We started our visa process in June this year so thought we’d get our visa much earlier – wrong! It was all very last minute and we basically made it to the Embassy with 30 minutes to spare to pick up our passports and visas before flying out early the next morning – phew!
On the flight we had a freaky bumping into Olivia, a girl who had served us 2 years earlier when we were heading to Club Med Sahoro who had worked there a couple of years earlier. She was heading to Nisekko to teach – small world!
When we landed in Tokyo, Mount Fuji was out to greet us. How lovely.
We had an afternoon in the suburb near our hotel and visited the Anamori Inari Shrine and then Haginaka Park (with its own little “Traffic Park” to teach kids how to cycle on the roads). A 79 year old local stopped for a 5 min chat, he’d visited London and Newcastle in his youth. Then we had a walk along Tama river watching the fishermen.
The next morning we met up with Morgan and her boyfriend, Kouga. Together we walked along Kamakura Komachi-dori, a shopping street with lots of tourists and weird and wonderful food stalls to try.
Next we saw Hongaku-ji Shrine with its brightly painted halls and pavilions. There was a wedding taking place too.
Then we took (and apparently famous) old train to see Kotoku-in which is a huge budda. And then the train to Enoshima Station and walked across the causeway to Enoshima. It is an island with sea caves underneath, a steep hill filled with shops and restaurants leading to Hetsunomiya Shrine and a fab view over to Mount Fuji.
There is also an observation deck nicknamed The Sea Candle. It is a modernistic lighthouse, built in 2003 with views over Sagami Bay.
Then we headed to Yokohama for dinner in an izakawa before going our seperate ways.
Our time in Tokyo had been lovely and warm at 17 degrees and then we flew to Asahikawa and found ourselves in snow and 1 degree – eek and yippee!!!
We settled back into our old apartment and met up with lots of old colleagues. Even the lady in the gym made a fuss that we were back – so cute!
We have got some nice new additions to the FISS team and 90+% of the old team back so we had a night at Ajitos to all meet and mingle.
After some rain, which damaged the snow on the lower slopes – NO!!!! we have started getting some good, big fat snow. Yesterday, we went up for a ski and today we both started teaching snowboarding. Feels like we’ve never been away !!!
