Author: awaywiththebirds

Day 8: Sapporo (Hokkaido) to Kamikochi Had early start as today is a travel day. We were staying on the 27th level of the Prince Hotel. Join us for the lift ride down and then for breakfast with Phil and Hero(our guide). Bus to Sapporo airport. We are leaving the north island of Hokkaido to…

Day 7: Sapporo It’s great to get everyone’s comments ….means you are looking at the blog! Yeah!So, let me respond….. Sammy, you will have to wait till my return to see what the winning prize is, and in terms of Japanese inefficiencies, here are a couple of examples: Sharon, you asked about weird food….yes, i…

Day 6: Shiretoko to Sapporo Beautiful sunny day today. We left Shiretoko and travelled to Memanbetsu airport for flight to Sapporo. It’s like a regional airport and it was pretty empty so we had time to look at the amazing array of packaged goods ( Sally is going to do a special edition of the…

Day 5: Shiretoko peninsula Postscript to day 4: Am resending the plastic gloves video, as Phil shows a masterful way of placing the gloves on the hands before embarking on the restaurant’s buffet selection We have found another really good use for these plastic gloves….you can take food home from the buffet with them (…

Day 4: Lake Akan to Shiretoko Sammy, you are the winner of the ”pick what was missing from yesterdays blog” as you are the only who noticed the absence of some pictures ( shame on the rest of you!). The missing photo was a short video of Phil trying to eat a green tofu ball.…

Day 3: Lake Akan Robyn asked for us to share our onsen experience….here’s all you are going to see Before the big reveal about what we did today, here’s some sights and sounds of Akan ( figuratively speaking) Onto the activities we did today…… At the centre of the Ainu indigenous festival are green balls…

Day 2: Tokyo to Lake Akan Travelled from Tokyo to Kushiro on Hokkaido. Some interesting signs and statues at both airports Collected our luggage, boarded a bus and on our way to Lake Akun, we stopped at the Japanese Crane Reserve. The red-crowned crane was designated a special natural monument of Japan in 1952 (…

Day 1: International travel (at last) Oct 6-7 Today Sydney experienced probably its wettest day on record….a good day to leave for Japan. Would we be able to reach the airport by road, or would we have to swim? All managed to reach the airport and sailed through check in, immigration and security with time…

The guinea pigs head to Japan The news of Japan’s reopening came a few days after we had all filled in the incredibly complicated Visa applications (helped by Phil who kindly provided us with the Japanese words to complete the application!); navigated the incredibly complex WebJapan website to apply for pre-registration for quarantine procedures; and…