Bus Tour to Chiba

I realise that I haven't posted for a few days, and one of the main reasons is that my life hasn't been particularly interesting recently! I've just been settling in to my work routine, and now my legs take me where I need to go and my mind can shut off - I'm becoming a Tokyoite already! I even close my eyes and appear to be asleep on the subway. The other reason is that I haven't had time to post anything because of work and my general tiredness at the end of each day.

However, my lunchtime lesson was cancelled today and I don't have to be at Gaba until 18.15 this evening so I can tell you about my fun day out on Sunday! A housemate invited me to go on a bus tour (basu tsua) to Kamogawa, in southern Chiba. I had originally planned to go and watch the Tokyo Marathon, but I thought this would be more fun.

Before I launch into the story, the pictures below show the Valentine's Day chocolate I got from one of my students last week. I thought that was very nice.


Three of us went in the end, and we had to get up at 6am. So we left bleary-eyed and tired at 7 and went to the subway station.

If you're interested, this is what some subway stations and trains look like.
Extremely empty at 7 on Sunday mornings.

The next station is 'Kanda'.
The train is approaching. Only some stations have signs that light up like this, others have electronic screens with the times etc. of the next two trains, and they come up with 'The train is approaching' in Japanese and English. It's announced as well, but only in Japanese.

I look far too cheerful for 7am.

The trains were very empty too.

Different lines have different ways of telling you the next stop, but this one flashes in Japanese. Others show the name of the next stop and the lines you can transfer to from there in English and Japanese, as well as the usual announcements, which are sometimes done from the driver in Japanese, or pre-recorded in English too.

Many train-tracks near Ueno station on the Yamanote line.
An advert for Gaba on the train.

We got off at Akabane station.

It was so quiet!

We were a bit late, but our bus waited for us. The tour cost Y8,000 (£40) including lunch.

We saw some amazing views of Tokyo. The great thing about the weather here (at least in Winter) is that it's so clear! Because it's a dry season, the sky is mostly pure blue. The UK is so rainy and grey for so many days out of the year, it's lovely to wake up almost every morning to bright, chilly days. But when the sun gets on you it's very warm! In the shade, there's still snow left from two weeks ago but the sun is very warming and I had to do a lesson in just a T-shirt last week because I got overheated walking to the cafe! It's probably because I'm not used to the sun closer to the Equator. I was very surprised to learn that Tokyo is on the same latitude as LA and Athens, Greece. The Pacific Ocean keeps it cooler though, and much more humid! Winter is fine, but from the rainy season (tsuyu) in mid-May through to typhoon season (September-October) it's very humid. That's not so good for me, as I hate humidity! And Tokyo can get up to 40C in Summer. How hideous! If you're interested, all the information is on this Tokyo average climate graph.

I must thank my housemate, Hyunwoo for letting me use some of the photos he took. He sat next to the window on the bus and took some great shots. Visit his blog, it's very interesting, even if you don't read Korean! If you speak English and want to learn Korean, this blog of his is also very good.

The bus was very comfortable and everyone was relaxed. In fact, some people slept through the journey!
This shot isn't so good, but there's Mt Fuji! My first sight of it! And it's so magnificient, bigger than I could have imagined. Very impressive.
Hyunwoo took this one, his camera's zoom is 6 times more powerful than mine! You can see Fuji in the background, honest.

The tour took us through Tokyo, down past Haneda Airport and into Kawasaki, Kanagawa prefecture. From there, we went through a very long tunnel under Tokyo bay to Umihotaru, a view point and shopping area. Then there was a long bridge to Chiba prefecture.

It was nice to see a non-skyscraper orientated landscape.

A map of southern Chiba at a rest-stop.

It was the first time I left Tokyo since arriving one and a half months ago, so it was nice to see a rural area.

Somewhere in this photo, there's a monkey eating some fruit. I can't remember where though, it might be behind the tree. There were actually about 7 small monkeys playing by the road, but I couldn't get a good photo.

As we neared the coast, they passed a microphone round the bus and everyone introduced themselves! I was very nervous but my miniature speech (most people spoke for five minutes, I said about five sentences) went fine and everyone clapped at the end of it. It was an experience.

We arrived at our destination, Kamogawa, in southern Chiba perfecture. We visited the local shrine.

I had to put this on here! Hyunwoo's camera is really quite clever.
Me and Hyunwoo in front of the main gate.

There were stalls selling fruit and vegetables. I even tried some fresh squid!

The sea was so beautiful! Really clear and blue. You could see the bottom! The town was like a Bournemouth with Japanese houses.

Hyunwoo. Incredible language ability, and a breakdancer! Then we went to a very expensive-looking hotel for lunch. It was my first real Japanese meal. We all knelt on tatami mats in front of low tables in rows.

This is what covered the meal.

I lifted it up - and this was lunch!

Okay, that's not true.

This was the meal.


There was so much of it, and it kept coming! I had to stop several times because I just got too full, but it was delicious. The only thing I didn't like was a weird egg thing.
This was the room we ate in. So Japanese!

An introduction and exchange of meishi (business cards).
Picturesque. No, not picture-squ!

After lunch, we went to the observation deck on the tenth floor of the hotel and looked over the bay.

The sun was too bright for me to look at the sea directly! I was the only Westerner on the trip (out of 500 people) and everyone else was fine. The curse of having blue eyes.

And the best part was that they had free massage chairs and electronic foot massagers facing the floor-ceiling windows! So relaxing!

This is the lobby of the hotel.

We took the same route back home, this is the tunnel to Umihotaru.

With total disregard to road safety (no one wore their seatbelts on the entire trip), they did karaoke on the bus. It was very interesting and everyone joined in singing, except me as I didn't know any of the songs! There was a great atmosphere and it was the first time I'd seen real Japanese karaoke!
Thank you Hyunwoo! Great shot of Mt Fuji in the light of a sunset.
Back in Tokyo, we saw the city in the twilight. These aren't great shots, but I think they're quite atmospheric.

We got back at about 7pm and were exhausted, but we stopped off at Ameyoko market near Ueno station.

It's the home of cheap clothes and food in Tokyo. It was great to wander round the narrow, crowded streets under railway tracks through stalls and kiosks at night and feel safe! I tried takoyaki there too, which are dumplings stuffed with things like octopus and vegetables. It was very nice!

There's even a shrine there!

And a Claire's.
We had dinner in a cafe under the railway tracks that shook whenever a train passed over it. It was great! We were there chatting for well over an hour, and I made my first hilarious mistake in Japanese.

Somehow the conversation turned to Wales, and I wanted to say that my father was born in Wales (Watashi no chichi wa weiruzu ni umaremashita) but it came out as 'Watashi no chichi wa weiruzu ni uremashita', which means 'My father was sold to Wales'. I was laughing for ages after they told me what I'd said.

'Give me all your money.'

'Oh, I can't be bothered. Let's just sleep instead.'
We got home at about 11pm and went straight to bed! It was an exhausting day, but I'm so pleased that I went, I had loads of fun.