Map, Journey and Costs

Note: prices are for 2 adults with baggage

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From	To	Mode	Duration	Cost
🇮🇩 Green Rinjani	🇮🇩 Tiara Homestay	Taxi	02:52	£0.00
🇮🇩 Tiara Homestay	🇮🇩 Lombok International Airport	Taxi	00:17	£5.42
🇮🇩 Lombok International Airport	🇲🇾 Kuala Lumpar International Airport	Plane	02:54	£147.56
🇲🇾 Kuala Lumpar International Airport	🇲🇾 The Colony by Infinitum	Tube	01:12	£20.25
🇲🇾 Tapestry	🇲🇾 Kuala Lumpar International Airport	Taxi	01:25	£13.03
🇲🇾 Kuala Lumpar International Airport	🇵🇭 Manila International Airport	Plane	03:32	£165.12
🇲🇾 Manila International Airport	🇯🇵 Narita International Airport	Plane	04:47	£165.12
🇯🇵 Narita International Airport	🇯🇵 Will Frece Heights	Train	01:45	£23.70

This post brings us to the end of our five months in Asia. We had a blast: snorkeling with sea life, venturing up volcanoes and chilling in cities. Even though five months is a very long time, it flew by. We’re very happy with what we were able to cram in.

Things are about to get a little confusing. We have many friends with the same name and their paths are all crossing at similar times. Here’s a who’s who of Leos and Maxs:

We’re going to explore South America during the next four months. During the continent switch we managed to slot in a couple of catch-ups. First up, with our friend Will who recently moved to Tokyo. Then on to our friend Leo Murray who recently moved to California.

On the way to Tokyo we had a couple of nights in Kuala Lumpur. It’s very hard to transit in South East Asia without passing through. We decided to get an apartment for a couple of nights to relax in the city for a bit.

For £19.50 per night we were able to grab an apartment with a rooftop infinity pool:

And a great view of the Petronas towers:

Crazy!

Whilst I collapsed with exhaustion, Laura mildly bragged about our apartment on Instagram. Something rather unexpected then happened. Our friends Max & Leo, of previous post’s fame, messaged to say they were also in Kuala Lumpur. I found out we had brunch plans when I awoke.

The catch-up unfortunately wasn’t on terms anybody would have wished for. By the end of the Komodo tour one of them had developed a medical issue. It was becoming increasingly concerning. They were having to cut their trip short.

We were able to have a brief catch-up over brunch with them, and hung out at our pool:

We’re still in touch, and are looking forward to meeting up with them again when we’re back home. Thankfully the symptoms are now slowly improving and their doctors are happy.

In keeping with the rooftop theme, we found a swanky bar with some great views over the city:

We hadn’t had wine until this point of the trip, so took the opportunity to indulge.

Will had briefed that we needed to be “very on it” upon arrival at Narita International Airport. The last train into the city was scheduled shortly after our flight’s arrival.

We scrambled through baggage reclaim and immigration and found the train was delayed by 45 minutes.

So much for the stereotypical efficiency of Japanese trains. But the stereotypical toilets did not disappoint:

Life meant that there were only a couple of days overlap with Will being in Tokyo. Until then we were staying in his apartment with a very important responsibility.

Will’s cat, Honey, was guarding the fort whilst he was away on holiday. We took all necessary precautions when gaining entry:

And Laura quickly made friends with her:

Cat ownership proved trivial as Will had an automated feeder and water station. All we had to do was stop her escaping or getting trapped in his self-steam-cleaning shower 🚿🙀.

Tokyo presented us with the first opportunity to go to Parkrun in many months. Everything was stacked against us to attend:

• We got to Will’s apartment at 00:30, the morning of the Parkrun.
• Parkrun began at 8am, and it was over 1hr30 away on an unfamiliar transport system.
• Honey was a bit depraved of human contact, so kept climbing on our faces when we were trying to sleep.

But, we had committed to meet up with Maxine so forced ourselves out of bed 💪. Honey wasn’t letting us sleep anyway 🤷. Maxine was in Tokyo for a week with work, and our schedules happened to align 😄.

We went to Urayasu City Parkrun. It surprised us to find that it was a tiny event. Only 23 people attended that day.

It was so small in fact that Parkrun began by the volunteers announcing everybody. A short round of applause followed each introduction. We were introduced as Martin San, Laura San and Maxine San 😄.

It was an out-and-back along the bay. It was getting pretty sunny by the time we set off, so we were glad of the early start. They were handing out green tea at the finish :teacup_without_handle:.

We hung out with Maxine the following day. We started with a wander in Yoyogi Park.

We felt like we stood out like a sore thumb in the park. There were lots of park dwellers, and they were all practising some form of hobby. It was quite something. Nobody was idle. There were slack liners, yogis, yo-yo-ers, skateboarders, martial artists, musicians, a group of people moshing… I could go on. It was great to see so many people enjoying the green space in their own way. We felt utterly talentless.

We checked out the cool Tori gates:

And spent a lot of time hanging around the dog walking enclosure. Somebody had a meerkat on a lead :thinking_face:. We hoped they realised that it wasn’t a dog.

We then decided to whet our whistles in quite a unique establishment. The Golden Gai area in Shinjuku has more than 200 miniature bars crammed into six narrow alleys.

Each bar fits about 6 people in. They’re definitely not for claustrophobes. It took us a while to decide which one to go to. They all had very different policies, cover charges and acceptance of tourists. We settled on one in which a Japanese couple who spoke very good English were drinking. They helped us work out what was going on.

We had to pay a cover charge to enter. But in return, the bar lady kept a steady flow of snacks coming our way. We have very little clue what we ate and drank, but it was a fun experience.

We topped off the day with an incredible cheesey gyoza:

Will returned from his holiday a few days before the end of our time in Tokyo. Laura got to meet him for the first time, and we had a good catch-up.

I rustled up a lentil dhal. I was very excited to cook for the first time in five months. Will took a video conference. Classic Will.

We also grabbed a meal at a local restaurant. Everybody ordered the Wagyu beef spaghetti, and it was incredible. A few fun facts about (traditional) restaurants in Japan:

• The chef has to personally bring the food to you
• The chef also has to see you to the door, and wave you off as you leave
• Once a chef followed Will down the street, but he doesn’t think this is tradition

It turned out that Will has a speakeasy literally underneath his apartment building. What at first glance appears to be a bookshop, is actually a super trendy cocktail bar:

Here are a few more things that we did during our time in Tokyo.

TeamLab Planets Tokyo is an interactive art/science museum. We did some quite trippy things there.

This is a huge room in which the floor was a giant beanbag. Somehow I lost my sunglasses in that room:

This is a another big room filled with some form of opaque liquid. They projected fish onto the liquid and you could interact with them:

This is a greenhouse that you sit on the floor of. Orchids are then lowered from the ceiling into you.

And more general trippyness:

We headed to a region called Electric Town. Aside from electronics shops, it has lots of video game arcades. The one we went to (Hirose Entertainment Yard) was gigantic. It had every arcade game you could wish for, spread over three floors.

I enjoyed playing some Crazy Taxi:

Laura was a dab hand at Zooo:

And we tried but failed to win Will a cuddly toy on the crane games.

I felt the need to do something Nintendoey. We headed to the Nintendo store. I didn’t buy anything, but got a picture with a Question Mark Block:

We often joke that we’re quite a gassy couple. I’m a burper and Laura is a farter. We happened upon the Gas Science Museum so felt it apt to pop in:

(Editor’s note: Laura’s farts don’t smell).

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building has 37 floors and a great view of the city. It’s free to go up, so we got some snaps:

And last but not least we went to see the famous Shibuya Crossing. It’s the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing. We did some people watching from a Starbucks that overlooks it:

And that’s the end of our time in Asia. It was great to be able to top it off by catching up with Will and hanging out in Tokyo.

Next up we jaunt over to California to see Leo Murray’s new stomping ground.