Christmas

OK, it's a bit late, but there you go. So the first part of our story is 'us as tourists' - by us I mean, me, the Guru and the youngster and by tourists I mean just that, tourists, as the first week of our christmas holiday was spent in London doing all the touristy things one would expect.

The trip almost got off to a disastrous start for two reasons, work and the weather, but both bothersome banes were skillfully avoided by, well, being avoided. We were to fly on the last Friday of term but I, as HR personage, had a particularly difficult situation to deal with concerning a departing member of staff who had not, it must be said, personally chosen to leave. Our plan was that as soon as I got home we were to go to the in-laws in Chiba who live close to the airport, this was to make the Friday less stressful and to repack as we were borrowing a suitcase. But the surly staffer was proving annoyingly reticent to meet me on Thursday afternoon - I had to see her to explain stuff and collect paperwork from her - and as the clock ticked closer to my leaving time I still hadn't met her. So in the end, finally getting her on the phone, gave her the cunning option of popping into the office on Friday to meet one of my staff. Being lazy and useless (also the main reasons for her departure) she took this and I was off the hook. Right, home we go.

So, home, final preparations, set the alarm (the Guru had been trying to work it out for weeks) and we're off - "oh, by the way, you did the online check-in at work today, like you said you would, right...?" Er, shit, wait - 15 mins of fully justified stern looks later... "yes dear, of course I have, how could you ever doubt me?"

Station, trains, taxi, parents-in-law. Hello, quick beer, repack and it's now 10pm. Right, arrange taxi to station for tomorrow morning and then bed. Next morning, breakfast, taxi, train and Narita. I love Narita airport - lots of people hate it because, they say, it's so far out of town, but with a train that takes 36minutes to get to the centre of Tokyo, I say they're talking crap. It's big, wide, open, uncrowded, clean, cheap, well designed, helpful, friendly, works when it's snowing and, essentially, everything that Heathrow isn't.

Everything navigated nice and easily and onto the plane - this was the youngster's first real flight, he'd been to the UK before but only when he was 8 months old so obviously he couldn't remember. We were worried that he would get bored and/or hyperactive, but actually it was all one big adventure. He watched a couple of movies, read some books, did some sticking of stickers and then slept. He even ate all the food. For us more seasoned travellers it was much the same, I am glad to report, though without the stickers.

Whilst we had been flying, however, mother nature had been dropping a prodigious (for the UK) amount of snow on the south, so much so that traffic was at a standstill and the arrival committee were in serious danger of not getting to the airport on time to carry out their duties. Luckily good old Heathrow came to their aid as, even thought we landed on time, the baggage reclaim was in meltdown (or rather freeze-up) so that all but first-class luggage was delayed coming off the plane by an hour (amazing how they could only open the doors to the rich person's compartments...) Anyway this bought enough time for the family to arrive so as we wandered through the exit the welcomers walked into the arrivals hall. Cue much back-slappage and 'welcome home's. The snow flurry almost but didn't quite derail the air transport system, however the following day the snow shut everything down for about 5 days, so our leave-on-Friday plan was perfect, not only cheaper but we actually arrived on time :)

So for the next week, from Saturday to Friday (Christmas eve) we stayed in a London apartment hotel (Castletown House in West Kensington - thoroughly recommended) and went to see stuff...

Saturday - Natural History Museum - mainly for the dinosaurs but also for everything else. Excellent basement area where staff were on hand to amaze small children with experiments, microscopes and stuff like that. Well done to Marcus for stumping one of the assistants; 'what animal do you like that you want to know more about?' 'Er, maybe the Pronghorn'. 'Hmm, what's that...?' Of course it's a type of African antelope sort of thing, as everyone knows, but not, sadly the assistant that Marcus spoke to. Anyway the NHM is great, interesting and really quite cold.

Sunday - not really touristy but went to have lunch with friends south of the river. Again crappy weather but a warm welcome from very hungover hosts.

Monday - was meant to be a family get together for some photo portraitage, but the weather stumped us all so getting down to Hampshire would have been akin to a polar expedition (so we were told). So instead we went to the Tower of London. This was great but get this, the price, in big letters on the ticket office wall, was something like 17.50 per adult. This, I felt, was quite a lot, but then, in very small print underneath it said 'This includes a voluntary donation of 2 quid.' Well excuse me, but I do feel a voluntary donation is, in essence, me offering, not the ToL automatically deducting! So naturally I refused to pay, I mean really. I was happy, though, as even though the youngster was 5 and the price list said '5 and over: 12 quid' (a blummen rip off as well), the nice lady let him in for free. The Tower was great, lots to see, hardly anyone there due to christmas and bad weather, Henry VIII's suit of armour with enormous cod-piece, crown jewels and loads of stuff. Great but very expensive.

After that we walked across Tower Bridge and went to HMS Belfast. Marcus was really excited about this but, whilst going around, he became unnerved by the mannequins set up to show what life was like on-board ship. So much so that he had to be carried out in something of a state.

Tuesday - British Museum and the National Gallery with Uncle Julian and Cousin Charlie. So, you send someone a message saying, 'we're in Covent Garden, in a coffee shop near the Crusting Pipe, come and meet us here'. Now a normal person, on arriving at Covent Garden, would then look inside the various coffee shops near the Crusting Pipe until he had located said person to meet. Not my brother, oh no, he walks close to the Crusting Pipe and then, not seeing anyone, sits down and has a doughnut. Only when I go out to look for them as they should have arrived by now, do I find him sitting behind a coffee stall not 10m from where we were. And for some reason I get the blame for this!

Anyway the British Museum is ace, lots to do, especially the trails for the kids to follow. Marcus and Charlie had a great time together finding stuff out, though Charlie had done the trails before so helped Marcus instead. Lunch at Wagamama's (they say it's Japanese...) and then a wander to the National Gallery to look at pictures. Great day and big thanks to Uncle Julian for showing us all around.

Wednesday - Westminster Abbey (and the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben). Never been to Westminster Abbey and I must say that it was fascinating. Again expensive, about 15 quid a head to get in, but Marcus got a trail to follow and we got the audio-guide things and it was, well, really interesting. I know it's obvious but blimey it's old, there is an awful lot of history in those stones - I don't know why but it felt much, much older than the Tower of London, though they are contemporaries. Again loads to see, lots of tombs and graves and again not too full of the tourist hordes. After that a fine pub lunch we took a double-decker to Oxford Street, mainly so we could ride on the top deck and also to see the christmas lights. OK, the bus ride was fun but boy did we find where all the tourists had been hiding. Oxford St was heaving, more than heaving and basically not very nice. Night was falling so we headed home.

Thursday - Science Museum. For our last full day we headed to the Science Museum, just up the road near the NHM. Again it was excellent, interesting and informative and, most importantly, free. Also they had on workshops for kids, one about space and another about bubbles, both of which the youngster very much enjoyed. I think museums have come a long way since I was a kid and the people that run them realise now that kids are important so they have to do something to make it a worthwhile experience for them. Jolly good, I say.

Friday - we were heading to Gosport for Christmas and, after various rearrangements, we were travelling down by National Express coach from Victoria to Portsmouth. This necessitated going to Victoria, of course, and as the coach wasn't until 2pm and we had to be out at 10am, we had a bit of time to kill. Marcus was quite happy, he said, to sit in Victoria Coach Station for 4 hours, but we weren't and, as Buckingham Palace was only a shortish walk away, off we went (much to the unhappiness of small child). The guidebook said that the changing of the guard would not happen on that day as it was an odd-numbered day in December and was cold, but lo-and-behold, when we arrived they were just starting up. Now I think it's probably quite interesting to watch, certainly plenty of the Oxford St tourists had turned up, but with a whiny kid and a cold, biting wind, spirits soon sank。So we watched a bit and then departed back to the safety and warmth of a shopping centre. A spot of lunch (our one and only trip to a UK McDonald's) and then the usual scramble and confusion trying to find the right coach going to the right place, made more confusing by the fact that so many people wanted to go to Portsmouth that they laid on an extra coach which said Southampton on it. Also Guru most surprised that, though we had tickets, seats were a free-for-all as there was not seat numbering allocation ('very third world' I'm sure she muttered - I know I did).

So the journey down was slow but uneventful - the coach's purported wifi cut out about 50m from the station so our slow progress and delay could not be forwarded to family members waiting in the freezing evening at Portsmouth Hard. But arrive we eventually did, and then it was Christmas...

So then we went to Summerland

Summerland is a big water park out past Hachioji, so still in Tokyo but not in the city.

Summerland is a big place run by Japanese people for, mainly, Japanese people, but there was a surprising amount of English around so obviously there get a lot of foreign visitors there. We went on 13/14th July and I know what you’re thinking, ‘why did we go so close to, or rather in, the rainy season?’ well, it was one of those work-holiday-price-overcrowdedness questions, with the potential overcrowdedness issues of going leter in the month outweighing all other considerations. Don’t believe me, this is the large pool at ‘peak’ time:

There is a pool there, it’s just you can’t see it as it’s covered in people!

The “pool” above is their big, indoor wave pool; they also have a couple of kids’ play pools and a couple of waterslides inside; whilst outside they have more pools, more slides and an amusement park. So we got there after a journey involving not only trains but also a bus too. As I mentioned we went on the 13th and whilst this did overcome the overcrowdedness issue it failed on the nice weather criteria, being grey and wet and, as we were a little way out of Tokyo, quite cold as well – surprising, I know, for rainy season, but once you get away from the heat island effect of Tokyo’s 23 wards the temperature drops dramatically, there is tundra in Tochigi, you know… (not really).

Anyway, as we’re staying for the night we are allowed to drop our bags at the ‘lodge’ and head to the attractions. As it wasn’t really raining at this point we thought we’d try a few of the rides. Knowing that the little fella isn’t really into being scared that much we head for the gentle looking Spin Dinghy, a ride based on, if you can guess, a spinning dinghy. Apprehensive though he was we board and the ride gradually builds up spinning speed. Approximately 0.25 seconds into the ride Marcus starts to scream, a scream that lasts the rest of the ride and causes concern in parenting circles that the fella might pass out through lack of oxygen. He didn’t, I’m glad to say. With that and the prospect of the ‘Air Catapult’ looming we felt discretion was the better part of valour and headed for the pools instead.

The pools – what can I say, they were big and full of water. The first one the little fella tried was the Tropical Fruits Island, which was a bunch of little waterslides designed for the smaller members of public (e.g. children and members of the ‘under 5-foot club’). So Marcus slid, jumped, wallowed and generally had a very nice time. There was also another pool next to this that had a climbing frame and a big bucket that filled and then dumped water over everyone. Then there was the big wave pool in the picture above.

Because it was a Tuesday still in rainy season the place was pretty much empty, comparatively speaking. There was a big kindergarten group that Marcus attached himself to and played with for a while, until they disappeared somewhere else. But hordes of fun seeking holiday makers there were few, which was good as it meant we didn’t have to wait for anything. At lunchtime we did the decent thing and went for lunch. After my much documented travails with TDL I was most happy to discover that this place, as it is run by Japanese, realised that doting though fathers may be, they still like a beer with their chicken and chips, and a reasonably priced beer at that.

The evening was spent at the aforementioned ‘lodge’ – this was a bit of an odd place. To start with there were only 2 occupied rooms in the place, leaving 22 gaps, as it were. As is natural the place had a big ‘ofuro’ (lit. bath) but as there were only 2 sets of guests the lodge people decided that we, as a family could have one bath to ourselves and the other guests could have the other. OK, so even knowing this it felt weird using the ‘women’s’ bathroom because I knew, deep down, that even though I had been told I could use it, I knew I shouldn’t, not really – it was the women’s bathroom. A relaxing bath it did not make.

Dinner was taken in a dining hall with space for about 40 scoffers but with only actually 5. Vast, echo-ey spaces and all that, but at least they served beer (pet hate here (might have mentioned it before, but this one annoyed me) – went to the serving lady, who was also the front desk lady with whom I had conversed earlier, and asked in flawless Japanese, as we stood next to a poster of a bottle of Suntory Premium Malts beer, if I could have a beer, please. She looked at me, then turned to the Guru who was getting some water, and told her that they only served bottled beer, was that OK? Er, hello, I’m standing next to, asking you a simple question in Japanese that we have previously established I can speak to a reasonable degree, the least you could do is address me first and wait to see if I do the confused guppy-fish expression before asking my wife. For fuck’s sakes).

Anyway, dinner was a mostly Japanese affair, with lots of small dishes of mostly edible stuff. Nice, but not awe-inspiring. Breakfast, on the other hand was a sight to behold – it was a full on Japanese morning dining experience, that meant a bowl of grey slimy stuff, a bowl of pink slimy stuff, black slimy stuff that might have been seaweed, rice with raw egg, natto and other not so easily identifiable or digestible delicacies. Mmm. Envious glances at Marcus’ kid’s breakfast, which included toast, hash browns, a sausage, scrambled eggs and a small, pleasant looking salad. Oh well…

The rest of the day was spent in the pools, of course, but this time the weather was fine so we could use the outdoor pools as well. This was good, of course, as we could use the slides. Bit of a gripe that there were three different water slides open but 2 of them were ‘pair rides’ so 2 people had to go at the same time, but with a small child and a wife who wasn’t into water slides I had no one to go with – boo hoo etc.

And that was about it, all in all a good couple of days away, but like TDL I wouldn’t want to go there on a bank holiday Monday in August – actually to be honest there aren’t that many places that I would like to go to on a bank holiday Monday in August…

A tale of two amusement parks

Part 1 – in which our intrepid heroes visit Tokyo Disneyland

We don’t get to go away on holiday much in our house, mainly as it’s too expensive and we don’t have enough of the folding stuff. This means we have staycations, which is great as so does everyone else these days so we are being hip and trendy like other people, as opposed to being poor.

This does mean, though, that we go on a few day trips and/or ‘short breaks’ and it is to this we turn now. So, back in May Marcus had a half term holiday of 2 days and on one of those days the Guru decided she and Marcus were going to go to Tokyo Disneyland – only the two of them, you’ll note, as I had long maintained that visiting anything to do with that old racist Walt Disney was right up there with golf and Alzheimer’s – i.e. when I do it, shoot me there and then as I will have lost my marbles and I need to be retired, permanently.

Anyway that’s what I thought but, low and behold, when we told the little fella that a trip to TDL was in the offing he was mightily excited as only a 5 yr old can be but, importantly, only if both parental entities could take him along. And so, after much wheedling, I bowed to the inevitable pressure and found myself going along as well.

So we aim to get there early, around 930am for a 10am start, not too early as this is a Tuesday in May, not a national holiday and not a school or university holiday period either, so kids older than about 4 yrs should be thin on the ground as they’ll all be studying. As we approach the gates there aren’t any queues so we smile a bit say various thanks – then we get to the turnstiles and realise that today the opening time was 930, probably a bit before, and so there are people already inside. Oh, ok, then we go through and realise that it is not a few people but a shitload of people, the place is heaving!

Nowadays at TDL they have a smart queing system, so you can buy pre-booked tickets to rides so you don’t have to wait for hours in lines; this works to an extent, except you have to wait in line for hours to get the pre-booked ticket, thereby shifting the queue to a different queue. So we really wanted to go on the new Monsters Inc ride, so we rushed there along with 1/3rd of the population of Japan and waited for about 45minutes until we got our ticket for, if memory serves, about 230pm, so for 5 hours later! We went to another popular ride to see if we could pre-book that but by the time we got there the ride time was about 7pm! Er, no thanks, not staying here that late…

So after that we decided to get on some of the less popular rides, like the Star Wars one, which was really cool whizzing through the universe and had zero queue (and amusingly scared the shit out of Marcus), and Buzz Lightyear one (which had a longish queue but wasn’t too bad). Then in need to refuelling we went to some pizza place and got a couple of somewhat stiff slices of pizza and small drinks for the GDP of Vietnam.

“And can I have a beer with that?” I asked…

“A beer! Here? In Tokyo Disneyland!? What are you, some kind of demented alcoholic wife-beating child-molester?” the serving lady shouted at me (with her eyes) before calling the Pentagon and having me transported via extraordinary rendition to Fort Bragg via Rangoon, Kabul, Algiers and Panama city, where I was kept for 72 hours in a dazzlingly white room and had classic Disney songs played constantly at ear-splitting volume before being dropped naked in a lay-by near the M3. Or something like that, but the important thing was that I didn’t get a beer. A sneer, yes, but no beer – this did not make me happy. I thought about asking if they had any crack instead, but I don’t think they would have got the joke.

After that we went to see the parade – as a show this was actually pretty good, as parades go. The song and dance routines were very song-y and dance-y, though the irony of course is that all the performers looked they had taken speedballs moments before they were unleashed on the suspecting public because no-one can look that perky for that long unaided.

So what else? We went on a number of rides or attractions that, after a while, seemed to blend into one. A lot of them, like the pirates of the Caribbean and one with small furry critters were of the ‘sit in a boat and go slowly with the flow whilst looking at the vignettes’ variety, so good in that a lot of work has gone into the production, but not really that original an idea and a bit, well, dull towards the end. We also went on an Amazon ‘river’ cruise which was in a proper boat looking at not-real animals. Lunch was actually very nice with decent sized portions but cost the other arm and leg and I still couldn’t get a beer, even in a ‘proper’ restaurant.

Oh, splash mountain was good but as we didn’t have fast-track tickets we had to wait for this one and it took nearly an hour of queuing, but at least that one had a bit of oomph about it, and proper ride rather than a sit and watch stuff ‘experience’ – also it amusingly scared the shit out of Marcus again (not literally I am glad to say), but he was most proud of himself afterwards that he survived.

And that was about it – oh, except for the long awaited Monsters Inc ride, the new pride and joy of TDL. Well, remember I mentioned the Buzz Lightyear ride? In that one you were in a trolley/car thing and you had to shoot aliens that popped up and the Zarg thing as you went around – all good fun, that one. In Monsters Inc you were in a trolley/car thing and you had to shine a torch on monsters that popped up [and then something big at the end] as you went around – all pretty much the same as the Buzz ride, just with a different backdrop.

And that was the problem with TDL, it’s basically about 3 rides which are repeated with different themes, so after you’ve done them once that’s it, you’re bored. Now on a busy weekend, when you’re only going to get to do about 3 rides, this may work well (though a rip-off), but if you can squeeze in 8 or 9 things in one day (as I said, it was busy there, but obviously not that busy as we did a lot – I would hate to be there on a bank holiday Monday during Obon…) then it gets a trifle boring.
And Mickey-fucking-Mouse is everywhere.
And you can’t get a beer anywhere.
(They could make a world of difference for the better by swapping those last two around…)

So shoot me now as I have lost my marbles and I need to be retired, permanently.

And coming soon…

Part 2 – in which the courageous team head to Tokyo Summerland

I know, I know...

I *should* have gone out running last night, but as it was the end of my working week (Thursday and Friday off as it's half term) I had a few beers and watched Valkyrie instead (which was quite good even though you knew what was going to happen in the end).

So anyway I went out tonight and to make up for it I did my first 10k run. I clocked a respectable 52m 05s, which I think is respectable anyway. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it was slightly longer than 10k as there is a big dogleg over a tributary and I think the distance is measured on the river not the riverbank. We'll see on Saturday as I'll do a 10k going up the other way (with hopefully no doglegs) and see what the time is (I was hoping for a 50m or slightly under tonight).

Not good pain wise though as I have a sore left calf/Achilles (again) and the right knee feels iffy, soI'd have to put that at a 4/10, the highest for a while.

Other than that today we went to *another* park, this time one in Shinanomachi (near Shinjuku). Again this was an adventure playground stylee thing, but certainly less bucolic than Abiko Shrine on Sunday. But it was fun and the little fella had a good time. It was also, oddly, chock-full of French kids with their (French) mums. This is not a bad thing, I hasten to add, just odd as it felt like a lot of families - maybe they had arranged a big playdate (there's a weird expression, playdate, it's probably American; when I was a kid it was called 'going to your mate's house after school': I agree playdate is easier, but it sounds so...American) because the Lycee is on half term as well. I don't know, but it was nice anyway.

Then we had lunch and wandered back past other, less inspiring, parks and the, more inspiring, national stadium, (but which I'm not sure they use much anymore - it seemed a bit on the rundown side).

Tomorrow, however, is health check up day... (oh joy)

Monday night

Out again tonight, 7.3K in 36m 27s, which for that distance is pretty good so happy with the time. Felt good and right knee felt pretty stable so hopefully getting stronger there.

Didn't get the chance to go out yesterday as we went to this shrine place. It is in a place called Abiko and the reason we went there was to save the world. As I'm now writing this I think we can safely say 'mission accomplished' but in a very real way not in a rubbish way like certain former US presidents.

Well sort of. It was all about Feng Shui, which the guru is most into. You write down your wishes, work out which direction from your house is best to travel and then go to a shrine in that direction, the further the better I think, take your letter with wishes on and pray. In the end it all becomes true so fingers crossed. Naturally one of my wishes for politico types to put an end to war in the word so watch this space as it could be happening to local armed conflict near you anytime soon. Our premium direction was northeast, hence Abiko and luckily enough it was northeast for both of us - if your feng shui isn't aligned properly you have to go in different directions apparently - dashed clever the ancient Chinese monk fellows, or whoever invented it.

Anyway we went, we prayed and then I took lots of photos with my new birthday camera. Some of the shots are quite good, but I did make the mistake of leaving it on a really high ISO setting from last time so a lot of the really sharp detail has blurred a bit. Oh well, you live and learn.

Next to the shrine, which really was in the middle of nowhere (part of north Chiba) was a jolly little sort of country park thing (I mean it was little and jolly, not that it was jolly little), with open grassy spaces, ponds, a bbq area (with food supplied) and a little but super adventure playground. So after the shrine we lunched on bbq'd food and then Marcus attempted the play ground. It was great as it had about 20 big wooden obstacle things you had to crawl, jump, balance or climb in, out, through, up, down, under, over and any other prepositions you can think of. Marcus did most of them and was most chuffed by the end, as were his admiring parents. In fact we were all so chuffed we had ice creams to celebrate.

To be honest, however, dad was most chuffed by the fact it was free to get in.