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Japan, the land of the rising sun and also the number 1 destination on our bucket list so we decided to take a holiday of a lifetime as our honeymoon and embark a cruise around Japan and South Korea.
We leave the UK on 4th September from Stansted to Dubai then Dubai to Tokoyo.
We have booked a trip on the bullet train to Mt Fuji then on 8th September we board Diamond Princess to cruise around Japan and South Korea
Join us on our journey around East Asia known for its unique blend of history, culture and of course cutting edge technlogy. Hopefully we will get a chance to find some of the weird and wacky japanese stuff too :)
Pictures will be on facebook again this trip as I have no space to host them anymore.

Day 1

The getting there day...
Our day starts early getting up and finishing off packing. We pop round to see mum then head off to stansted at about 10.15am. We have an afternoon flight which is different for us as we normally have a night in the hotel the day before but not this time it's straight to the airport.
As we are driving down there I'm waiting to tell Leon to turn off at the London junction on the A14 but guess what he remembered it this time! :)
Let me tell you about my new husband Leon... here's a chap that like to make his life easy when going through the airport...that means no belts and as little things to hold him up when going through secruity, before the holiday we had to go get my new husband Leon a new tracksuit so this lack of trouble at secruity could happen. Let me tell you we spent a LONG time trying to get a suitable tracksuit for new husband Leon!... We are standing in Stansted airport and I turn to Leon and say "where's your tracksuit top", He says "Oh shit I've left it in the car!!!!"
After 16 hours of flying and 27 hours of travelling we are here, we are in Tokyo!
Dexter did well with the travelling, he napped for a while on the second plane and again while taxing (for an hour) to our hotel. Our hotel is lovely which is a good suprize as when I looked on their website it didn't look overly great.
The toilets here are quite exciting too! There's buttons for music and washing your bum and all sorts going on :)

Day 2
6th September 2023

Konnichiwa from Tokyo! While checking into the hotel last night I found a leaflet for the hop on hop off bus, brilliant we thought what a great way to see Tokyo and learn a bit as we go round too. This morning Leon buys the hop on bus tickets for us and we set off for some breakfast before the bus comes to get us, thankfully one of the stops for the bus is right outside our hotel. For breakfast we found a place called eggslut which basically does lots of food with eggs, I have to say the food was lovely (although Dexter doesn't like it).
We go to pick up hop on bus from our hotel, we are heading to the scramble crossing which is a crazy load of zebra crossings which are triangle shape across the road. I have directions on my phone so we head off to find it, we walk for a while and get quite confused as we see a weird zebra crossing but it doesn't seem crazy enough we check the phone and it seems we have gone passed it and head off back the way we came. Once at scramble crossing we feel a bit underwhelmed by it, it definately isn't a mad as we thought. There's a Starbucks there so we stopped for a while to watch people crossing the road.
Next we head to a maids cafe called Maidreaming, this is hard to explain but it's basically a restaruant where the girls dress up like japanese maids and they are a bit mad. When they bring the food we all have to put a love spell on it by making heart shape with your hands and shouting moya, moya, MOYA! They also did some dancing and singing you can see this facebook its just weird!
We head back to catch the hop on hop off bus which I'll add isn't very hop on hop off as theres only 4 pick ups from each stop a day so you have to be there on time or you're stuck for hours.

Today we have a holiday first! Leon is actually going to write a section as he really wants to get his own back on me telling you the funny stuff he does, here goes....

So hello family and friends this is the husband as Nicky has said I don't really get involved with these postings but I have to share with you what happend this morning, so we are all ready to leave and Nicky said she just want to go to the toilet (age thing). Me and Dexter are looking out of the window when we hear "LEON HELP ME" well Nicky has told you a bit about the toilets they have a heated seat a button to play music so other pepole can't hear your poo splashing down they even have a button to wash your front and back parts with warm water which is a bit strange. So Nicky thought she would give the spray ago she pressed the button out comes the bar to wash, water starts to spray and she sits there and sits there and more water sprays she gets a bit bored at this point as the water will not stop yes you guessed it she stood up thats when I got the help scream we ran to the bathroom to find Nicky drenched in water as the water didn't stop obvs we found this extremly funny at this point I pointed out the big orange button that say stop. This is why I had to write this bit as i think she just might have forgotten to put this in.

Nicky back, the above is a true story!

In the evening we go for a walk around where our hotel is in search of some food, we aren't overly hungry and to be fair the sushi is a bit too Japanese looking for us! We end up buying some crisps and sweets and going back to the hotel.

There are some photos on facebook for you.

Day 3
7th September 2023

It's Mt Fuji day today. But I've been up since 1.30am and I'm fed up of listening to the boys snoring their heads off so I thought I'd do an update to tell you want I know about Japan so far. It's hot it's mostly been around 30oC here but not only is it hot it's humid too :( Humidity has been 69% today and tomorrow that goes up to 93% - My hair isn't loving Japan at all. Japanese people carry umbrellas ALL the time it's more a force of habit than a love of umbrellas, they have machines that will roll your umbrella back up and bag it for you when it's wet, they also have big v shape objects to wipe dry your umbrellas when entering a building. Umbrellas are big business here, you are more likely to have your umbrella stolen than your purse.
It gets dark here early like 6pm and this is a weird thing to say but the darkness here seems darker then the UK. Sunrise is around 5am.
Toilet update - yesterday I found a hole in the floor type toilet while out and about, I'm too confused to try it out so if you have any helpful advice please let me know.

I said to Leon this morning I hope not much happens today as this will be the longest update EVER! Ha! I was wrong, so wrong - I don't even know where to start!

So we are booked onto a tour which includes going to Mt Fuji and the bullet train, I presume (stupidly) that we are being picked up from our hotel drop off at the bullet train and going to Mt Fuji, we grab a Starbacks and wait for our transfer. The coach comes and picks us up and we are handed a leaflet, we aren't going to the bullet train we have a 3 hour coach ride to Mt Fuji ARGH this is all I need, I'm tired and really don't want to be stuck in a coach! We drive around different hotels picking up more and more people until the coach is full and head off.
3 hours later and the first stop is station 5 up Mt Fuji this is as far as vehicle can take you, we take photos and have a quick look around the tourist shops and shrine then back on the bus.
Second stop is lunch - we are taken to a Japanese resturant and given Japanese food - now while looking around for food since we have been here has been a nightmare as the food looks yuk (and remember we like asian food) but actually the meal was lovely and we really enjoyed it.
Next we are taken to a cable car ride which takes through a volcano which is active, when I say active it isn't letting out lava but it's smoking and theres plenty of sulpur (yellow stuff that smells like rotten eggs). At the other end of the cable car ride we get out inside the volcano and have a walk around, take photos and go to the gift shop then it's back on the bus for the final stop.
By now its 4pm and its been a very full on day to say the least, both Dexter and me are finding it hard to stay awake but the next stop is a pirate ship across the lakes around the mountains, we reflect back and think to ourselves actually this has been a great day, the trip out has been well worth it and quite fun that is until Dexter says - Help, Help I'm stuck!!
Somehow Dexter has managed to get his arm stuck in a hand rail where he was sitting, Leon and me both take turns at trying to release him before realising actually he really is stuck, his arm has wedged itself between the wall and the hand rail and its not coming out, everytime we try to pull it out Dexter cries out it's hurting. I run off to find somebody from the boat to help, and come back with a woman and a first aid kit, when we get back I see someone has given Leon some vasoline to try and release him but that hasn't worked. The woman with the first aid kit isn't much help and goes off to get more help, 2 men came back with some paper towels at this point we are getting quite annoyed and Leon says to the men get a screwdriver!! They return with a screwdriver and undo the screws holding the hand rail on and release Dexter!! His arm is red and dented but thankfully no damage is done.
After the pirate ship we are finally off to our last stop the Bullet train. This train is superfast and runs at 186mph we saw a couple go past while waiting for ours and it's breathtaken how quickly they go. Once on the train it's like being on any other train really you can't feel the speed that much. Back in Tokyo we navigate our way through the underground and back to where are hotel is.

All in all a good but long and unexpected day out, seems like all is good well, right??? Of course not we are on holiday and something has to go wrong!
While on the bullet train I recieve a message saying that our cruise has been delayed as theres a typhoon, we haven't had wifi all day it's now 8pm and we are all very, VERY tired, but hey lets throw in a big problem to deal with.
We have managed to secure another night at our hotel and moved our transfers to the following day while trying to deal with people in the UK and Japan it's a nightmare.

But for now goodnight, lets see what this typhoon (which Leon thinks is a cup of tea) brings us tomorrow... x

Day 4
8th September 2023

So today we should have been joining the diamond princess and starting our cruise but as you know we have been caught up in tropical storm Yun-yeung and our cruise has been delayed, hopefully we will board the ship tomorrow.
This morning we decided as we have a spare day in Tokyo we will have a Dexter fun day and search out a softplay centre for him, the one we found looks awesome on the pictures! We order a taxi and make our way out of the hotel, stopping at the 7/11 shop in the foyer to buy 2 unbrellas as it's absolutely tipping it down outside because of the typhoon.
We arrive at the softplay centre and my word it's much better than the pictures, they have a HUGE ball pit which is like the sea theres a pirate ship, rockclimbing walls slides and all sorts going on. We go deeper into the softplay place and find different little areas where the kiddies can be shop owners, construction workers, restaurant workers, grow veggies and so much more, this place really is awesome.
The softplay place is in a area called the Tokyo dome where they have plenty of fun things to do, unfortunately because of the horrendos rain the fairground outside isn't working but we play some indoor arcade games.
We also found a 3D tin can alley, the only way to describe this is - we went into a cinema screen looking place and sat in big seats that we had to be seatbelted in because they moved a bit, we had 3D glasses on and next to our chairs were guns once the film started we had to shot the pirates, zombies etc to win points, I won the first round and Leon won the second. It was really good fun.
After our fun time out we took the underground home navigating it like local now!
New Japanese fact for you, Japan is very clean although there are no bins on the streets there is no litter anywhere and you don't see many bugs!
Leon is extremely happy with the toilet in our hotel after coming back from having a number 2, a wash and dry he says he's thinking of getting one of these toilets for our new bathroom.
This evening has been spent in the hotel room as Dexter decided to fall asleep early and wouldn't wake up. We have contacted the travel agent and they have advised as far as they know we should be boarding our cruise tomorrow.
Night night x

Day 5
Saturday 9th September

It's finally cruise day!
Today we are boarding the diamond princess for the last leg of our honeymoon and the day starts well....badly to be fair. This morning Dexter woke up feeling poorly and said he was feeling sick, we carry on getting ready and then Dexter voms everywhere!! Oh my word this is the last thing we need to board a cruise ship you can't be vomming or pooping for a least 2 weeks. So we try to carry on and Dexter has a bath and voms again (thankfully not in the bath) we give him some water and straight away he is vomming again. Once we are ready we head downstairs for some breakfast, this is our first time trying breakfast and thankfully our last - breakfast is mank! I mean who eats rice and veg for breakfast? Japanese people that's who! And they are weird.
We don't give Dexter any food but he still manages to vom while we are eating - he is very good at being sick so no one actually notices that he done it and we leave.
At this point we aren't really sure if we should try and board the cruise or just try and get a flight home - what a nightmare.
Our tranfer arrives and we decide to at least try to board the ship we know there is a really good medical team onboard a cruise and at least they will speak English, so we continue on.
Once at the port we hand our luggage in and collect some boarding cards, Leon says to me should be priory because we have a suite rather than just a cabin, I ask the lady and she checks our room number and said no we aren't priority boarding :( We sit and wait like all the other commoners for about 40 minutes before I think to myself - hang on a minute we are platinum customers as I go back and speak to the lady again and this time she says yes you are priority. I come back with 3 new boarding passes meaning we can bypass all the other people and go straight on to the ship - Leon decides to call me a complete berk for making us wait! Like he could have thought of it himself, Leon you're a berk!
So finally we are now on the boat, Our room is ready so we decide to take Dexter straight there and hide away, once there Dexter says "I'm hungry and thristy" and the fear of dread comes over me, like what am I supposed to do I can't take him out for food what if he throws up again. We give him a glass of water and wait, no vomming so we give him some more water and again no vomming? Next we give him some sweets ( the only food we have available at the moment and wait, guess what no vomming!! We decide its ok for us to stop hiding and go get some food - Dexter doesn't stop eating! 2 plates of pasta, an ice cream, melon and pineapple and crumble and no vomming, hoorah!
In the evening Dexter heads off to kiddie club as hes been so excited to go there, Leon and me thought we would pop down to the casino and have a little flutter but because we are in Japanese waters its closed.
Oh god what a day.

Japanese toilet fact for the day - They have wall carriers for small children here which is brilliant you just pop your child into a carrier and go to the loo yourself - no chance of them opening the door on you half way through weeing!

Day 6
10th September 2023

Hello everyone we have a sea day today. We have booked ourselves into the spa for some treatments, first thing I have a booking for nails I'm having my wedding gel nails removed and my own nails painted over, at $98 you would think they are made of gold but to be honest they are just ok.
We pick squiddy up from kiddie club around 11.30 as we want to take him swimming. We all get changed and head off to the swimming pools, once at the indoor swimming pool we tested the water and think it's a bit cold and deep it's over our heads so head off to a hot tub instead, we are soon joined by an American lady who wants to chat - We find out alot about her like her and her husband are retired now and living their best lives in Thailand. Next we head outside to see if the outside pool is warmer and find that is hammering it down with rain so give up with the idea.
After lunch Dexter heads back to kiddie club and Leon and Me have some massages - Yes you heard that right Leon willingly signed himself up for a massage, I know weird right!
Kiddie club here isn't as good as the one on the last cruise but Dexter seems to be enjoying it and he's is getting loads of freebies and this afternoon the club took the kiddies out for ice creams.
Dexter is also having dinner with his new friends at kiddie club so after a short break with us he is off again.
We book into a restaurant and have lobster and steak which is absolutey beautiful and a bottle of pink fizz to wash it down, well, we are on honeymoon after all.
In the evening we adventure into the casino, now this a boat in the Far East where people are well known for their love of gambling, it's the first night the casino has been open and it's empty?!
We settle in for some 3 card poker and stay playing for a while. Dexter has extra babysitting at the kiddie club so we make the best of our 'adult time'.

Japanese toilet fact - Leon calls the washing part of the toilet the 'meat blaster' that gives me the ick.

Day 7
Monday 11th September

Today we are in Kagoshima, Japan. We have nothing booked to do so we will just get off the boat and have a look around when we get off. There's a slight confusion with getting off the boat as I read the notification the night before that we had to go through immigration at noon so I'm having a nice lazy morning that is until Leon pipes up "why aren't you getting ready?" I explain we can't get off until noon and he advised me that's the final time to go through immigration ARGH now I'm in a rush... well actually not that much of a rush as it's still early.
We have breakfast and make our escape off the boat, we find a shuttle bus (put on by the cruise) and join it for $25 each for a 15 minute trip into the town. Once in town we see there's an aqurium to visit and head off there, I don't know why but I just didn't expect much from it BUT it was awesome, they had a whale shark and plenty of fish I haven't really seen before but best of all the did a show with some dolphins which was really good.
We head back to the boat and have a late lunch.
We have been invited to special party for platinum and elite customes by the captian, we have a couple of free drinks while Princess cruises say how thankful they are to have repeat customers blah blah blah and there's a prize draw... and the first name out of the bag is...... cabin D216 Nicola March! YAY I won and bottle of something!
The evening we take Dexter back to kiddie club while we head off to the sushi restaurant which is lovely, japanese food we actually like.
We are quite tired so pick up squiddy early from club and head back for a early night. Goodnight all x

Day 8
Tuesday 12th September 2023

It's with a heavy heart I write this update.
Mum has sadly passed away after a short battle with cancer. She was probably the number 1 fan of the holiday websites she loved reading the updates each day so for now I won't be updating the website as to be honest it doesn't seem right too.
:(

Day 8

Tuesday 12th September 2023 (continued)

Busan, South Korea. Obviously with the news about mum we haven't felt like doing much today. We had planned to go and see some shrines and try to see as much of Busan as we can as it's the only stop in South Korea.

Dexter heads off to kiddie club Leon and me leave the ship for a while we have nothing planned other than we want to pick up a Starbucks cup for our collection, we head through the port and enter a station (It's a very long walk) we search for a Starbucks but don't find one. Busan is holding the world expo in 2030 so the area we are in is being developed (and looks quite nice) but once out of the station area and into the actual city it was a bit scruffy and not clean like Japan.

We walk around for ages and can't find the Starbucks anywhere so decide to head back to the boat. On the way back we did find 2 Starbucks which were meters away from each other and got a cup.

We go pick up Dexter and take him for some food. It's a very sombre day.

South Korea weather wise is very similar to Japan, it's hot and humid very sticky.

Seasickness report as we haven't had one so far - None found.

Day 9
Wednesday 13th September 2023

A warm welcome to Nagasaki, Japan when I say warm I mean a hot, humid, sticky and sweaty welcome!
Oh boy it is hot.
As it's our last stop on this holiday we decided to book a last minute trip out, we you going to the peace park and atomic bomb museum. As we only booked our trip last night we checked with reception what we needed to do in regards to immigration this morning. We are told that we (Leon and Me) will go through immigration before we go on our trip then when we get back we need to take Dexter through.
We arrive at 9am to drop Dexter off at kiddie club to find out they won't accept him in unless he has been through immigration! ARGH, we have to meet our trip at 9.15 to get on the bus. We run as fast as we can from the top of the ship down to the bottom with Dexter saying "I'm tired, carry me", we run past all the people queuing to get off the ship and keep on running until we get to immigration. Thankfully we past through immigration quite quickly and now have to run back onto the ship and back to the top floor! (Did I mention how hot it is) I say to Leon you and Dexter go to kiddie club and I'll head to the theatre to meet our trip and we split up.
I run off to the theatre which I'm pretty sure I remember where it is, WRONG I do not remember and run to the wrong end of the ship, after looking on the map of the ship I have to run all the way back to the other end and find the theatre (and breathe).
Once there I'm greeted by a moody trip person telling I'm late! So I explain that reception told us the night before for just Leon and me to do immigration then Dexter when we got back, then what happened at kiddie club (you get the picture). She then pointed to the time on my ticket and told me again I'm late!!! To which I decide to shout at her the whole story over again with my resting bitch face on, she piped down and asked where Leon was (In case you don't know Leon is now my husband :) ) She is NOT amused Leon isn't here.
Anyway we finally head off to meet our bus for the tour and guess what? We are the second people on the bus and we aren't late at all, in fact we were 5 minutes early arriving on the bus.
On the tour we go to the peace park which is a park they built near gound zero after Nagasaki was atomic bombed by America, we also go to ground zero where the bomb actually hit. While heading down to ground zero we stepped onto an escaltor which turns into a travelator and changes back into an escaltor again Leon is amazed by this, so much so he takes a video while riding the above escaltor/travelator thing- you really should ask to see his video its errr exciting ;)
This is followed by a trip to the atomic bomb museum, to by honest it's not really my cup of tea but I did take in some of the information.
We travel back to the ship which I might add is running over 30 minutes late as others didn't make it through immigration on time!
Back on the boat we have a spot of lunch and a snooze as we really haven't had much sleep recently.
Dexter comes out kiddie club with loads more junk and we all have a easy evening in our cabin.

Day 10
Thursday 14th September 2023

It's our last full day on board the diamond princess and we are at sea so a nice relaxing day. We have some breakfast and chill out in our cabin watching movies in the morning. For the afternoon Dexter has said he would like to go to kiddie club and thats fine because we need to pack and of course go to the casino.
We drop Squiddy off and head into the casino, we haven't been too lucky on this cruise and the casino has been closed alot due to gambling laws when in Japanese waters. Again we don't do overly well so we leave the casino and go back to our cabin to pack.
Remember I said a nice relaxing day right? WRONG, so there we are packing our stuff up and we have nearly finished when Leon says "why are there only 2 passports here" he opens them and it's his and Dexters. ARGH, where is my passport??? We search through everything where we think it could be but theres no luck, it's gone :(
I head down to reception to see if it's been handed in and join the end of a massive queue of people trying to settle their bills etc, Leon stays in the cabin.
I'm queuing for about 20 minutes (and I haven't moved) when Leon appears waving a passport at me! It's mine, he's found it! hoorah for Leon, my hero! I ask him where he found it and he explained that he went through Dexter's suitcase and found it in there, what? Leon packed Dexter's suitcase and packed my passport in there - what a complete berk!
We have dinner on a shared table tonight and met a couple of ladies from Yorkshire they were ok.
After dinner (and Dexters gone back to kiddie club) We go to the casino to try our luck, again its not great - At 10.45 they advise us we are now going back into Japanese waters and they are closing we have 5 more hands to play :( On the last hand we decide to go all in and play blind it's very exciting I've never bet this much on one hand before. The dealer turns their cards over and has a pair, oh crap we probably aren't going to beat this, next is Leon the dealer slowly reveals his cards and he has a pair!!! HA HA HA it's higher then the dealers! Leon wins and now for my cards another slow reveal and I have also got a PAIR!!! Higher than the dealers I win too! Honestly this kinda thing doesn't happen but it just did! Even the manager said he thought the dealer had us when he turned over a pair. Happy we are slighty up from when started we cash in and leave.
Night night everyone

Day 11
Friday 15th September 2023

The getting home day...
When I say a day I mean 2 days :( We are up early as we have to leave our cabin at 8am, we go get some breakfast then pick up our hand luggage and leave our cabin for the last time.
We wait with the other platinum guests this time in one of the restaurants just for us. We are probably in there and an hour, hour and half and then we are called to leave.
We have a private taxi taking us to the airport, problem is we can't find the taxi and he can't find us! I can only get wifi near the terminal so I have to keep running back and forth to the terminal to pick up his messages on where he is - complete nightmare and its 32oc today, I'm hot!
Finally we find him and we are on our way to the airport, to be fair we aren't in any hurry as our flight isn't until 10.30pm.
We had planned on getting to the airport leaving our bags and then going to a nearby town but once in the airport Leon can't be bothered to leave and we sit there for 10 hours. At least there is a Starbucks :) x
I feel like I have a bit of a sore throat and as Leon is going to the pharmacy in the airport I ask him to pick me up some throat sweets or something, he comes back with a spray which works really well.
Hours into our wait I find a place where Leon can lay down and have a snooze, Dexter is busy watching his iPad so that just leaves me to amuse myself....this is boring!!!
Finally the time comes to board our flight and we make the first part of our trip, a 10 hour flight back to Dubai. When we land I'm not feeling so good, I have a temperature and a sore throat - The throat spray isn't working as good as it was.
We board our plane and by this stage I've started shaking and feeling VERY unwell :(
I take some paracetamol but it's not working against this temperature.
We land back at Stansted and wait for our suitcases which I swear took 40 minutes to an hour to arrive, I'm feeling worse and worse.
Out of the baggage reclaim Leon is fannying about with something when I just burst into tears and say "I JUST NEED TO BE HOME" he then gets a wiggle on and take me home.
At home it's confirmed my reason for feeling ill is our good old friend covid! YUK!
That's it for our honeymoon it certainly didn't go to plan and has differently been our hardest holidays.

RIP MUM - WE LOVE YOU! XXX

Japan

Holiday Itinerary

In loving memory of Mum

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