travelling allrite

Nine years ago to the day we arrived in Takayama without a place to stay, not realising that it coincided with the Takayama Matsuri, one of Japan's three most beautiful festivals. Fortunately the staff at the tourist office found us a room and we had the pleasure of watching the enormous wooden floats being hauled through the night streets ridden by young drummers and flautists and accompanied by marchers. Finding suitable accommodation was a lot harder this time and initial bookings split us between distant hotels for the two nights. Fortunately, there were some late releases of rooms and I got us two nights in the Best Western Hotel. We were looking forward to sharing the parade with Alex, the spectacle of lights and noise. It appeared like plenty of other foreigners were here for it too. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans and it drizzled or showered all day. The floats were left in their tall halls, though the doors were opened for some to be shown. Portabl...

B wanted a Japanese haircut. So last night Machiko and Mayumi found a hair salon in Tennoji with a discount voucher and arranged the whole thing for this morning. We packed our bags and checked out of our room, then headed off for Mio Plaza for the haircut. While B was busy having her hair done Alex and I crossed over to the Abeno Harukas tower. The tower is the tallest building in Japan at 300 metres, though it is still dwarfed by the Tokyo Skytree at 634 metres and Tokyo Tower at 333 metres. After buying the somewhat expensive (for Japan) tickets we ascended to the 16th floor in a glass elevator, then whisked up to the 60th floor with an elevator light show that delighted Alex. The views from the top were spectacular, making the old Tsutenkaku tower look like a mere blip on the landscape and the many trains weaving their way through the suburbs less than Z scale. B was long finished by the time we returned. We did a bit of shopping, including some t-shirts to wear whil...