As a last travel post, we have listed some of the highlights of our time away.
A few days ago, we got talking about our what our favourite moments have been in our amazing 6 months of traveling. We tried to get a Top 10 together but found it far too hard to whittle down. To be honest, it was difficult getting it down to Top 20 but we felt a Top 100 might become a little bit like the blog contents page! So here it is. This is what we believe to be the best experiences we've had.
So it was our final traveling day. We got up nice and early to have another go at trying to see the world famous Tsukiji fish market. We got down there this time at 09:00 and the market was still alive and kicking.
It did look at the beginning stages of packing up though. These boys must get up pretty bloody early! We felt a little in the way but got a few good looks at the squidlings:
And some pretty massive fish. This guy is explaining how to dissect a prehistoric beast.
Next stop was to go and have a little look at the East gardens of the Imperial Palace in the middle of Tokyo. The Rough Guide gives this a good review. We hopped on a bus from the market and glided towards our destination. However, a few wrong turns and then what seemed like moving goal posts, we started to lose a little faith that the gardens were worth it. We persevered and made it into the main area. The outside moat was quite impressive. It really showed the old Tokyo and new Tokyo well.
The park was a little bit over hyped but it still had brilliant cherry blossom. We've done so well with seeing it as it's only about for about 3 weeks a year.
For lunch we wanted to return to Akihabara (the electronics district) to get Missy some new fun bright yellow headphones and an iPod cover. Oooo she was pleased with her little purchases. I bought some new headphones also (but when I got them home later I realized the cable was about 10cm long! Must be kids ones. Oh well). We had lunch at the same place as the other day as it was great food and good value.
I wanted to have one game in one of the MASSIVE arcades they have on every street corner here for the over worked population to lose themselves in. On route we run the gauntlet of maids handing out flyers for their cafes. Another escape for the male over worked population me thinks...
We got into the noisy place and went to the arcade area. To my delight there was a wall of about 10 machines with Street Fighter games from 1 through to the newest 4! I paid my 200Yen (about £1.50) and got on to delivering some whip ass via Ryu to some street fighter chumps...
After beating 4 characters on the bounce and transporting myself back to my 13 year old self, I received a banner across my screen saying "New challenger". A guy on the other side of the consoles was asking for it. He gave me a good kicking and sent me packing. But I enjoyed my brief flirting with the computer game world again.
For our afternoon treat we went to the National Museum in Ueno. After a nice walk through the park, we reached our destination. We breezed round the tasteful and pretty displays but best of all we got to play with a lot of ink stamps! We each got to try and make a kimono pattern. Ame was in heaven. I think we both indulged the kid inside today in our own simple ways.
We made our way back to the Ryokan, Ame packed and I online check-in-ed us to our BA flight tomorrow along with some blogging. We then had a lovely jacuzzi (you get 25 minutes per room per day here) and got out for our dinner out. We picked a Cambodian restaurant called "Angkor Wat" to blend our love for Japan and good old Cambodia. It seemed an appropriate final meal.
We couldn't read the Japanese menu but we impressed the waiter with our food knowledge and he recommended a set menu so we could have all the dishes we wanted. It was all wonderful and delivered in several dishes just the way the Japanese like. The food felt slightly like a fusion of Cambodian and Japanese which was interesting. All round a great meal, excellent last night out and a strange but happy revisit to a past chapter of the trip.
We returned to have a sleep before we fly back to Blighty tomorrow. We are knackered today and cannot attempt to try and sum up our thoughts and feelings about the trip tonight. Once home and back in the flat, some final thoughts will be written. But for now, just to say that the past 6 months have been an amazing whirlwind of cultures, people, nature and happiness. We have enjoyed every bit of it. And now it is time to return.
Today we had a half lazy morning and got out and about towards the famous fish market in Tsukiji. We arrived with anticipation but sadly the market was over and done with. To be fair, it was 11:00 and I think it starts at the crack of dawn so all the sushi places can get the best fresh fish. Balls. Oh well, we might have another crack at it tomorrow.
The next sight seeing today was to go to the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in the middle of the dock area built on reclaimed land (I love that phrase - like the sea nicked it or something). In order to get there we had to take this fun train over a bridge which gave brilliant views of the city in the sun.
Once on the island, we got over to the museum quick smart. Now I was particularly excited about going to the museum because it was quite geeky and I knew it would have robots. I was not disappointed. After being in there for 30 hour, after a quick lunch, we saw our first robot demonstration. This robot below is an vehicle innovation for the future that will / could be used for standard vehicles, rescue vehicles, even wheelchairs.
I pretty certain the military already have unmanned carriers like this. The beauty of this robot is it has 8 wheels which it can pivot any which way it likes. It can also be controlled by a human thousands of miles away. Pretty impressive. We managed to get loads from the demo even though it was all in Japanese.
Next, we'd booked in for free to watch a panoramic film 3D film about World Heritage sites. It was pretty impressive. About as impressive as this guy:
Then was the next Robot demo. It was a robot by Honda called Asimo (http://asimo.honda.com/). We sat down with the kids eagerly ready for the demo. He appeared from behind the screen.
He was about 4 1/2 ft tall. He confidently walked over to the middle of the stage.
I'm pretty sure he was talking to the lady demostrator but again I can't be sure because it was all in Japanese. He was so fantastic. So impressive. I'd love to be involved in creating something like this. He waved, ran and even kicked a football.
Such incredible balance. I was stunned. When you think about it, it's quite something. Honda have created something that is so close to humanoid. I was wowed.
After all that excitement, we went around the future innovation section and learnt about quantum computing, artificial photosynthesis, harnessing light energy to reduce CO2, labs-on-chips, using people as conductors for messaging technologies and using the concept of printing to "print" a TV onto a wall and then "print" back the wallpaper when finished. Exciting ideas, concepts and reality for the future.
We also had a play with the latest interactive drawing surfaces (quite like Microsoft Surface for those in the know).
One of the last cool things we did was take part in a weird activity where 7 of us were shown a little robot who had 6 legs, "ears" (speakers), a "voice" (mics) and "eyes" (camera). When we were all having a look at it two guys were given play station controls to control the robot (unfortunately not me). They had a play around and got used to moving the little robot about.
We were then shown to a larger device that we could ride which was intrinsically linked to this smaller robot. The seven of us sat inside the bigger device, were given 3D glasses and told that we would be inside the robot for 3 minutes. The two guys were then given the controls again and started to move us/the robot about. Whatever the smaller robot did we felt and whatever it faced we saw. It really felt like we were in the smaller one we'd seen outside, and in effect we were.
I think it was clever touch using Playstation controllers because it gave the impression outside that they'd just control the little robot i.e. nothing special, just like a remote control car. But inside the robot, gave this strange situation for the guys because it felt like a computer game, but there actions were delivering physical results and the consequences of their actions were felt by us "inside" the machine. What a head f*ck.
Inside the robot we shook about, heard the people outside echoing about, we traversed obstacles the staff laid down and even picked up something. At one point they put down a mirror and showed us ourselves. We were a little robot. It was so bizarre. But so much fun.
After all this intense brain activity, we needed a coffee and some cake. However, in order to be allowed this, we had to take part in an experiment. I was made a giant:
And Amy was shrunk.
It's amazing what the Japanese can do. After the cake, we returned to our normal sizes.
We returned on the fun railway to Shinbashi and headed for the dinner stop of the day, Asakusa. We came here to do a little walk and see Senso-jo (temple). Well, we saw it.
But instead got very drawn in by the tourist shops. We bought a few little pressies and God forbid we bought some things for ourselves. We then had wonderful Ramen dinner, got the bus back to our ryokan, bought some beers and watched "Dream Girls" whilst doing some jobs. I canny believe tomorrow is our last day of our whole trip. We've got some pretty cool things to do tomorrow to keep us busy. Treat your last like you first. That's what I say.
