HK (3hrs stop) then JAL arrive in Tokyo Sat 28/3 @ 3.25 pm Fly out Tokyo Fri 10/4 JAL arrive KL (stop 1hr) Malaysia Airlines arrive Perth Sat 11/4 @ 00.15am.”
Of course, the other obstacle was that we were in February planning a trip to Tokyo in March, OVERWHELMINGLY their busiest time of year.
There was still some accommodation available but all the affordable rooms were very small, even by Japanese standards.
The problem with that is that we thought there was a reasonable chance that Trenna would need to spend a lot of time in the room, and a tiny shoebox, along with chronic pain, and a feeling of missing out would just be depressing.
So we settled on a 45 square metre Club room in the Capitol Hotel – The hotel The Beatles had stayed in when they toured in 1966!! Double bonus! However, it didn’t come cheap as you will see from the costings in Trenna’s meticulous Travel Diary.
About the Actual Diary
So the “Diary” was a Pages document on Tren’s iPad, or rather two documents. One for the Tokyo section of the trip and another for the Kyoto section (You will notice the “Day” numbers restart). She would try to update it each day, usually a few times a day, to try to keep on top of it.
Like all the travel diaries she and I kept when we were together we were writing them purely for our own use.
They are heavy on the exact amounts we spent and the names of places we visited. They are less about trying to paint a picture to an outside viewer.
Years later we could, and did go to the various trip diaries and I would read them out. They then served as prompts to talk about the trips and reminisce. It worked well.
They would have been written differently if they were intended for an external audience, but I still think they will hold enough interest for most readers.
I will break the entries into 4 or 5 digestible posts. Trenna’s original contained several photos from the trip but I have added a lot more that we took.
I hope you enjoy The Japan Travel Diary.
TOKYO
Day 1, Friday 27/3/15 – PACKING
We packed @ home all day it was painful, stressful, the worst part of going away I think. Or as bad as airports & planes.
AIRPORTS, FLIGHTS & TRANSFERS
We both were asked to step aside at security and one at a time go into a perspex (?), cylindrical, screening chamber. We were required to place our feet on the footprints marked on the floor, put our hands over heads whilst a red laser beam scanned up & down our bodies.
When successfully out of the chamber, we were both patted down, but were OK.
Collected our gear & then Greg was stopped to go through the bomb check, him & his bags. Did we look fishy? At least the staff who did these checks were all professional and treated us with respect.
Cathay Airlines – to Hong Kong
JAL – to Tokyo
Day 2, Saturday 28/3/15 – TOKYO
Arrive Tokyo Narita, 4:30-ish, one hour later than expected. Greg exchanged US$260 from our USA 2013 trip for ¥30,206.
We were advised by our hotel to take the limousine bus ¥3100 each, 4:51pm I watched the bags while Greg bought the tickets to the hotel. Quicker & drops us at the door.
We queued for the bus not too many people & the porters took care of our luggage stowing them into the baggage hold @ 5:40pm. When we departed the porters all bowed at a 90° angle, not standing upright until the bus had gone.
THE CAPITOL
We arrived at the CAPITOL hotel. Efficient porters & the like took care of our luggage. We were checked into room 2714, buffet breakfast, paper & club lounge included.
En route to hotel there was also road work & a detour which meant we didn’t arrive until gone 8:30p.m.
Greg went for a recce to see if he could find a place to have dinner, he couldn’t but did buy a bottle of wine ¥480 & a can of beer ¥224 at a Lawson’s convenience store.
ROOM SERVICE
We ordered room service – burgers, 1 with cheese & 1 ordinary, with fries $30 per Hamburger. Greg’s arrived, mine didn’t arrive.
Room service were astonished we wanted another! Eventually mine was brought up on a trolly table. Lots of bowing & apologising. 2 burgers & a few fries for ¥6241 (about $70), they were quite bad, so was the wine!
Day 3, Sunday 29/3/15
9:00 Breakfast. Greg noticed group of girls, one having beer for brekky. (It seems like this is an ordinary brekky as we saw a man doing likewise on the Limousine Bus going to the airport at the end of our trip.)
FACE TIME WAYNE
This morning we had a msg from Wayne. We rang & then face timed him at his suggestion, 1st time we had used it. Luckily, I did it on my phone so couldn’t see the little photo of me.
[GM (in 2022): Wayne was at Craig House at the same time as Trenna.]
I asked if we could catch-up sometime & he said he would be free Tuesday arvo to go to Shibuya with us as he had a going away party to attend there in the eve.
He suggested we go to Tokyo Tower & the Akihabara area where we could find camera stores & maid cafés. On reflection decided we could do those things tomorrow (Monday).
Orientation day. Lots of peering out the window at the Shrine below and photos of this. Obviously weddings happening.
THE LIBRARY LOUNGE (The Club Lounge of the Hotel)
Not much on offer but we did have lunch there, including Earl Grey Tea with honey.
Returned to room. After a rest we set off around 4pm to explore the local area starting with the HIE-JINJA (Shinto Shrine) that is right outside the door – albeit up some steep steps that Tren made quite heavy work of.
We took lots of snaps, barrels, brides, mothers, guy sweeping carpark. Eventually walked down the very long stairs to explore the street straight ahead that is visible from our room.
We explored the Biz Tower an arcade which had many restaurants. We looked for somewhere to eat. Several options.
At the end of the street is TBS (TV Station). There was obviously an event happening with parents and kids and we were handed gift bags & stickers. It was their 60th Anniversary gig. Looked for Shintaro, couldn’t find him.
There was a light drizzle of rain when we stopped to take photos under more cherry blossoms.
Dinner, antipasti leftovers, nuts in Library Lounge with nice white & red wine. Greg was very impressed with the men’s urinals there as they had hand rails to hold onto when you got a bit wobbly .
End of Part 1…