Dear Tokyo: we will be back!

We spent less time in Tokyo than a lot of first time visitors probably do. This was largely because we know we like to get outside the cities and so allocated our time in Japan accordingly.

Our first afternoon and evening in Tokyo was spent visiting the Imperial Palace, a birthday dinner and drinks and a trip to the electric district, Akihabara. It was a very mixed night! I was just thinking about how Akihabara was less odd than I expected when we entered a café for dessert. It was a fan café for social phenomenon AKB48- named after Akihabara: a 148 member strong Japanese idol girl group. The idea behind the group is that they have their own theatre and you can meet the celebrities at "handshake" events. They are apparently one of the highest earning performers in Japan.

At the cafe, the menu advertised the favourites of each singer, their music videos played on numerous screens and then there was the merchandise. It was a super sweet and unique birthday cake and Rob organised a great night.

Imperial Palace Gardens

Fan Cafe: not a fan of the coffee

But a big fan of my birthday cake!

My actual birthday coincided with a trip to Disneyland (actually Rob’s Christmas present!). For some reason the theme at the park for all of 2015 is Easter and bunnies abounded. Apart from the typical rides (very similar to Californian Disney) we amused ourselves by spotting the costumes and matching clothes worn by a high percentage of patrons. If you think wearing matching clothes is common in other areas of Asia, Tokyo Disneyland takes this to a whole new level!

Me and just two of the matchies

By the end of the day Rob and I were so sad we didn’t match we bought Mickey and Minnie hats…just kidding.

Trying before not buying

A magical place!

Impounded

We kept ourselves going (we walked almost 23,000 steps that day) on Mickey shaped foods and other snacks. Popcorn (chilli, salted and caramel) is very big at Tokyo Disney. Kids and adults wander around with Disney themed popcorn containers around their neck, ready to fill up for continuous munching. It was good but I most enjoyed a Mickey ice-cream sandwich.

Mickey ice-cream sandwich 

Most of the rides we took were worth the wait. Splash Mountain had the longest wait time of 3 hours (!) but we opted to ride as singles so cut it down to 20 minutes. Lucky we did, as both of us picked it as our favourite ride. Many of the amusements were less thrilling but the effects and costumes were intricate and top notch, for example the Pirates of the Caribbean and the "It's a Small World" ride. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the iterations of Rob as we floated around the "small" world:

 

I had read that a lot of the narratives of rides were in Japanese and was surprised that for the most part, that not understanding did not reduce our enjoyment much. The parades were impressive, especially the evening parade which we enjoyed from a cafe with our Mickey burgers.

Dream lights night parade

The Cheshire Cat

Your wish is my command

Toy Story

The highlights of our third day in Tokyo included watching a parade, enjoying some unique performances at a street festival and just generally getting a feel for Japan. We had set out to the Sony building to see some of their latest tech but this turned out to be less eventful than the scenes on the streets outside. We finished off the night with a view of Tokyo from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.Tokyo: I think we will visit you again!

School band in a parade

Just one unique street act we caught

Children's street art activity with masking tape 

They love their food models over here..and do them well

Tokyo at night 

The Sandakan Death Marches

While we joked about "surviving" the jungle for 2 nights, intentionally trying to find crocodiles, and persisting against the "onslaught" of mosquitoes, there's a serious side to being in North Borneo.  A side we were to see more of as we returned to Sandakan.

During the Japanese occupation of North Borneo from 1942-1945, almost 2500 Australian and British prisoners of war were incarcerated at Sandakan and forced to work on the construction of an airfield (which Wikipedia suggests is at the site of the current Sandakan airport). Most of these prisoners were captured after the fall of Singapore.  Towards the end of the war as the Allies were getting closer, some (many had already died due to brutality and starvation) were forced to walk from Sandakan inland to Ranau in a series of 3 marches.  A distance of more than 260km through swamps, hills and jungle.  In the end, only 6 Australians survived, and only because they were able to escape during the marches with the aid of locals.

Map from Sandakan to Ranau - thanks to borneotourstravel.com

I won't go into all of the details, it is covered much better elsewhere, (Wikipedia does a great job, as does the site "Australia's War" and "POW's of Japan", another special mention to Lynette Silver who was involved in bringing everything together from an historical perspective) a visit to the site of the actual camp at the Sandakan Memorial Park is certainly something I think worth doing, whatever your nationality.  The State of Sabah, the City Council of Sandakan and the Office of Australian War Graves have done an incredible job of making the Memorial Park a peaceful sanctuary, where people can learn from our shared past, and they ensure that the suffering of the local people at the hands of the Japanese occupiers is not lost either.

Something new I learned, was that regularly the guards responsible for the direct oversight of Australian prisoners were themselves Taiwanese conscripts of the Japanese Army, unleashing what little power they had over weaker and "lower" men than themselves. Kat was most impressed with the level of research that was done to capture what was life in the POW camp and on the death marches.

Just putting Sandakan to Ranau into Google Maps now tells you that even with modern roads it would be a tortuous 222km that would take 47h to cover without stopping.

This visit really put our jungle "adventure" in perspective, it is sobering to think what those men and local people must have suffered through.

Remains of a boiler used for electricity generation

The now serene gardens

3 flowers for 3 nations suffering

The remains of an excavator used on the airstrip