No words can describe our evening’s entertainment – the videos don’t show the colour, the chaos or the craziness nearly enough. Yes that is a panda riding a rhino being chased by a monster.
What the…..
////Model train bar
//For anyone who has stumbled on the NHK Japanese TV app on your Apple TV you might have seen Japan Railway Journal, a great show about Japan’s fantastic railways, we watch it all the time. It’s sometimes filmed in a bar with a train set, so we had to visit. This bar took over an hour to find it was hidden behind a solid door five floors up. There wasn’t even a Japanese sign outside (that we could see) we did a process of elimination and a lot of help from Google Maps. It was a weird experience inside, just the two of us and the bartender who liked playing with his trains just a bit too much. Even the toilet had a train theme.
I’m sure it must be tasty
//This contraption is out the front of one of the cafes and it is used to dry fish, not the most pleasant of smells. But i’m sure it could be worse.
Nissan on The Ginza
//Nissan have just opened their brand new showcase store on the best corner in Tokyo. The display featured a pretty impressive robot milling machine and a pretty cool concept sports car. Sony took over the top 5 floors with displays of all their products.
The Don does Tokyo
//Pres Trump is in town and security around the city is out of control with police road blocks on many of the roads. Most of the police look about 19 years old and don’t appear to have much idea, but they sure look good from a distance. Power poles are adorned with Japan and USA flags and the whole place is neat and clean. A helicopter is buzzing above and has been all day keeping a watch on things below.
We didn’t get to see the dear leader this time, he was to busy fixing failed foreign policies of previous presidents, telling everyone about his tremendous work in making America great again and reminding everyone crooked Hillary is corrupt all while trying out the 2020 Olympic golf course.
Tokyo bound
//It’s Sunday morning and it’s off to Tokyo for the last leg of our trip. Once again we take the bullet train for the two hour 20 minute trip. The train staff are once again as polite as ever bowing overtime they enter and exit our cabin. Each of the trains have 16 carrages with 100 people in each and travel up to about 260km. Train leaves Osaka for Tokyo about every 4 minutes.
Beary Christmas
//We woke up and left the hotel and much to the delight of someone a huge bear themed Christmas display had been installed overnight
Kyoto’s main market
//Plenty of interesting things to see here, with hundreds of shops selling just about everything. The food is the most fun with weird and wonderful fruit and vegetables and of course the seafood. If it comes from the sea it is eaten and the bits we would toss out are often the tastiest and most sought after. Pickled vegetables were a bit thing in this market with lots of stalls selling vegetables covered in miso, salt or some other concoction.
The old Geisha district
//Next stop was a visit to some of the small lanes in what is known as the Geisha district. Being mid morning there were no Geisha about, they usually appear later in the evening to head to their fine dining establishments where they work. The narrow streets were lined if small cafes and other interesting shops.
Suntory Whiskey Factory
//On the way back to Osaka we dropped by the Suntory Whiskey Factory for a bit of a look. Unfortunately due to a sign saying “taking photographs of the staff for our personal pleasure” we only have photos of whiskey.
Suntory is huge, they now own Jim Beam, Makers Mark and Canadian Club just to name a few of the brands and they also control about half the soft drink market here.
Back to Kyoto
//With the railway museum taking up so much time yesterday we decided to return to Kyoto and take in a bit more of the sights. The first stop was to one of the most famous temples in the city. It was jam packed with people, with tens of thousands spending there Saturday morning visiting what was usually a tranquil place. The the temple was a striking red and there were amazing walking tracks lined with huge wooden and bamboo bridges making for a stunning view.
Leading off the temple was a food market selling some very interesting things on sticks. We settled for the fish shaped waffles. They only look fishy, they are actually filled with red bean paste or a green tea and cream mixture. They are very tasty and for about $1.50 made for a good late breakfast.
Kyoto Railway Museum
//This brand new museum was pretty cool with dozens of trains on display including bullet trains, suburban trains and around a dozen fully restored steam engines. Spread over 3 levels there were heaps of interactive displays and outdoors you could explore a old railway station and even go on a steam engine ride. Being a public holiday here in Japan today the place was busy as with kids having a ball. The gift shop was bedlam and just about impossible to get to the exit.
The video below is taken from the viewing platform on top of the museum where you had a great view of the different tracks leaving Kyoto for Osaka.
