October
Kyoto and Matsumoto
28/10/09 20:41
Time out
We’ve just spent four fabulous days away from Tokyo. Took the Shinkansen to Kyoto on Wednesday morning (530 km in just over 2 hours) wow, just think Auckland to Wellington in 2 hours. You don’t even realise you are travelling fast.
We hired bikes from the hotel spent two packed full days visiting temples, watching the Jidai Matsuri Festival (Photographs here) attending 45 minute potted Japanese culture show (Linda reckons it wasn’t long enough, I thought it 40 minutes too long) before heading to Matsumoto in Nagano prefecture in the Japanese Alps.
We stayed in a Japanese Ryokan, sleeping on a futon and Tatami mats for the first time, went to an Onsen (hot spring), Japanese breakfasts are huge and fabulous.
Just the start for a full day in the Kamakochi valley, climbed to about 2000 meters, but didn’t see any bears. (Photographs here) Then back to Tokyo just before the weather turned to custard with the arrival of another tropical storm (one grade below a typhoon).
Seems a lot longer four days. Linda is now back to work at TOIS; I have a stack of editing work for science company, can be pretty extraordinary stuff. What does one make of:
The larval downward speed with deflating swim bladder, which larvae can not adjust their body density, is probably higher than that of larvae with inflating swim bladder. This means that larvae with deflating swim bladder have a high risk of sinking death.
Hummm should keep me busy.
We’ve just spent four fabulous days away from Tokyo. Took the Shinkansen to Kyoto on Wednesday morning (530 km in just over 2 hours) wow, just think Auckland to Wellington in 2 hours. You don’t even realise you are travelling fast.
We hired bikes from the hotel spent two packed full days visiting temples, watching the Jidai Matsuri Festival (Photographs here) attending 45 minute potted Japanese culture show (Linda reckons it wasn’t long enough, I thought it 40 minutes too long) before heading to Matsumoto in Nagano prefecture in the Japanese Alps.
We stayed in a Japanese Ryokan, sleeping on a futon and Tatami mats for the first time, went to an Onsen (hot spring), Japanese breakfasts are huge and fabulous.
Just the start for a full day in the Kamakochi valley, climbed to about 2000 meters, but didn’t see any bears. (Photographs here) Then back to Tokyo just before the weather turned to custard with the arrival of another tropical storm (one grade below a typhoon).
Seems a lot longer four days. Linda is now back to work at TOIS; I have a stack of editing work for science company, can be pretty extraordinary stuff. What does one make of:
The larval downward speed with deflating swim bladder, which larvae can not adjust their body density, is probably higher than that of larvae with inflating swim bladder. This means that larvae with deflating swim bladder have a high risk of sinking death.
Hummm should keep me busy.