Peter's 2023 Japan Trip

Some of the Christmas lights in Ginza are a silvery white. Back when Tokyo was called Edo and the Tokugawa Shogunate ruled the country, Ginza was the site of the governments silver mint. That is what Ginza means. The land Ginza is on was reclaimed from the sea back in the early 1600 and at one stage was the most expensive real-estate in the world.

Nissan has a small showroom on the famous intersection in Ginza, diagonally opposite the Wako department store with its Big Ben sounding clock bell. Nissan had some interesting old cars.

The Lion Beer Hall in Ginza, Tokyo is the cities oldest German style Beer Hall. It first opened in 1899 and survived both the 1923 earthquake and the World War II bombings it is still popular today. It's owned by Sapporo brewery.

I do like these little drip coffee pack you get in Japan.

Disney Seas shows are all water based.

Captain Nemo's Nautilus from the river boat..

Funnily enough, there are a lot of ducks at Disney Sea.

The works of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft are reasonably well known in Japan and quite popular.

The Mediterranean are of Disney Sea with the closest "active volcano" to Tokyo...

I got upgraded to a room overlooking the Disney parks. Good view of the fireworks.

Disneyland has its Christmas decorations up

Le Pain Quotidian is a Belgium bakery a short walk from the Shiba Park Hotel. They do a good breakfast. Yoghurt and granola with berries along with a coffee.

The hotel has a good restaurant

Shiba Park Hotel transformed into a book hotel during COVID. Along with a main library, it has little nooks filled with books on each floor. My floor was art books

Back in Tokyo and attended a Kingetsu course. Kingetsu is the art of repairing pottery with gold paste. This was my attempt.

Lots of Christmas decorations in Sendai along with a Christmas market.

Travelling by Shinkansen to Sendai and there is less snow around.

Aomori is famous for its summer festival were floats with giant paper mache decorations. The station has replica s of these decorations.

My hotel in Aomori had some interesting Christmas decorations. The red things on the shelves next to the tree are paper fish.

Found a nice warm restaurant not far from my hotel, which was also doing tastings of local sake.

Almost a blizzard in Aomori although fortunately the wind dropped in the evening.

The 53.85 km long Saiken tunnel links the islands of Honshu and Hokkaido. It still holds the record for being the longest undersea tunnel. The Shinkansen running through the tunnel are limited to 120 kmh (they can do 320 kmh) as freight trains also use the tunnel and run the risk of being derailed if the Shinkansen ran at full speed.

The hotel in Hakodate is opposite Hakodate Morning fish market. A lot of the sellers do sit down meals and the hotel instead of having a restaurant has special tickets for the fish market. This meal has five different types of seafood on a bowl of rice.

The was a short, about 5 minutes, display of Fireworks over Hakodate bay on the evening.

Quite a few Japanese cities have trams. Hakodate ones are a bit smaller than Melbournes.

Hokkaido has a dish of grilled lamb called Genghis Khan. You cook the lamb on a convex hot plate which is supposed to resemble a Mongolian warrior's shield.  There were also lamb dumplings

Goryokaku is a fort built in Hakodate in the 19th century. The fort is modelled on European star forts, so called because they are built in the shape of a star. 

Now in Hakodate. The weather is cold and snowy. In the distance is a large Christmas tree all lit up.

This European castle building in Noboribetsu is actually an aquarium.

Noboribetsu has the Pokemon manhole cover.

Oni are a type of Buddhist devil and statues of them can be found at Hot-springs, especially those which are to hot to bath in. Noboribetsu does have such a hot spring further up the mountain.