This past Wednesday marked my the start of my final week of summer vacation, its funny how fast a month can go by! Starting next Wednesday I go back to work and get to give my students their midterm tests, sounds like fun right? ;) So before I have to go back to waking up at 5:30am I figured it would be nice to do something I haven't done in my 5 years of living in Japan; a HATO bus tour. For those of you not living in Japan or not familiar with HATO bus, its the most famous domestic bus tour service in the Tokyo/Kanto area though I hear they now have a few tours in Osaka. The tour that my friends and I went on included 60 minutes of walking around Asakusa, a 2 hours houseboat ride down the Tokyo river including lunch, and Tokyo Tower. I had been to Asakusa and Tokyo Tower before, but it was nice to hear new things about them from a tour guide and practice my Japanese. I think the most interesting part of the tour was the houseboat ride and lunch, there were so many great views of Tokyo from the river.
Here are a few of my pictures from my tour.
Have any of you taken a HATO bus tour before? Where are some places in Tokyo/Japan that you would tour if you had a chance?
I haven't taken a bus tour before--anywhere. If I do take a Japan bus tour, I'd love to do the one that you just did. It looks like a lot of fun. Thank you for letting us hop on your bus tour too. ^^
ReplyDeleteWhen my husband and I were in Japan many years ago, we did everything on our own. Stayed in Tokyo but went as far as Kyoto, also went to Yokohama, Hakone and Nikko to name a few. It was lots of fun. We're hoping to go to Japan next year while our son is still in Aizu.
*Kat*
@Kat - I am glad you liked this, I had fun that day. It was my first bus tour too! Wow, sounds like you have seen quite a bit of Japan! I have seen many of those places too, I really like Kyoto.
ReplyDeleteAizu as in near Aizu-Wakamatsu? I visited there 5 years ago when my friend was working as an ALT in a place close to there in Fukushima prefecture.
Yes, my son is about 15 minutes away from Wakamatsu. He's in Aizu-misato. I don't know if back 5 years ago it was Aizumisato already but I understand that they merged 3 smaller towns/villages to form Aizumisato--Hongo, Takada and Niitsuru. He's an ALT in the JET Program and loves it. I'll try emailing you a little later tonight.
ReplyDelete*Kat*
Oops, I just realized that I can't email you. LOL! I'll comment again later.
ReplyDelete*Kat*
@Kat - Yeah, I am not sure if it was around then either. My friend was an ALT for JET in Shirasawa mura, which was super tiny. He went back to CA in Aug 2008 though. That area was nice, but super cold when I went in March 2005.
ReplyDeleteYou can mail me at sungirl @ gmail.com :)