So it was back to Tokyo via a little mountain town called Nikko. Nikko is a World Heritage site just to the north that is renowned as a historically important. It is an amazing little place, with temples, shrines and statues around every corner on a huge mountain base. We hiked up the trail, which was covered in snow to see the far reaches of the archaeological site. It's really beautiful. We also found a stone park with over 70 statues of Buddha all with red hoods and scarfs on - very strange but it made for great photos. We stayed Japanese style again in a little hostel and the owners were superb - very friendly and even provided us with hot water bottles for the night - very sweet :-)
Then it was a train ride back to Tokyo to finish off our Japanese adventure. We had a list, of which we ticked everything but one thing off, which was Karaoke (hey you can't really do it without being pissed and we didn't have the energy or the money).
Firstly we visited the Tokyo fish market - but hold on, this is not just any fish market - this is the world's largest fish market and a real eye opener. It's absolutely huge and you can buy almost any sort of sea product here, be it puffer fish, live squid, sand crabs, or even whole tunas (these things are massive!). It was such a brilliant place to stroll around, avoiding the sellers and their motorized carts (now they are dangerous). We also treated ourselves to the freshest Sushi breakfast ever, where Dave tried eel and we shared a Tuna plate and some Mackerel rolls (so good!). That was number two on our list. Thirdly was to go to the suburb of Harijuku and see the fashion side of Tokyo, although there were not many of the famous Harijuku girls around, we did see a lot of fashionably dressed people and the walk down the back streets was very cool.
Fourth on the list was to actually go and see one of the most famous mountains in the world - Mt Fuji. We had to catch a bus to get the view we wanted, but got some incredible shots of the mountain. Although you can not climb it at present due to snow and winter conditions it was worth the journey to see this incredible landmark.
Fifth on the list, we decided to go out with a bang and visit Disneyland Tokyo. There are 2 disney parks here in Tokyo, Disneyland and Disney Sea. We discovered that Disney Sea is more of an MGM/Universal Studios park, so we decided to keep it simple and head to the original. We were excited all day (you would've been proud mum), and skipped our way into the park. It was great, exactly like Disneyland in California but all in Japanese. The shows were the most fun, trying to understand what was going on and enjoying the characterside. We saw all the favourites plus more... they really do go all out with a parade in the afternoon and an electric light parade at night - so cool. We even discovered that they have the original 80's Captain Eo playing (one of the first 3D movies and staring none other than Michael Jackson himself - by the looks of it just after thriller was released). We had loads of fun today running around after characters and trying all the childrens rides - including its a small world which Dave hates, so Megan will be singing all night. What a fun place to visit, and although not cheap with a good Jam sandwich we just about made it work.
So we finished with a bang and we are home tomorrow afternoon. It's been sensational, thank you all for reading the blogs and keeping up to date - we look forward to seeing you all in the next couple of weeks/months.
p.s. we will upload pictures in the next few days and probably blog again when we are settled.