April 20 to May 3, 2025
9 Day Classic Japan and additional 4 nights to visit the Osaka Expo 2025
Joy
Flight DAB to ATL to Tokyo (14 hour flight). Then Kansai Airport to ICN (Seoul) (13 hours)to ATL to DAB
This trip was quite the stressor!
- The trip was originally requested my travel partner, Tom, because of the Osaka Expo 2025. He had gone to the world’s Fair in Osaka with his parents 55 years prior.
- Joy decided to join our tour. She and I would take a Japan tour (Tom had already done so) and we would meet Tom in Osaka to see the Expo.
- That involved being in Japan on our own after the gate1 Travel Tour, needing to get the expo tickets, getting a hotel, and transfers from hotels to hotels. So Joy and I got a travel agent. After all was said and done, it turned out well, but it was like pulling teeth to get what we needed and it put me in a stress zone.
- Joy and I paid our bill crossing our fingers it would work out, and 30 minutes later we got an email from Tom stating that his wife was ill and he had to cancel the tour. Joy and I decided to go anyway.
- The three private car transfers were never a sure thing — very vague wording, but we were told they would email us the day before. Now THAT’S trust.
- I felt very high maintenance in INSISTING we get private car transfers from city to city and hotel to hotel even though EVERYONE said how EASY the trains are. HUH!! After taking the trains, realized the transfers were worth it, at twice the price!
We flew DAB to ATL and then 14 hours to Tokyo. I think I had an empty seat next to me.
The drink cart hit my armrest and knocked the entire plastic holder to the floor where I watched juice pour out over the floor and my shoes and bottom of my pants. The flight attendant from the other side had just handed me TWO glasses of red wine, so I didn’t care in the least — let me have the wine, eat the meal and sleep!! I got about 4 bad hours of sleep.
Later there was a call for nurses and doctors and I could see ahead near the bathroom where attendants were scurrying all over. A woman got her leg stuck in the blanket when she got up, stumbled and hit her head next to Joy’s seat and remained on the floor. Apparently she lived. There also was more turbulence than I like.
That’s a lesson to wear closed-toed shoes and high sox and never, never go barefoot on planes. In that one flight you had juice and blood and you KNOW those floors never get a carpet cleaning!
We flew from Atlanta diagonally across the entire U.S., Canada, Alaska, across the top of the world and arrived in Tokyo from the east. It was bizarre to check our FLIGHT STATUS after about 5 hours and see Duluth, MN on the map. Note the time at the top of the second picture — a mere 11 hours and 55 minutes left in the flight. AAUUGGHH! And 4,550 miles left to fly.
Coming home, we flew from Seoul east, across the top of the world, but swung over the ocean the entire trip and flew over San Francisco and straight across to Atlanta. Again, more turbulence than I like. Joy got her meal just before they stopped serving until it was smoother.
Entry into the country was automated. Scan your passport, the QR code we completed at home, put your index fingers on the glass for fingerprint check, take a photograph and we were good to go.
We arrived, tired, at the airport and were introduced to the efficiency of Japan. They had 20 “Disneyland” back-and-forth narrow lanes and what is usually a slow turtle crawl to immigration, was walking so fast, we didn’t have time to put away our paperwork. WOW!
And of course the dipshit young male driver was too lazy to hold the sign with our names on it, so it caused some stress, but worked out.
Beautiful Hotel!! Nothing to complain about like I did in Morocco. My room number was 777 (Jessie’s lucky number).
Had our meeting. Two women traveling alone found out they each were born in the Philippines. Debbie had already been on a OAT (Overseas Adventure Tours) of Japan immediately before joining our group.
We were surprised with dinner. (I guess we should read our itinerary.)
The meal included everything Japanese. Raw tuna, ginger salad, tempura, boiled beef, noodles, miso soup, vegetables and a matcha dessert. Debbie took my tuna and I took her desserts.
Here’s the menu of a meal provided us. I usually can find enough that at least I don’t go hungry.
What I saw outside my room. It’s the Tokyo Tower.
Just as beautiful in the daytime.
WOW!! 10,000 yen!! But it’s worth about $70.
Senso-ji Temple. Senso-ji is the oldest temple in Tokyo and also called Asakusa Kannon. It is known throughout Japan. This important center of worship draws 30 million visitors every year.
Insense burns as people put the insense sticks into the sand. You are to direct the smoke toward what ails you. (I tried to send it to my back.)
Imperial Palace and the outside and inside moats used to protect the palace. The stone bridge is the famous Nijubashi Bridge.
I always like to take pictures of policemen that we are not allowed to photograph.
The city is full of these walkway squares used for blind persons. The long lines are for ‘walk’ and the dots mean ‘stop”.
I never saw a blind person walking.
This was at an elementary school and the students had apparently hand made these items before attaching them to a rock. ???
This is the beginning of the Meiji Shrine in a forested area in the middle of the city as a shrine to the first emperor of Imperial Japan.
Note their writing is vertical.
The world famous cherry blossoms!! We were told we would miss the blossoms; but saw quite a few on our journey.
Visitors in kimonos to the shrine. People rent them to use for the day.
On the left are empty sake canisters. Not to be outdone, the other side holds barrels of wine.
Wisteria!! I love it. The color. the hanging flowers.
These are all over the park and are lighted at night.
So sweet.
They love pine trees; but think they need to be trimmed (like they do bonsai trees).
This is a drive-up car blessing station. Our tour Guide Rumi did not get her car blessed and she had an accident with it. After that, she got her car blessed.
A school outing.
We washed our hands before going into the temple.
Interesting that the swastika on the green barrel is not considered Nazi; but Buddhist. However when I looked up the Nazi swastika, it looks exactly the same to me. 😳
Wow. Those boys have to be in great shape!!
Japan is into its vending machines. Every type of drink you could want. They are marked ‘cold’ or ‘hot’. In the winter there are many more hot drinks. I think it’ll take a credit card also.
We learned how to make a wish. …and there it as in print. The shinto have 8,000,000 Gods and Buddists have only one God (Buddah). So you clap to get the attention of some of the millions of Shinto Gods. In a Buddhist Temple, no need to clap because there is only one God and he is supposedly already paying attention to your request.
The Japanese have A LOT of superstitions. This one is for 100 yen (75 cents) you shake a can of chopsticks; select one; read the number on it; go to the drawers and pick the drawer with number from 1 – 100. It will give you a great luck, good luck, slightly good luck, etc. or a bad fortune (kyo). If you don’t want to take the bad fortune with you, you are allowed to tie the bad one to the wire and leave it behind.
Protector of the temple. Sad it has to be covered in chicken wire.
Tokyo skyline.
This is a story I’ve heard before. A dog used to go the train station every day with his master. And every da he would come back to the train station to meet his master after work. The master died at work. But the dog continued to come to the train station awaiting his master for the rest of the dog’s life. The people at the train station made a statue of the dog. People come from all over to get a picture of it.
And you can see they rub its legs, since the patina is all worn off that part.
Thought this was ingenios at a restaurant — they have a drawer with ‘napkins’ and chopsticks.
Napkins have much to be desired in Japan. They are really just little Kleenex. However, they often hand out individual wet wipes — sometimes very nice, almost cloth ones — to wash your hands on. It balances out the crummy paper napkins they have.
The first meal Joy and I had to find on our own was a little hole in the wall. Joy wanted sushi — but the kind you get in the U.S. What they call sushi in Japan is really sashimi — a little rice, with a little wasabi with a small piece of raw fish on it. What Joy knew as sushi was called a roll and found in the appetizer section. It took us until the end of the trip to figure this out.
I ordered cooked shrimp sushi and got 2 pieces of RAW shrimp. Ugh! No one seems to speak English which surprised me. Most every other country teaches English in school. Even the high school girls don’t speak English. But he was cooking in front of us. He took his torch (like what you use to make cream Brule) and torched my shrimp and than it was great. And quite inexpensive.
This is a sandal from a God. People were crawling and jumping up to get a touch of it. So they felt it was safer to put a small sandal lower so that people could rub it. More superstition.
Black Sesame ice cream sandwich (Kurogoma).
My nail color is what I call Dorothy’s ruby slippers red.
Crowds in The Scramble!!
These 6 streets come from the train and others streets and converge in this area and they call it The Scramble. The joke is that no one ever runs into each other. Just chaos.
CLICK.
More to come! But no wild mountain eBike rides, like New Zealand.