Day 11 - Land of the Rising Sun

Our intrepid travellers reach day 11 on this magical mystery tour of a trip and head off to Auckland Int apitpity hoping for no interventions from the weather gods!

Success!!! The flight leaves as planned for the 12 hour flight up to Tokyo. 

Dear reader I feel I must acknowledge at this point that your humble scribe on his comeback tour has refoubd his passion for travel even with the challenges thrown at this trip so far. Evidence of such findings can be observed in the fact that flying to NZ your scribe bing watched the entire series of “A long way home” and on this leg from Auckland to Tokyo the same with “Race across the world”. Dear reader to be very clear your scribe is not thinking of jumping on a motorbike (past efforts still have the ridicule of the moniker driving miss daisy rattling in one’s brain) nor travelling round the world in abject squalor on a stupidly low budget!

And so as night falls our little tribe enter a new country for all of them. Customs had long queues but otherwise were negotiated harmlessly. The hotel is located thanks to a v expensive taxi cause by Narita airport being a bit like London Stansted (it’s nowhere near Tokyo!)

The hotel room whilst clean is nonetheless likely to

Prove a challenge for 2 days sleeping as it does 3 people in a space of less than 20m2!

To make matters worse the untamed gambler and the most senior member have insisted on bringing with them some shells collected on a beach in NZ….. the room soon smells of stale fish!! I can only hope those people for who these “gifts” are intended will find some way to de-stink such thoughtful presents!!

In order to avoid the smell of rotting fish our bank embark on a reccy tour of the area to identify options for leaving luggage for 2-3 days when our band heads off to explore Kyoto. …. The solution seems to be offered by large lockers at the station ….. our bad will give that a go….