Back to Tokyo (Yokohama)

Out early to get some morning light. It was mostly some tradies out at this time: there seems to be a lot of hard-hat construction people often laden with big packs, climbing ropes, etc.

Saw a troupe of monkeys travelling from A to B - one little fella stopped to play on the slippery dip! Hilarious.

Had a nice coffee from the espresso machine in the foyer and looked out on a pretty Japanese garden before going back to the room to pack before brekky.

Breakfast was at the leisurely time of 8:30 (!): some yummy things - but what really appealed to me was the granola (which they had only a small amount of on the buffet and I polished most of it off 🫢).

View from our room:

And along the corridor:

We are leaving from Unazukionsen earlier than planned as we don’t want to miss the train to Tokyo. I think there probably WAS adequate transfer at Shin-Kurobe across to Kurobe-Unazukionsen (27 mins) with the later train; however, as things turned out, it DID take us 20 mins. to print out the tickets (and we had to ask for assistance), plus go up to the platform. I think we’d have made it but - to be sure, to be sure. 

So, we have an hour to burn … the time passed quickly by the time we caught up with a few admin. things like booking.com reviews, our walking tour review etc.

It is 2.5 hours on the shinkansen to Tokyo Stn then out to near Yokohama to join the tour. Snow on the mountains as we whiz along. The train is absolutely packed. 

We found a spot for our luggage but many people didn’t.

We ended our journey at Tokyo Stn where we found something to eat plus a coffee. It was abuzz with people scurrying in all different directions and we had to check which way to go to Kamata (we ended up going up a small flight of stairs three times as we went backwards and forwards trying to work out where and what to do).

At Kamata it was a bit more than a km to our accommodation; checked in and just left our luggage in the room to set off to Yokohama.

Got out at Yokohama Stn which isn’t really Yokohama; actually Yokohama appears to be Ishikawacho Stn (??). But we used the opportunity whilst here to visit Uniqlo (where I managed to lose MF-san whose hearing aids keep falling off with the putting on and off of masks - which you really DO need here) and an optometrist (I bought super cheap frames - yay!) before taking a second train to Ishikawacho Stn.

Ate street food (pork buns and dumplings - yum!) in the very colourful Yokohama Chinatown. Very tired so headed back the 8 stops to Kamata Stn where we are staying - on a reasonably fast train.

Found a downstairs bar near the station - Italian wine. I could murder a red tonight. Plus some Italian gorgonzola. Mmmm.

A hot chocolate back in the lounge area of the hotel with a moon cake (red bean paste and chestnut) we had bought in Chinatown. Yum.

Walked 12.5 kms including the 3 kms before breakfast for me.