cyphomandra: boats in Auckland Harbour. Blue, blocky, cheerful (boats)
Sunday 8th Jan

Sunday morning involved doing a lot of laundry at the hotel, and then leaving my kids with my sister’s family and heading out to meet up with [personal profile] nnozomi! We started with sushi at a delicious sushi train restaurant in Kyoto Station, and then wandered through the streets chatting and looking around. We eventually ended up at another cafe selling tea & scones & apple pie (I had the caramel apple pie), and then coordinated meeting up with everyone else on their way to Nijo Castle before [personal profile] nnozomi went back home. It was great meeting her and ambling around Kyoto, and I will now be staring at her photos of Japan even more wistfully.

The rest of the day. )

Monday 9/1

I rounded my lot up and out and we made the 8.38 train from Kyoto. I panic-bought a large quantity of food from a French bakery in the station and then remembered after we sat down that you weren’t allowed to take food into Universal Studios, so we would have to eat it all on the train. This was not entirely successful. We had to change twice to get to Universal City (at Osaka and at Nishikujo) but it was all very organised with another train waiting for us on the adjacent platform, and we were inside the park by 9.30 with only minimal queuing.

Universal Studios )

Universal versus Disney - if I had to pick one to go back to, it would be DisneySea, closely followed by Universal. I liked the food best at Universal (next time I go to Disney I am booking restaurants when the bookings open a month out) and they had some great individual rides as well as Nintendo World, but DisneySea was just so strong with its theming. There is a massive expansion at DisneySea due to open in 2024 - Fantasy Springs, which includes Frozen stuff - so maybe then if things work out.

Next up: kimono in Kyoto, and back to Tokyo
cyphomandra: (balcony)
It has not been the best couple of weeks as my house turned out to be flood-damaged (still waiting for insurance assessment), my mother is quite unwell, and for some reason all three of the work projects I am doing with various difficult personalities have had terrible meetings where my esteemed colleagues behave like belligerent toddlers, only without the hope that they will one day grow out of it. Anyway. Back to Japan (I wish).

On Friday we took the Shinkansen down to Kyoto - travelling with my parents but separately from my sister and her family, who left a bit later. We used JRail passes to book the shinkansen and specifically asked about booking seats where you can put oversize baggage behind them, having had issues in the past, and because I had chosen to travel with one very large suitcase & individual carry-ons. The staff said that this wasn’t currently necessary (cue foreshadowing).

Mostly travelling. )

Saturday

Foolishly I had not picked up anything for breakfast the night before. We went over to the station and (with some difficulty) tracked down a French bakery I’d seen the day before, where you could buy miniature danish pastries by weight. My daughter got increasingly grumpy the longer we took, and as she was wearing snow boots her disapproval manifested via very loud stomping.

Anyway. )

Coming up; meeting [personal profile] nnozomi, the manga museum, and a castle. And then another theme park.

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cyphomandra: fractured brooding landscape (Default)
cyphomandra

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