Our last day in Tokyo today - the rain even managed to stay away finally! Humid and 29 Degrees. We had a leisurely morning with a walk along the breakwater and swim in the inside pool (the huge outdoor pool is only open for the 3 months over summer!), and bought some tickets for the after 3pm session at Disneyland Tokyo. The crowd upon arrival was absolutely staggering, made more oppressive by the hot, humid weather. Each of the big attractions such as the Haunte...

We hadn't had time to visit the port area of Odaiba on our last visit to Tokyo, so we hopped on various modes of transport to make our way across the other side of Tokyo Bay to see the Maraikan Museum ( Museum of Emerging Science), where amongst other things, the famous robot Asimo lives. On the ground floor, a temporary exhibition all about Ninjas (no turtles in sight!) and their vast history in Japan of intense loyalty to their lords and being sent in to infilt...

Theme Parks have never been top of my list of places to visit. The thought of hordes of people, queuing endlessly for rides, plastic food etc always sends a shiver through me ... however, when in Tokyo... Time to put my cynical brain away today, and reward the kids for being (mostly) patient and well behaved when traipsing through many temples, museums and galleries, and have a day at Tokyo Disney Sea - the only one in the world. The place is enormous, but extrem...

Photography heaven today with visits to the gorgeous red gates of Fushimi Inari temple and the gold n glitz of Kinkakuji temple - at opposite ends of Kyoto. The weather had finally cleared in the morning, so caught the JR train to Inari station just south of Kyoto. Hordes of other tourists had had the same idea it seemed, though as we let the girls set the pace winding up through the arcade of thousands of red gates towards the summit of Mt Inari, the crowds thin...

Still more rain!! With only two full days left in Kyoto, and much to see, we prepared ourselves as best we could and headed to Tambaguchi station to catch the JR train to Saga Arashiyama and the world famous bamboo forest. It's like entering another world - peaceful, beautiful, and with the overcast sky, quite dark. The bamboo path leads past the Tenryu-ji temple and up the hill about 900m to the summit and monkey park (where people are put in cages to feed the m...