Just for Information

I will be adding much more to this Diary in due course. From the end of September until the end of 2007 there appeared to be endless problems with downloading photographs onto Blogs and so I just abandoned this one!! Now that all seems to be well, I will finish it - but, I do not know when!!

So much of Tokyo and Yokohama are very modern (pictures of older areas will come later!).

These pictures of Yokohama were taken from the tenth floor viewing gallery of a department store.

Despite the fact that we were pretty exhausted by the time we got ourselves to Alan's apartment we decided to get right to the siteseeing business instead of having a bit os a sleep!!

First things first!! We navigated the train system!! We used the surface trains most of the time. The underground is about twice the size of the London one and in addition to that the surface system is about twice the size of the London underground!! To fit the plans on two sheets of paper the writing if VERY small!!

Still, off we went to the centre of Tokyo to the Imperial Gardens. Small amounts of the gardens are accessible to the general public and the trees look like 'grown-up' bonsai trees!! The Palace is only open one day per year - New Year's Day.

It really is amazing that we ever went on this holiday at all!!

Two days before we were due to leave Jamnagar for Tokyo we were advised that our flights from Mumbai to Tokyo had been cancelled (and this only because Gavin had been along to the travel agents to make sure all was well!! Not because anyone thought to advise us!!). Then the day before our departure one of the new flights was cancelled and we were simply given a small scrap of paper with a new flight number on it - no new tickets!! And to cap it all my passport was only returned to me twenty hours prior to departure with the new residency permit allowing me to return to India!!

But leave on time we did!! Even then the flight from Jamnagar to Mombai was one hour late. The flight from Mombai to Delhi was over one hour late (which did give us time to run about in the heat and humidity from terminal to terminal looking for an Air India office where someone would help us and issue some new tickets.) The flight from Delhi to Tokyo was also late!!

But we decided it was important to be determined to put all this behind us and enjoy our trip!!

We arrived at Narita Airport in Tokyo at eight o'clock in the morning and all was well!! Suddenly we were in a place where everything was neat and tidy, friendly and very organised!!

Gavin had lived in Japan for eight and a half years on engineering contracts from 1996 was keen to show me the places he knew and his favourite haunts. We were lucky enough to be invited to stay with his friend and colleague, Alan, and to meet his girlfriend, Yuri, both of whom made us most welcome and helped to make our trip very special, as you will see.