Seibuen Yuenchi Amusement Park

Despite Tokyo being a rather chilly 11C, Yuki, Clara, and I ventured out of the house to visit Seibuen Amusement Park. Seibuen is only a short 15 minute drive from the house, so we did not have to endure the stress of a long and difficult journey.

Despite Seibuen showing a few wrinkles and quite clearly being outclassed by bigger and better amustment parks, it was a thoroughly enjoyable day - good idea Clara! Due to the cold and overcast weather, the park was not too busy and we were able to get on our preferred rides with usually no standing in line.

I must be getting old as I was more excited with the views from the top of the revolving observation tower and ferris wheel rather than the thrills and spills of the other rides. The ferris wheel offered excellent views and made me think back to around 16 years ago when my university friends and I rode the same ferris wheel when they visited me during my very first stint in Japan. The small cabin offered us some sanctuary from the noise of the park and it was especially satisfying to rise through the cherry blossom trees that were almost in full bloom

It was great to watch Clara having such a good time, although also a bit sad. In only a year or two, I imagine she will no longer be interested in some of the rides as she will be well on the way to becoming an adult. I took the chance to watch her and did my best to try and keep the memories locked up in my head. I must be turning Japanese as I have read that the cherry blossom also invokes such contrarian feelings within the natives.

With regards to photography, I was at somewhat of a disadvantage today. During my recent trip to Hong Kong, I dropped my camera on the ferry deck during a particularly rough crossing and broke the lens. These two photos were therefore taken using the rather feeble 3 megapixel camera of my aging iPhone 3. I was thinking of investing in a new Canon anyway, so perhaps I will have to bring forward these plans.

Over the last week or so, there have been a couple of sad anniversaries. Last week we visited the grave of Takashi, Yuki's father. Yesterday we visited the grave of her grandmother. It is now 1 year since they both died.

However, perhaps because spring is in the air, I feel a new sense of optimism and excitement. The cherry blossom should be in full bloom by next weekend, Golden Week (with approximately 5 days off) occurs at the end of April, and I am excited to visit Scotland with Clara this summer. I think that perhaps a new job may also be called for.....I have a lot of contacts in shipping companies around the world, so may now have to start seriously looking.

We are now about to put the icing on the weekend cake and head off to the local Italian (restaurant) for dinner. Till the next time.

Ocean Park

On Monday 21st March, Clara and I headed off to Ocean Park amusement park, near Aberdeen, Hong Kong. Clara and I had originally decided to go to Disneyland but were advised by all we met that Ocean Park was by far and away the best option.

I felt that as Clara and I had travelled all the way from Japan, it was only right that we should treat ourselves to a blue riband event. We left the house slightly later than intended (no change there) and got the by then familiar fast ferry over to Pier 6 in Central Hong Kong. A short wait ensued until the bus picked us and and delivered us directly to Ocean Park after a 20 minute journey.

I was hoping that the park would be extremely quiet as it was a Monday. However, there were still hordes of people milling around and I immediately realised that a weekend trip to Ocean Park would be the mother of all nightmares.

We entered the park and then chose the Emerald Trail as our first attraction - so boring I will not go into any detail. Our day then appeared to get worse as we queued to take the cable car over the mountain to the other side of the park. We had to queue for 45 minutes, and similar to the rest of Hong Kong, there was a pneumatic drill in close proximity. I measured the sound at over 100dB using an application on my iPhone. However, this marked the nadir of our day and things were soon to dramatically improve. Clara and I found the views from the cable car around Ocean Park, over Aberdeen, and into Lamma Strait absolutely amazing. It was a gorgeous day and the cable car ride alone would have made the day trip worthwhile. Once the cable car trip had ended, we found ourselves on a promontory overlooking Lamma Strait. Fantastic views and impressive to see the massive cargo vessels slowly working their way down the strait.After the cable car ride we took a ride down the relatively placid Raging River, terrified ourselves on the roller coaster-esque Mine Train, and then spent a very pleasant and relaxing time watching the dolphin and seal show at Ocean Theatre. I feel slightly wicked for downplaying the Mine Train ride to Clara. I assured her it would be relatively benign, but it was nothing of the sort. We were both absolutely terrified and Clara held on to me like a limpet mine. The terror we experienced on this ride meant that trying out The Abyss would have to wait to another day.

Towards the end of the day, we visited the surprisingly empty panda enclosure. It seems the local Chinese population are much more interested in the thrills and spills of the rides than they are in one of the symbols of their country. Surprising, but this allowed Clara and I a clear view. Interesting to note that pandas also suffer from the effects of red eye.

A great day out with Clara, and we even managed to squeeze in an impressive acrobatic show on our way out of the park. Thoroughly recommended, but perhaps not on a weekend - must be absolute chaos.

Tokyo DisneySea

We all went to Tokyo for Golden Week. The Japanese call this time Golden Week because there are a series of national holidays which are held in the space of one week. We took an extra couple of days off and traveled down to Tokyo for a bit f fun, shopping, and relaxation.

On Monday 1st May, we went to DisneySea which is basically an aquatic version of Disney Land. Clara was very excited about this trip although I found it VERY hard to wake up at 5.30am. The drive to DisneySea took about 90 minutes, and we were there nice and early, along with every other person in Tokyo.


We bought our souvenirs when we entered the park to avoid the end of day queues and then placed them in a locker so we could pick them up later. We all had a pretty good time and saw most of the attractions that were on offer. The first attraction which we went on was a gondola tour around a Disney version of Venice. After that, we gradually covered the rest of the attractions. Although DisneySea was busy, we didn't have to queue for very long which was a nice surprise. Of course, the person who had the best time of all was Clara.