Narita to London

In this picture you can see Max, my Son, on one of the jumpseats of a 747.  A feature of being an airline family is that you never quite know where you are going to sit on an aircraft!  One day you could be sitting in First Class, and the next day abandoned down route, unable to get home.  It's a real mixed bag.  All our discounted travel is SUBLOAD which is airline parlance for, well, subject to load!  That means full fare passengers always take priority over us.  This can be very challenging for family travel, especially when you are a family of six!

On the positive side we get reduced cost travel.  Airline kids can be very worldly-wise.  We have tried to make the most of this perk and give our kids a broader perspective.  

As you can see though, our children need to be flexible!

Tokyo

Days eight to fourteen

25th to 31st July 2010

To Narita

The last section of our trip was to be spent in Narita. Narita is the airport town for Tokyo, a satellite town of the metropolis and about 40 miles from the centre of the city.

We stayed at the Mercure, not a glamorous Hotel, but fine, and very convenient for the train station, shops and Mc Donald's, I am sorry to say!

It felt strange and a slight relief to be in the world of Western living again. We had beds with mattresses, comfy chairs and full length baths - luxury.

Narita itself is famous for two things - the airport and also the very large and impressive buddhist temple in the town. As a place it is a perfect microcosm of Japan. A mixture of new and old - an international airport on the doorstep and an ancient and beautiful temple in the centre of the city, complete with beautiful Japanese Gardens.

In to Tokyo

Mount Fuji

Days six to eight

July 23rd to 25th 2010

Seeing Fuji for the first time
Arriving in the Mount Fuji area the first thing that struck us was the drop in temperature. At an Elevation of 3000 feet, Fujiyoshida was a welcome break from the heat that had affected us so much in Kyoto. The town of Fujiyoshida was quaint with a slightly run down feel, and dwarfed by the sight of Mount Fuji. Wherever you look it just seems to be there, just huge, really huge. As it is quite high at 12000 feet, and on a flat plain, you are right next to it, and it's a pretty astonishing effect. Perhaps it was the sheer scale of it, or the altitude but Max and I decided that day that we would climb the great mountain on our day off.

Inn Fujitomita
In the meantime we were taken to our accomodation. We stayed at an inn on the edge of the town called Fujitomita. The inn itself was run by a Japanese family with three children. It was a large home with facilities like an onsen (a hot spring bath), a pool and play area for the children.
The whole family turned out to meet us with the young sons willingly struggling up to our bedroom with our very heavy cases. From the moment we arrived we were made very welcome and nothing was too much trouble. There is, however, quite a bit of formality in this type of setting. All shoes are swapped at the door for slippers, of course. There are separate slippers for the toilet - colour coded pink for girls and blue for boys! Our room was traditional Japanese - Tatami mats on the floor, when you arrive there is no bedding and the room is configured for sleeping when you are at dinner.
Dinner was a full Japanese menu for the adults - high quality and actually food we are used to such as corn soup or rice. The children were treated to western food.
After dinner, according to tradition the entire family stripped off for a family session in the inn's hot spring bath. This resembled a jacuzzi actaully but was fed from geothermal origins deep beneath the hotel. Strangely minerals are artificially added to the water you sit in to enhance the health giving effects. There was quite a performance as everyone got into the bath, with dimmed lights necessary for Morag, who has never been an exhibitionist!