The weekend in Wellington and Mike away tramping

Hi,

Mike headed off Friday for his tramp and had quite a time with the river being up for his easy tramp to Paua Hut.  He might just blog about it separately.

Toby and I had fun together.  We watched Point Break (the new one) on Friday night before falling into bed.  I may have read for a while.

Saturday we were up for Toby's haircut and then grabbed a few groceries for lunch and then back home.  I headed out for my appointment after that.

Back home and a lazy afternoon in the sun while Mike navigated the ridge behind Paua Hut.

Sunday Toby and I were up super early.  The light rain meant we drove to Waikanae with the roof up - but it was a mission to find orange skinned pumpkins.  Toby saw them for sale on the internet.  However, we only found normal ones really.

Did check out the beach and enjoyed a short walk on the beach with a drink from the dairy.

Hi Kapiti

Driftwood

Sanddollar!

Back home and off to the archery AGM with Ange.  As soon as I got home from that and Ange schmoozed with Smudge, Mike got home.

I then went for a ride with James around the bays.  Got back under 2 hours.  Pretty happy with that!

Damp start to the day for my ride into work.  Never mind.

Toby is off to Brisbane tomorrow for a week.  Oooohhh.  And he is heading into town today to meet some friends.

Have a wonderful week.

Love,
Angela

The Thursday with Mike packing

Hi,

Mike and I got home after work and I cooked tea for everyone while Mike and Toby gathered their reserves for the evening onslaught.  No - not sure what the onslaught was, but they were obviously getting ready for it.

Dinner was yummy.  Beef and venison meatballs stroganoff.

On mash

Mike is making stroganoff for Saturday night dinner in his tramping weekend this weekend.  Wonder if it'll taste this good?  No wine though.  Hahahah.

Mike eventually popped out to New World and got some provisions for his weekend.  I think most of his pack seems to be food now.

I had to head out to feed Ange's cats in my pyjamas.  They were very needy.  They must be missing Ange.  Despite fresh Fancy Feast in their bowl, Sapphire wanted a pat instead of scoffing her dinner.

I fell into a coma in mbed waiting for Mike to finish packing.  At one point I noticed the cat was sleeping on my back!  Hahah.

Toby's last day of term today.  He's off to watch a movie with a "friend" after school.  Ooohhh.

Have a great weekend.  Weather looks good here - cool but dry.  Mike should enjoy the tramping.  Toby and I will enjoy our weekend together.

Love,
Angela

The Wednesday with exercise

Hi,

After riding into work, and going for my lunch time run with Mary (and getting an awesome time for me) and doing a RPM session after work, I was ready for a relaxing evening.  I drove home (because Mike and Toby had difficulties leaving the house on time to catch the bus) and started tea.  Just as Toby and I tucked into it, Mike got home.  Yay!

Lamb with pita chips and Bulgar salad

Dinner was pretty yummy even if I had to substitute potato for the pumpkin.  I couldn't find the promised pumpkin anywhere.  Maybe Mike hid it.  Or maybe it never got delivered.  Not sure.

It was late by the time we finished tea so it was time for bed.  For me anyway.  Mike eventually got there after sorting out his tramping group a bit for this weekend.

Had a good sleep and despite wet roads this morning, my ride in was good fun.  Far busier this morning on the roads than my entire cycling trip encountered in Japan!

Toby is booked for head to the Sunshine Coast for a week during his school holidays.  He is already planning his WWE conversations with Dad while he is there.  Hahah.  Hope Dad queues up some fights to watch with him.

Have a fantastic day.

Love,
Angela

Japan cycling photos

We fitted! Just.

Look at those legs...

Hakodate sunset

Asparagus icecream. It was ... yummy!

Look at those legs (and feet). Looking off the north of Japan towards Russia.

My bike. Salmon in the river (zoom in)

Unintentional selfie

Volcano near Nakashibetsu

Lake Mashu

Lake Mashu. Photobombed.

The other lake! Lake Kussharo

Surprise! A 'drinking iced ... TEA' shot.

Sapporo. My bike is here somewhere. 

I got addicted to Pocari Sweat while I was there

Cycling in Japan 2016 - a day in Tokyo and then the long trip home

9 Sep - in Tokyo

Today was a full day sucking the marrow of Tokyo.  Well, given it is a heaving metropolis with 35 million people (I googled that), I seriously doubted any marrow sucking would even make a dent.  And I was right.  But it was a good taste of what Tokyo has available for any tourist.

First up, breakfast.  And I was starting to crave Weetbix more and more.  Hahah.  But Tokyo is no slouch in the fine breakfast department and everything tastes good.  So, after sustaining ourselves we caught a train to Shibuya.

Shibuya is famous for its frantic pace and massive amount of traffic and pedestrians.  But we stood on the corner of one of the intersections for about 15 minutes trying to figure out where we were and where we wanted to go and really, it wasn't that busy.

We did find the famous crossing, and crossed it.  And found the Starbucks Dai suggested that had a good view over the crossing.

The famous crossing at Shibuya.  Pretty much devoid of any traffic except us.  

My iced coffee while watching Shibuya

After sustaining myself once more, we headed off towards the chic shopping area of Tokyo.  Because we thought we'd fit right in.  Hahahah.  In our bike shorts and all.

We went past a pie shop selling - wait for it - strawberry and cheese pie.  Which I thought was some sort of abomination (or a typo) but I just read a book last night where the main character ordered an apple pie with cheese on top grilled a bit.  What the ...?  Weirdos.

Nothing was open.  Seems shops open around 10 or 11 am.  Way too early for us intrepid kiwis.  So we jumped back on the train and went to Akihabara to check out the anime for Toby.

Finally found some Mario characters I recognised

I think I broke Col.  And damaged Iona.  And I may have taken some impact too.  The anime was overwhelming.  After dragging Iona and Col into a shop that had 7 floors of anime, we all resembled glazed zombies.

It was time for a break.  We found a great wee restaurant and we gobbled down some ramen noodles.

They have an information shop entirely devoted to exploring anime 

The senses were assaulted by anime

Overwhelmed tourists in the multi floor anime shop we chose at random.

We also discovered the palace.  I think.  Spent some time recovering in a garden with really nice seats and fountains.  And then wandered around the moat of the palace.  If it was the palace.

Tom foolery by the cooling fountain

Old and new juxtaposition - at least that was the effect I was aiming for

Some random display had a photo of Dunedin's railway station.  Wow!  Not sure what - it was all in Japanese.

Best lemon tart ever.  I know who would have liked that.

Something cute.  Iona wonders if it is for a bank, or a contraceptive ad campaign.  Ummmmmm - should I be worried?

We headed back to the hotel to recover and then went out to find dinner.  More sushi.  Except we spent ages trying to find the same sushi place we had the night before.  But once found, mmmmmmm.  Yum!




 10 Sep - Leaving Tokyo.

Goodness - up super early and sneaking out at the crack of dawn discarding our house slippers in favour of our travelling shoes.  Off home already.  None of us wanted to leave.  We could have added a few more weeks easily.

We caught the local train at 6.45am.  Groan.  And then changed to an express train to the airport.  Which took 1.5 hours to travel through Tokyo at breakneck speed.  Tokyo is huge.

Express train to Narita airport

Caught the  plane and had an easy flight to Hong Kong.  Sad to leave japan.  One of the easiest holidays I have ever had.  Nothing went wrong.  The people were amazing.  Wonderful holiday.  Can't recommend the bike tour highly enough.  Cycling Japan.  Go find a trip that suits you and book it in!

We had 6 hours in Hong Kong airport and switched money to HK dollars and bought food all day.  Drank any iced coffee I could find.  Iona even bought a GoPro.  Wow.  The next holiday will be a social media frenzy with that!

The long flight back to Auckland was fine.  Slept mostly.  Watched a movie or two.  And generally looked forward to getting to my own bed at this point.  Touched down and navigated customs quickly and walked around to domestic.  Iona and Col were changed to a later flight due to the late arrival of our plane.  So I got to eat lunch with them.

11 Sep - Home at 5pm.  Amazed and astonished at how great the house was and how well groomed and well fed and looked after Mike and Toby were.

And that describes our Japan cycling adventure.  Things haven't really been exaggerated.  I may have missed things though.  All up - a fantastic holiday and I can't wait to go back.

Thanks for the trip, Mike and Toby.  And thanks to Iona and Col for organising it and allowing me to tag along on your coattails.

The Tuesday celebrating Josh's birthday

Hi,

We had a great Tuesday.  Work was busy but Toby came to visit.  We now suspect all he wanted was a chocolate fish because when Shannon (on reception and she always gives him a fish when he visits) pinged me he was here, and I said I was in a meeting for another 30 mins, Toby went home!

Anyway, I rode home not too long afterwards and we got changed and headed out to collect Mike from work.  We were gong to Logan Brown to meet Josh and the boys to celebrate Josh's birthday!  Woot!  And a lovely evening it was too.

Mike, Toby and I got there a little early so we sat and chatted away before Josh, Emerson and Duncan arrived.  It was good to see them.  They heard about my trip to Japan and I caught up with their trip to Kenya.  The food was fantastic.  It was the first time I had been.  I had the duck and it was very nice.  I tasted some of Mike's steak and dessert.  Mmmm.  The sides were good too.  I got mushrooms in balsamic and they were tasty.

We got away fairly late (8.30 pm) and dropped off my running gear at work and popped into the supermarket to get some essentials.  Ended up being a late night for me.  But I slept like the dead and my ride in this morning was great fun with dry roads.  Yay!

Got another busy day.  I am constantly behind today.  That never happens.  So odd.

Have a wonderful day.

Love,
Angela

The Monday back at work

Hi,

Toby hurt his shoulder playing tig at school and after a hurried phone call with Mike, he ended up getting the car and collecting Toby from school.  But despite feeling a bit sore, it all seems to be ok now.

Since the car was in town, I met Mike and got the keys and drove home.  I cooked tea (penang chicken curry) and put it on hold while I nipped back to town to collect Mike.  We all sat down to eat the yummy tea!  Mmmm.  No photo.  I ate it too fast.

Went to bed fairly early and was pretty comatose before too long.  Mike complained I go to sleep too early.  I would have complained he wakes up too late, but I was almost asleep.  Hahahah.

Josh's birthday today.  We're all going out to tea tonight to celebrate.  Woot!

Oh - and some bad news.  Our goldfish died over the weekend.  I was devastated.  I remember when he bought him (if it is a him - we called him Carlos).  It was a present for Toby for his return from his first holiday with his grandparents in Dunedin without us there.  Which was years ago.  We reckon Carlos was 8 years old.

Ok.  Time for tea.  Hope your day is fun.

Love,
Angela