WE WAKE TO THE SIGHT OF SNOW FALLING, BEAUTIFUL.
18.12.2024
I haven’t seen snow falling this heavily for a long time. I absolutely love the silent, mesmerising, picture show that nature produces. It’s magical.
Mami was up at 5.30am while I was still asleep. She loves the onsen and I think that is the only thing on earth that would ever tempt her to get up that early. On the other hand, I got up at 7.00am after a refreshed and glowing Mami returned.
We hit the buffet breakfast around 7.30am. Have a look at the pictures of the trays of food that Mami and I sampled. What you won’t see is a new concoction that I invented right here. It consisted of half filling a bowl with breakfast cereal and replacing the milk with something way more nutritious …. soft serve ice-cream!!l Delicious and soooo healthy!!
After I had emptied the soft serve ice-cream machine, we headed back to our room to clean up and pack our bags. The hotel’s bus then took us to the Echigo Yuzawa station where we caught the shinkansen to Tokyo.
I am currently writing the blog while travelling at 312 kph as we zip along through tunnels, kilometres long, plunging us into a world of darkness for several minutes at a time. The rule here in building something is to go the most direct route. If that means tunnelling through a series of mountains, then that is what they do. That’s also why they have the most vast and efficient railway system in the world.
Our journey on the shinkansen came to an end when we arrived at Ueno station. Ueno is a close suburb of Tokyo and has a huge market place, Ameyoko Market, which sells everything from meat, seafoods and fruit and vegetables to clothes, bags, cases, shoes and heaps of other stuff. Ueno is also an easier station to navigate as it is nowhere near as busy and hectic as Tokyo station.
We did not buy anything this time at Ameyoko market, as the prices of most things were not what we considered to be the same as other shops. This did not worry us as our main aim for being in Ueno was to visit a cat cafe. We must be missing Tilly and Yuki and were craving contact with cats.
It cost us roughly $25 for both of us to stay half an hour which was a bit steep but we soon overcame that when we started patting the cats. I wasn’t overly impressed with the young people who were working there as only one of them appeared to really like the job. The visitors on the other hand, including Mami and I, loved being there around the cats.
Our need to pet a cat was sated, so we made our way back to Ueno station and again avoided Tokyo station and made our way to Yokohama which is 36km south of Tokyo, Yokohama is where we will be staying for the next two nights at another Comfort Inn. And in answer to the question I’m sure you’re all pondering, I will not be drinking their coffee!!
Once we were settled in, Mami and I went for a walk to the harbour area of Yokohama. They were putting on a light show at the harbour which Mami wanted to see. Unfortunately, the light show was a little underwhelming, but we did manage to take some nice shots of the city and the ferris wheel which were also lit up.
We started our walk back to the hotel but stopped at a wonderful looking Tully’s Cafe. It is definitely the best Tully’s we’ve ever been too. It reminded me of the way the old Melbourne Post Office was given a makeover and repurposed as a high end fashion shop. Have a look at the photos Mami took and you’ll see what I mean.
From Tully’s we went to Ootoya restaurant, which is a small food chain which can be found in other major cities. Really healthy, tasty food for $20 … and that was for the two of us. Again, take a look at the photos Mami took of the meals. Really great value for money. It is often our go to place when available.
We grabbed a latte at Starbucks and a few snacks at a convenience store then made tracks to the Comfort Inn. Our room is more spacious than the last one and cleaner and better set out. We are hoping (dreaming more likely) the breakfast is of a similar higher standard. That might be asking a bit too much but we will leave our judgement for tomorrow’s blog.
Good Night.
