This all makes sense now...

We were in a Tokyo shopping
Mall the other day and passed what we initially thought was a baby
wear shop, on closer inspection it turned out to be a clothes, prams
(yes) and accessories store for DOGS.

We saw this lady at a nearby temple today and realised where she might
have got this from:

Narita - day 2 for us and day 5 for some.......

SO we knew no flight today so we got on free hotel shuttle bus to Narita which was lovely, nicest Buddhist temple and gardens we've seen we thought. But that might be because the sun was shining!

Martyn is blogging on his phone at same time so this is a bit of a race. Apparently he has a picture to post as well!

Not much else going on here in waiting land at present, apart from washing, currently hanging in our bathroom and other not hugely interesting but quite necessary things!

Free meals still good, martyn definately hogging ice cream machine, never mind.

Lets see what the meeting in Brussels brings tomorrow but neither of us really want to have to fly through ash cloud that has been dangerous to fly in for 5 days but which might suddenly be safe to fly in tomorrow???!!!!

weight gain

oh dear! we have fortunately managed to get someone to give us a hotel voucher.

This was good enough until we got to the hotel and checked in and they told us we had been checked in for three days and gave us meal vouchers for every meal until then. BARGAIN.

and then we went to the restaurant for dinner using our voucher and I lost count of how many dishes there were and there is an icecream factory machine.

I had lost a bit of weight this holiday - I think I shall be putting it on again in the next three days.

Earliest flight we can rebook out is the 3rd May or something like that. We spent 8 hours in the airport today trying to see where we could get. Our NZ friends have been very helpful and decided to completely gut their house so that was out (and they've asked us about visiting so many times - ah well, not meant to be) And the fact that the airlines wanted 10 000 GBP - no I haven't added an extra zero on there....to let us fly there...... US seemed to be out as well so we came back to hotel for free internet to see what we can book.

Then we learnt about free meals etc and decided this wasn't such a bad place after all. Now we've had conversation with others and have learnt new earliest booking date we're beginning to think again so I'm off to see what we can do about fly drives in US with fly out date of 3rd May - well its the same as I'd get here!!!!!!

And I must find the pool to try and swim off those two pieces of chocolate brownie that accidentally jumped to my plate from the buffet!!!!!

stuck......

we didn't plan the volcano honestly........

there are two people in this business centre with us who have been put up in this hotel for two nights now.
Unfortunately for us rumour has it all local hotels are free so where we will end up tomorrow I don't know!

Anyway, we had a very nice last day - woke up to two inches of snow. Not kidding. have piccies to prove it when we get back. Took all forms of planned transport despite wind and snow and made it back to Tokyo for lunch. It was cold so we planned to go to science museum. Made it as far as Toyota Mega Web and got stuck there. Martyn loved self driving car........I loved Ultimate Design Centre. Will tell you more when get home as there are queues of people trying to find out if they can get home.........

Fuji view

Okay so the cloud came down. But you can see fuji in the photo below
right - just to the right of the last lantern on the right it's there
you're just not looking hard enough put some effort in why don't
you.........
still we battled through the fog and SNOW did I mention the SNOW for a
ride on the pirate ship across lake ashi for our stupendous fuji
views. Ian - this was definately piratey enough. But I confess we gave
up at 3 ish and headed back to hotel.
Kay was forced to warm up by trying onsen but only because she checked
and no one else was in there. Box ticked but confess to preferring
privacy of own bathroom.
It's okay though have great plan for last day tomorrow when we have
stopped laughing about weather we are off back to Tokyo for the
science museum which apparently has robots cool way to finish and
should keep us our of the SNOW did I mention that yet - the SNOW I
mean ????!!!!!
But before Tokyo we have to ride 2 cable cars a funicular train and a
switchback train and our last shinkansen hopefully it will not SNOW
inside them.

Free upgrade.......

Omg ...... We never get these - hurrAh we thought on check in. lake
view we had been given wow. Here it is. Please note that is the cloud
layer you are seeing. it is a lovely lake we are sure. By the way - it
SNOWED about 3 hours after we took this. humph.

Best named shop in the world

Look what we found today while in Gora in Hakone!

There was nothing exiting inside for breakfast tomorrow however 8-(,
perhaps we can set up a similar one with the same name when we get home?