Jack and Niamh's Sabbatical Adventures

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  • Monastery trip

    Before heading to Koyasan for our stay at a monastery, we checked out Kyoto castle

    Some lovely cherry blossom already starting to show, and lots of little birds drinking from the flowers

    We were craving Italian food so after careful research we picked a place that didn’t seem to only do ketchup on pasta. They quizzed us when we arrived on whether we knew it was Italian so clearly have had some confusion in the past 😂

    The food was delicious and they even had nice wine

    Then we started our journey to Koyasan, the sacred mountain

    We had to get two trains to start with
    Then a “cable car” which was actually a funicular (cable cars are called ropeways here)
    And then from this station at 827m we got a bus along a very windy road to the town which has over 100 monasteries
    At the top of the mountain everything was shrouded in clouds which made the temples even more magical
    Lunch
    Our traditional Japanese accommodation with paper walls and a table with a heater underneath
    Jack was pleased with the vegetarian feast we were served for dinner
    After dinner we walked around the cemetery
    Our futon beds were ready for an early night before 6am prayers the next day
    The cemetery had even more to see in the daytime, including the temple where the founding monk is supposedly still meditating since the year 859, and this pyramid of mini buddhas
    You can just about see Osaka in the distance . . . Which was our next destination

  • Going to the Instagram Places

    Arashiyama bamboo forest. Full of people getting annoyed at how many people are in their photos
    Kyoto today day/night

    Fushimi Inari Taisha. Has ~10,000 of these red tori gates that have been donated by a business. Also full of people getting annoyed at how many people are in their shot, but if you walk 40 minutes up the hill it gets so much quieter

    And you get a view that just about stretches all the way to Osaka (doesn’t really show up on the photo)

    And you get to see the shrine cats

    Nara is the place with the really friendly deer who hang out with you and share your beer
    They do bow nice and politely to request a little snack
    They also bite and push and headbutt if you’re not quick enough or they think you’re hiding snacks from them
    But they’re very cute (and possibly sacred?) so they get away with it
    There’s a huge shrine in Nara with a 15 m tall Buddha
    Can’t forget to collect the stamp
    The last time we ordered a mega beer here it was less than a pint, this time we got surprised with a litre
    Restaurant bought out a camping stove for our duck hot pot. The waitress explained to us that the egg is for dipping the meat into, not for swallowing whole

  • Monkeys and Pigs

    We got the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto which took about 2 hours. Tokyo station was so full of people moving in every direction. Luckily we decided to use the luggage transfer system to send our big bags to the next hotel
    Niamh is filling up her book of stamps at the stations
    Kyoto isn’t as cramped as Tokyo but you still get the cute, tiny bars
    We went to an okonomiyaki (type of savoury pancake) restaurant for tea and it had a hot plate in the middle to keep everything warm
    Animal cafes are really popular here, this one has pigs who will fully nap in your lap. At one point someone spilt their coffee and the pigs went feral trying to slurp it up off the ground
    Nishiki market is great for going stall to stall to build up a lunch

    Didn’t trust the chef enough to try the fugu
    Arashiyama has a troop of fairly relaxed macaques living in it

    Kyoto is packed with Buddhist and Shinto shrines and temples
    Congratulations it is a pig!

  • Capybara, lamb heart sashimi, and Hakone

    Inokashira park had a little zoo which had some fairly sad-looking animals in and a less-sad sculpture park.
    We went to a cat/capybara cafe. The cats were much softer than the capybara and much more agile
    Shinjuku at night is crazy. There’s people everywhere and a giant 3D cat, and Godzilla is just chilling out. We went to the dirtiest bar in the world, possible ground zero of whatever the next contagion is
    The area we’re staying in is mostly Italian restaurants and gay bars so it’s not that easy to find somewhere to serve you Japanese food but we did find somewhere doing good ramen. I was still a bit hungry so I had a raw lamb heart at a pub
    We took a trip out on the train to Hakone and tried our first eki-bento, a pre-packed meal sold at train stations.
    Also you can get hot drinks from vending machines but they are just bottles that come out surprisingly hot
    Hakone is a bit up in the hills so there was a fair bit of snow about. It’s a volcanic area so a few places had hot foot baths
    They are known for their black eggs which are cooked in the hot springs
    The journey back to Tokyo began with a trip on a pirate ship across lake Ashi. The views were incredible but we couldn’t see Mt Fuji, at times we couldn’t see what was 10 m ahead of us

  • More Tokyo

    Brush your teeth or this surfing bear will be upset
    Sesame noodle soup was amazing
    Jack found more of his favourite vending machines
    My first glimpse of blossoms
    We visited the greenhouse in Shinjuku Gyoen national gardens
    An immense staghorn fern
    I think I was looking for Jack to get him to come over for a picture
    Crochet clothing for the statues. Fair enough as it’s snowed both days so far!
    The attendant was explaining how this dog’s cheeks are like a mochi. 10/10 they were so squishy

  • Tokyo is Cold and Wet

    We had to take shelter in an Irish pub and buy me some new shoes after I discovered the holes in the bottom of the ones I was wearing
    It had two toilets, one for men and one for ladies/men who are vomiting
    I also bought an umbrella which lasted a whole day until it was lost. Luckily there’s a shop every 10 m or so where you can get a new one. Or just steal someone else’s
    The deep fried tiny shrimp were great but the onion in foil was an all time great
    The restaurant gave bibs to people who looked like they were in danger
    Cherry blossom season is starting, the feral parakeets love it
    Shiba puppy cafe with plenty of tiny dogs fighting
    After spending a month in New Zealand countryside the number of people in Tokyo is a lot to adjust to
    There’s loads of tiny bars here. This one could hold about 8 people and sells delicious whisky
    These two giant men gave us a sumo demonstration, the big lad on the right weighs 185 kg
    Hang it in the Louvre

  • Leaving New Zealand

    New Zealand was awesome, it’s a massive, largely empty country and the best bits were definitely outside the cities. 3 Weeks definitely wasn’t enough.

    The great thing about a road trip is that you can do whatever the roadside signs tell you to do and take a detour to try the world’s best blueberry muffin, or buy some wearable felt art, or feed some wallabies
    Towns in New Zealand love to have massive statues to let you know what they’re all about like Rakaia’s Iconic Salmon
    We got to stay at some incredible campsites, comfort levels were a little low compared to the hotels but the locations made it worth it. We didn’t get completely eaten alive by sandflies, I think as per usual I bore the brunt of the blood loss. Our final campsite had a giant tree walk, the Maori would make 100-person canoes out of these trees
    Niamh bought wool in the wrong format and had to spend about half an hour winding it into a ball
    We had enough leg room for the 11 hour flight to Tokyo, we’ve gone back a season from Summer to Spring and I’m not sure I’m ready to be cold again

  • Queenstown to Oamaru

    Jack with fantail falls
    Excellent lenticular cloud over Queenstown
    View from the wineries cycle
    Jack being infuriatingly a lot fitter than Kelly and I was always in front and waiting a lot

    After Queenstown we took a trip to the dark sky reserve further north at Lake Poaka. We had a perfectly clear night with no moon – the milky way was indescribable, so amazing! No pictures of the stars cause they all look crap in comparison to the real thing, but the campsite was excellent

    From Lake Poaka we went to Oamaru specifically to see the little blue penguin colony (https://www.penguins.co.nz/) where you can watch their arrival home after a day of fishing. So cute and definitely worth the trip to Kelly’s least favourite town in NZ 😂

    Jack coincidentally suggested we get coffee in Kurow and then took me to see this sign 😂
    Oamaru has a cute Victorian district
    Moments before disaster
    So many cormorants on this disused pier
    Getting excited
    Getting more excited
    Unbothered seal which slept through the entire penguin arrival including announcements over loudspeakers 😂
    No filming during the arrival but these penguins were first to arrive before dusk. Bonus baby seal cub included!

  • Fox Glacier to Queenstown (Kelly’s Return)

    We walked through some old woodland to get a better view of the glacier
    Stopped off at the only restaurant in Haast for lunch, the interior was full of previously owned deer antlers
    The view from the campsite in the evening was drastically different to the morning. Niamh tried to break up a surprisingly violent fight between two tomtits
    Every five minutes on the road there’ll be another spot to pull over and walk to see a waterfall, I think this one was called Roaring Billy
    We picked up Kelly in Cromwell which is famed for it’s giant fruit sculpture and real fruit ice cream
    A boat floating in the Queenstown harbour doubles up as a bar, it’s a little risky if you’re prone to sea sickness
    We rented bikes and cycled down the Gibbston valley, stopping at a few vineyards for a well earned rest. Got pretty soaked and painted our backs with mud in the morning.
    But got roasted in the sun in the afternoon before the bike rental company picked us up and ferried us back to Queenstown

  • Down the West Coast

    The road down the west coast is often very windy, it’s surprising to see a road train make it around the corners
    The west coast is also very windy, the waves smashing against the pancake rocks were so loud
    Seals playing in the pool
    A hungry weka (right) begging for some breakfast
    Niamh fed and petted some ~100 year old eels
    We stopped off for a hot bath in water from the glacier
    It was very windy at Gillespie beach so we had to take the front off the tent. The wind did protect us from the sandflies which ate us alive in the morning. A possum was hanging out in there during the night and rudely did a poo on the roof
    The campsite had some great views, could just about see the milky way in the night sky
    A view of Fox Glacier on the left and Aoraki/Mt Cook on the right