hakone

As i wrote in a post last week, i went to Hakone with Katie last weekend for a girl's onsen holiday.

We met up at odawawara in the morning and then took the train up to hakone.

our first stop on the trip was yumoto-hakone town. we walked around looking at the town, river, food etc and then got on the local railway to go up to the town where our hotel was, ohiradai.

our hotel was not exactly what we were expecting for $100 a night, but it was still ok. and we were to find out later that the food and the onsen made up for the pockey little room.

after that it was lunch and then to the Hakone open air art museum. you will see in my pictures that its really cool. the whole park is the museum and there are so many hands on art works to play with. kids would love it!

then it was back to the hotel and on to the yummy food and great onsen. actually the onsen was not inside the hotel. you got changed in to your yukata and walked outside up a small alley to a different building. the onsen was inside a small garden and youhave it all to yourself.

the next day we took the railway up to gora. we missed the cabel car up the mountain by 1 minute and even though it was still on the platform, the guy at the station wouldnt let us in. so we walked up hill to the next stop to catch it from there.

which was a good idea cause we found a really cute cafe and photography museum beside the next station. we wouldnt have gotten off there if we hadnt missed the train so it was worth it.

then it was up the hill and a transfer onto the cable car. it took us across the valley to a sulfer onsen where they cook hard boiled eggs in teh water cause its so hot.

we ate 3 each because its said that each one will add 7 years on to your life span..

we couldnt get on the next part of rope way because they were doing work on it, so it was onto a crowded bus to catch the pirate ship ferry across the lake. the view was great but the weather was getting bad and it started to rain while we were on the boat.

we ran over quickly to a restaurant for lunch cause we had no umbrellas. by then it was getting late and time to head home. ibaraki is a long way from hakone...

i took a bus back to odawara and katie went the other way back to numazu. the bus company was a bit annoying because the bus i panned to catch didnt stop cause it was too full and the bus katie wanted to catch just drove straight past her..

eventually we both got home and it was a great trip even with the rain and bad transport. we have planned another girl"s onsen trip for dec

here are my photos

Katie's photos and blog


one of the sculptures in the museum.

ahega halloween

like last year, we all got dressed up to go to ageha (the biggest nightclub in asia) to go to the halloween party.
you cant take a camera inside the club, so i didnt take one at all, but april did and here are her photos

april's photos

we all met up before hand and had dinner (all dressed up) at coco's and then took a train and drove a bit to get there by 11.30pm

the place is huge but its also packed with people. we all tried to stay together but lost everyone at some point.

lots of great costumer. i was an angel, good old 100 yen shop for the wings and a left over halo from last year.

we left at around 4am, and for some reason it took 5 hours to get home when it should have only taken 2.5....

needless to say i was wrecked today and havent done anything useful apart from sleeping, have a nice long bath and watching a dvd..

i will put more photos up when the others who went too put them on line.

mobile phone number portibility

people often think of japan as the home of technology..
but they have only just introduced the system of being able to move your mobile phone number to a different carrier today!

how long have we been able to do that in australia?
all the phone companies here are now worried about the competition this will create, but really they have had it easy up till now. time to start thinking of the customers .

vodafone (now called softbank) have now announced that they will be putting free calls to other vodafone users into their plans. and that they will be matching any price drop by the other 2 big companies by 200 yen discounts within 24 hours of any announcement.

i will be interested to see how this plays out...
hopefully they will put in price caps like australia..

end of the week!

its the end of the week and i have 15 mins left till home time. its hard to get motivated to do anything productive when you only have 15 mins left. after i leave the office i will be off on a train to chiba to see tom (that's where his tournament is this week), and then tomorrow morning i am off to hakone (the first time is 7 years) to go onsen-ing with katie

the last time i went to hakone was in high school when josh came over to visit. we took the train, the cable car, the rope way, the pirate ship and then hitched a ride to our hotel from a very full car.

this time round we will use all the kitchy transport options again, but will stay in a slightly nicer place with an onsen and meals (youth hostels are great and all but you know..)

have charged up my camera so i should get some good shots to put up here next week. the weather has been weird here today, kind of misty and dark. i hope the weather is good enough to se fuji. i wonder if any of the leaves have begun to go red and orange.. will find out tomorrow i guess

today my building where i work smelt like op shop. you know that old musty smell of second hand clothes? the reason it smelt funny was the 100 or so old ladies dressed up in their kimono's doing something with green tea in the meeting rooms next door. i am sure they must only get their kimonos out once a year... all those moth balls

the train to the fireworks in tsuchiura smelt the same last week. it has begun to get cold at night and i think everyone got their coats out of storage as the fireworks went late into the cool night.. it was hard to breathe on the train though.

i never realised autumn was so stinky. perhaps in australia it doesnt get cold all at once and there is no mass moth ball-ridden coat usage to create such a stong smell.

only 8 weeks till stinking hot melbourne instead!

long awaited update

i have finally had a day off when i can do the things i want to. right now i am sitting in the starbucks in mito with my laptop and relaxing. i should be at work, but as i had to work at the un-godly hour of 5.30am on sunday morning, i have decided to take a long awaited day off.

i looked back at this blog and realised the last time i did a real update was august 17th! thats not good at all. since then i have done so much.

- visited sakado (my old town where i was an exchange student) to see their yosakoi festival and introduce tom to the family.
- started going to pilates classes
- picked up more new JETs from tokyo orientation
- been to a PA conference in tokyo
- visited kawaguchiko to see tom and drop Scott off at the base of mt fuji. no way was i going to climb it again..
- been to a few golf tournaments
- had katie over to visit in mito for the weekend
- been to a soccer game
- went to a amazing taiko concert (the finalle was great cause the buff guys were only wearing loin cloths)
- went to the japanese equivilant of a wiggles concert (a friend was performing in it)
- did a few world caravan visits
- judged a mormon speech contest (dont ask)
- helped tom show his mate Ash around Mito and tokyo
- met the emperors son
- made a speech in front of 1000 people, including the prince
- set up a booth at the ibaraki festival at 5.30am on sunday (the weather cancelled the set up day and the first day of the festival)
- survived crazy wind and rain
- visited sakado again to drop tom off there for the week. he will stay with the kitos as the tournment this week is only a 10 min drive from there.

ok, got it all out. will try to post more regularly from now on...