Well we arrived to see the crowds milling round the entrance to watch the wrestlers come in. Most came by public transport, but one or two were in taxis. You could tell who the big names were as they seemed to have small gaggles of groupies. All nice and friendly though. Continue reading →

There is one main reason to go to Asakusa (pronounced A-sak-sa), and thatis the temple complex at Senso-Ji. This large and impressive temple is the most important Buddist one in Tokyo, and while much of it is post WWII reconstruction, some original bits still exist. Also, as per the norm, it is full of school groups, so far from serene. Continue reading →

Each year there are three Bashos or sumo tournaments in Tokyo. As luck would have it we’d arrived towards the end of the May one. Today is day 14 out of 16 and we went along hoping we’d have a small chance of some tickets. There are three classes of ‘boxes’, close to the arena, starting at 36,000 yen (~£180) each, Way beyond our spend limit and also booked up long ago (you can only book my phone or in person in Japan). There are also then seats in the gods, between 3600 yen (~£18) and 8600 yen (~£45). We weren’t concetrating and bought a pair of the latter. Here’s hoping it’s good. I’ve not watched any in 15+ years (back when Channel 4 used to show it) and even then I was not a big fan.

Werll we’ve had out first night out in Tokyo. Having wandered around the area of the hotel in the opposite direction of Akiba (Akihabara), we decided to try a modern take on an Izakaya. Yakitori, sashimi various forms of fried croquet style food, and lashings of cold sake to wash it down. A very worthy night and a place we’d happilly go back to. It might be modern, but it was friendly and popular.

JAL is an ok airline for economy class, the leg room is not too bad, but the seats are narrower than others and I found the back too hard (and as a result uncomfortable). The plane had the latest entertainment package, so movies; music; games on demand. Watched Porco Rosso, Charlie Wilson’s War, I am Legend and Monsters Inc. Continue reading →

Here I am with Pak, sitting in the Starbucks at Heathrow terminal 3, waiting to fly to Tokyo.

One thing I’ve noticed. These days all journeys seem to start and end in coffee shops …

I’ve done some minor updates for previous days, but here are the entries I forgot for Rouen ….

You remember how in Reim, Orléan and Tour we found ourselves driving on to pedestrian areas near/by hte catherdrals ? Well guess what we also managed in Rouen. This was partly down to there being road works near by that meant it was nigh on impossible to get to the hotel (we managed it in the end, but only after about 5 or 6 loops of the inner city plus a couple of pavement trips).

And yet more forgotten bits …

When we stopped for lunch, post Chenonceau, I grabbed for my packet of pastil sweets that had been sitting on the seat behind me. What I found was a solid mass. In the heat of the car, all the sweets had turned into a molten goop that merged together then hardened.

We had decided that we would look to hit a Michelin star’ed restaurant on the final night. Well Rouen has three of them, one 2 star and two with 1. Turned out the better place was closed during the 1st two weeks of August so we set off for the nearest of the other two. Les Nymphéas had a superb menu, our problem was to be narrowing down our choice. It became moot in the end as it was full. The second place, L’Écaille was primarilly a fish restaurant. I think Pak was happy here, but I struggled with their menu choices so instead we went to a local place slightly nearer the hotel. It was a very nice meal and in the end meant that we had eaten traditionally French on every night.

Having mistakingly thought the ferry back was at 17:30 rather than 16:20, we decided to lie in this morning. Even with that mistake we still should have had time to grab a lunch at the Flunch at Citée des Europe before hitting the Carefour then going to the ferry port. In the end we found ourselves increasingly running out of time. By the time we got to Calais we had under an hour so we grabbed picnic stuff at the hypermarket as well as our final shopping. Imagine our surprise, then, to arrive at the ferry terminal to discover that our ship had been delayed by an hour.

The final return leg was uneventful beyond that. In the end we worked out we had done close to 1115 miles in the round journey, consuming some thing like 65 gallons of 97/98 octane fuel.

If you’re wanting to follow the details of this holiday and are only seeing today’s entries, then you need to view my pages as tonight (our final night over here) is the first time I’ve had access since that first day.

A live update at last.

The drive to Rouen was peaceful, though after a week of barely seeing another English car, today they were every where. We picked up sallad stuff and bread on the way and had a relaxing lunch at a picnic area about 2 hours out.

On arrival we went to look through the Michelin red book for a hotel. Looks like Michelin does not rate Rouen as while there were a good few places, virtually all were at a basic level. Parking was important else we’d have to stay outside and drive in for food. There was one place – the Hotel Meridian Central, the most pricy place, but as it is the last night and previous places have been cheap, I managed to talk Pak in to it. The room is really nice, though we’ve paid the penalty for me trying to speak French. The receptionist gave us the nicest rooms on the 4th floor, and they really are nice, complete with conencting balcony, however they are out of range of the WiFi base station, so I’ve had to come down to the lobby to type this up. I did ask in reception, and could have swapped rooms, however the hassle was not worth it, plus the rooms would have been smaller and less ‘classy’.

Not sure what we’re doing for food tonight. We had talke about doing one expensive meal, however last night’s ended up being more than we originally planned, plus we’re spending more on the hotel. I have the Michelin guide next to me, and once I’ve finished being online I shall have a peruse back in my room while writing postcards.