Robinson World Tour Part 2: June 2014

Two Days in Tokyo

Tokyo was not originally on the agenda for our travels. Our travels from Asia to South America required us to fly from Bali, Indonesia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Tokyo, Japan to Dallas, US to Lima, Peru. This would have meant almost 48 hours of straight travel, so we decided to stop in Tokyo for two days. We are both glad we stopped.

The city is big, extremely clean and orderly. What a switch from the areas we had just traveled. Our hotel was next to the train station and made it easy for us to take the train from the airport. Since we arrived early in the morning and our hotel room wasn’t ready we hit the ground running. The first stop was the Imperial Palace. The palace had burnt down years ago but the grounds were quite beautiful with the old walls, moat, gardens and some of the older buildings.

After the palace we checked in and had a quick nap. Then we were off to the oldest temple and gate in the city (Kaminarimon Gate and Temple). It was very crowded with school tour groups and others. We tried to take the water taxi back to the hotel but it was too late so we decided to walk through the Ginza area. This is a very expensive shopping area with a lot of people. It was getting late so we decided to try and find a Japanese place to eat. There were plenty of places to eat but understanding the menu was a challenge. Also most of the restaurants we stopped at didn’t seem too interested in serving two westerners who didn’t speak Japanese. We did eventually find a nice place down one of the small side streets. After taking off our shoes we were taken to one of the little rooms to eat. (The Japanese seem to enjoy their privacy.) The menu had pictures so it was a bit easier to order. The food was good and the atmosphere was quaint. What a great way to spend the end of our first day.

We had planned to get up early the next day and head out on the town. This was harder to do than we had thought. The Japanese hotel rooms are well amenitied and the bathrooms are for lack of better words “to die for”. The showers are instantly hot with great pressure. The toilets are in a whole other world. They are electronic with heated seats, a whole variety of spray settings, the lids are censored and lift when you enter and flush when you stand up.

After checking out at the latest possible minute we walked around the underground portion of Tokyo since it was raining above ground. We felt like ants trying to find our way around in a strange nest. There are just as many, if not more, people below ground then there are above.

Before we knew it, it was time to catch our train back to the airport for our marathon flight. We landed in Dallas on time thankfully as we only had an hour to catch our connecting flight to Lima. They had express passed ready for us and we thought this would make things easier. The passes did allow us to go to the front of the queue as there were many check points (far more than I thought was necessary for a connecting flight and the fact that we were not even staying in the states). This is when I (Dan) hit a snag. For some reason my passport was flagged for further evaluation. After a 20 minute wait and a cleared passport we were back on the move. We did just catch our flight even though we were the last passengers to board - did we get the stares. The flights were uneventful and the interesting part is that we landed in Dallas three hours before we took off from Tokyo. The International Dateline is a weird and wonderful thing.

Japanese Family Robinson

Lisa on the bridge over the moat

Statue of Kusunoki

Selfie outside the main gate

Dan outside the guard house

Lisa in the gardens

Dan contemplating climbing the palace walls

Main gate from the old to the new

Kaminarimon Gate

Crowded street inside the gate

Lisa outside the Senoji Temple

Five tiered pagoda

Mixture of old and new

People people everywhere and crosswalks crossing crosswalks

Enjoying dinner

The Japanese are well dressed even in their hotel rooms

Electronic toilet

Incredible Indonesia

After a short flight from Singapore we arrived in Jakarta, Indonesia and picked up our new guide plus some additional tour companions. This group was not nearly as good as the previous groups and made things not as enjoyable at it should have been. Lisa and I struggled at times but in the end found a way to enjoy the trip.

Jakarta is dirtier than we had thought – see picture of the river below- and sidewalks are almost non-existent. The city and most of the island of Java doesn’t see a lot of foreign (white) tourists and we stood out. The young kids would commonly ask us for a photo. We thought they wanted us to take a picture of them but NO – they wanted a photo with us. This was a very strange feeling. Traffic in Jakarta was also very intense and the street people were selling stuff right on the road. It was incredible.

After Jakarta we went to the Cianjar area for our home stay and a visit to the floating village. In the floating village we had a chance to have all the dead skin eaten off our feet by the fish. It really tickled. The whole village is a on a man-made lake and everyone has a fish farm. See photos.

Our next stop had us in Yogyakarta in the shadow of Mount Merapi for three days. There was some concern about this area since the volcano had been showing increased signs of activity. They figure it will erupt later this year. Lucky for us all was relatively quiet. The town had palaces, temples and Lisa went to an Indonesian dance show. There are a lot of temples in Indonesia. The Borobudur Temple was very spectacular –the one with the bells.

The next two stops were basically to get us across the island. In Malang we had the opportunity to go to a bird market where they sold a variety of animals. It was extremely sad. We have more stories to tell than can be put into this blog at this time. The lowlights were the baby owl that could barely stand that must have been taken from the nest. The hundreds of birds all crammed into a cage. Puppies in the sun with no water and the list goes on.

Mount Bromo was our next major stop and one of the places I was looking forward to seeing. It is also an active volcano and we were able to climb it to watch the sunrise from the crater rim. The volcano is still venting and smelled strongly of sulfur. The view was amazing. Hiking to and from Mt Bromo was interesting as we crossed the ash coated floor of the caldera of the super volcano that erupted 250 000 years ago. As we were getting ready to leave I wanted one last view and was treated to another volcano having a minor eruption in the distance.

The next leg of our journey had us crossing from the island of Java to the island of Bali. Bali is more famous and has quite a few more tourists. The area is known for its beaches or so we thought. Our first stop had us in Pemutaran, a local area were the beaches were much less than spectacular. The black sand was covered in garbage and some of our group members stumbled across a dead dog on the beach. No one went in the water. Sanur was better and much more tourist oriented.

Lisa and I ended the tour and said goodbye to our fellow travelers. I think we both were glad this leg was over. Our group – as stated earlier- made things more challenging then they needed to be, we were starting to get tired of noodles and rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner and we have been ”templed” out.

The Indonesian people are extremely friendly and willing to help. We found this out one day as we were walking around and it started to really rain hard. Lisa and I ducked under a tree to avoid some of the rain. A local family saw this and invited us onto their porch. It was very nice. The scenery in Indonesia was also spectacular.

Lisa and I are starting to miss home and our family and friends.

Indonesian Family Robinson