Back in Tokyo

Tokyo

The next day we woke up had breakfast and then went off to catch a three-hour train back to Tokyo. The hotel we were staying at called Shangri-La was right next to Tokyo Eki which is how you say Tokyo station in Japanese. I think we were all pretty tired so that night we just stayed in our room and got room service for dinner. When we finished we went to bed.

The next day we went to a David Bowie exhibition for my Dad and he thought it was interesting, I thought it was a bit boring. When we got out my dad bought some merchandise and then we went back to the room. Some how he bought several copies of the same thing, even though you weren’t meant to.

We had afternoon tea at the Horizon club and then we went to Shabuya via train to see the scramble at night. There were a lot more people there at night than when we went during the day. We had dinner near the scramble. We had tempura and sashimi for dinner. When we finished dinner we went back to our hotel room then went to bed.

The next day we had a fancy breakfast. When we finished our fancy breakfast, we went to the Imperial Palace and looked around we also took some more cool panoramas. There were huge walls everywhere made out of stones that weighed many tons. Then when we finished looking around we went to look for a street that was decorated for spring, and surprise surprise there was a little temple near by. After that we went back to the hotel, my Dad and I went for a swim. It was a bit creepy because one of the people that worked at the hotel watched us to make sure we didn’t do anything wrong. Plus the drain made a noise that sounded like some kind of monster. Once dry we went back to our room and ate at the hotel for dinner.

The next day we had breakfast and then packed for ages it took a while because it was hard to fit everything in our suitcases.

We caught a train to the airport and found the QANTAS lounge and then here we are right now… waiting for the plane.

Osaka

The next day we woke up and went to the train station. We waited over an hour for our train even though the train trip only went for thirteen minutes. When we arrived, we checked out our room and then went for a walk. We went to this small temple called Hozenji temple which had a statue of a grass man and people were meant to splash little bits of water on him. Next, we went to Dotonbori street which was really big and had lots of people we ended up getting dinner there. The dinner was nice it was one of those places where they cook in front of you. When we finished, we had a bit of a look around and then went back to our room and went to bed.

On the second day we walked around a bit and my Dad went to a couple of record shops. We also went to this lame animation store. We also walked into a temple that had a huge dragon head thing. After we looked around for a while we went back to our room and had lunch. Then we went to a Sumo Wrestling tournament and it was so exiting they stamped their feet before each round to clear away the evil spirits and they threw salt on the ground. The head referee had a knife so if they made wrong decision he would stab himself… apparently. I said if they did that in the A-league there would be a lot of death. The point in sumo wrestling is for two fat guys try to slap and push of flip their opponent to get them either out of the circle that they wrestle in or off their feet. One of the interesting matches was this Yoshi guy against someone else. Yoshi was just about to get pushed out of the circle but then he flung the other guy over his head who weighed about 30-40 more kilos than him. After the tournament ended we went back to our room had dinner and then went to bed.

On the next day, my mum and I went to universal studios we went on so many rides but my favourite ride was The Flying Dinosaur. Basically, you get picked up by a dinosaur which means you are looking straight down and then you go crazy and do loads of loop de loops and crazy things. Another cool ride was called Jurassic Park: The Ride. This was set up so you were on some sort of official water tour looking at the dinosaurs in their natural habitat. Then you end up “accidently” going into the restricted area. There are to Dilophosaurus squirting poison at you (which was actually water) and then at the end there was a big T-rex and you go through his legs and then down a water fall. It was really fun a lot of people screamed. My mum did something a bit cheeky, we had tickets to go on the Harry Potter ride at four thirty but my mum said the we had a flight back to Australia so they let us go on the ride early. We also went on this crazy ride where you were facing one way but instead you went backwards. When we got back to the hotel I told my dad all about the rides. Then we had dinner and then went to bed.

Kyoto Photos

 Dad and I at the beginning of Inari mountain

Dinner in Gion 

 Green Tea Ice-Cream

Meat on a Stick 

Toilet bowl instructions 

Night in Kyoto 

Me 

Outside of the buddhist temple 

One of the streets close to Gion 

Geishas! 

View from the river 

Inari 

At the top of Inari 

Super Smile!! 

At the temple and shrine near the hotel

Kyoto

The next morning, we woke up, had breakfast and caught a train to from Tokyo Station to Kyoto which took just under 3 hours. The train could travel up to about 500 km/ph. If you mix up the letters in Kyoto you get Tokyo. When we got to our hotel we looked at our room and dropped off our bags. The room was really cool with a big wooden bath. We left the hotel and started to explore Kyoto. We walked across a bridge down a river until we reached an old area called Gion. We saw these people called Geishas which are rare to see. The streets were old fashioned, there were old shops and no cars. After we walked around for a while we saw a couple of Geishas. Afterwards we went to look for dinner. After about half an hour we found a place to have dinner. The dinner was really good, I had the teriyaki set. After we had dinner we walked back to our hotel room along the river and went to bed.

On the second and last full day we got up early and had breakfast western breakfast which was more Japanese that western. When we finished breakfast, we went back to our room to brush our teeth. Then we walked to a Buddhist Temple that had over 1000 angel statues, 28 warrior gods and one huge Buddha. When we finished walking around there we went to a big sacred mountain called Inari. The pathways were really cool they had big orange frames around them.  When we got to about halfway up the mountain my mum said she’ll just wait and let us go to the top because of the problem with her leg. The walk to the top was really long. When we got to the top we had a really good view from everywhere. My dad took a couple of photos and then we went back down. When we found mum we went back to the bottom of the mountain. When we finally got to the bottom we went to a little street with small shops on it and ate some street food on a stick. One of the interesting things we ate were octopus balls called Takoyaki. On the way back to the hotel we went into two more temples one of which my mum didn’t go into. Then my dad and I went back into the hotel room and sat around for a while and then ordered room service and got pizza. After we had dinner we went to bed.

While we have been travelling around we have been counting how many steps we have done every day and on that day I put my Dad’s phone in my pocket and I got 30,183 steps!

Photos from Asakusa and Ginza

Heading towards Tokyo Skytree

 Shops full of fake food

Crazy tours 

 Dad and I in Asakusa

 Ready to eat Okonomiyaki

Ona random old slide 

At the Senji Shrine 

Sushi Train  

Family 

 Our traditional Ryokan

 Senji Shrine

Old Rollercoaster  

 On a boat

In the Gardens  

In the gardens 

View from Tokyo Skytree 

Our beds in the Ryokan 

 In a virtual world

On the old bus boat