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- An Oriental Odyssey in Ancient Nippon
- Tour of Japan Tour Plus North & South Korea Option
- Japan is the name that the Chinese gave to this mysterious archipelago of the Orient, and explorer Marco Polo carried that name home for people in the West to use in their languages. But Nippon is what they have always called it here, and it's the old Nippon of the Samurai and the shogun feudal lords which is what we wanted to see on our splendid 16-day tour in mid-April as the cherry trees burst into full bloom in the ancient Nipponese capitals of Nara and Kyoto. Japan had been on our travel list, and although we have long been wary of group tours we decided to join one this time because this is a country where relatively few of its 128 million residents speak English and outside of the major cities you'd be hard-pressed to find a road sign that you could read. Also, you'd have to have very deep pockets to hire guides in each city if you wanted to learn anything meaningful about this incredibly complex society and its fascinating history. Japan, as you know, is a very expensive country. Happily, we selected an upmarket Melbourne-based tour company, Captain's Choice, and although it was far from cheap it provided abundant proof of the old adage "You get what you pay for." The logistics of our trip were simply superb. We would put our bags outside our hotel rooms and, after being trucked separately to the next city while we rode in luxury in speeding bullet trains, the luggage would magically and reliably appear in our rooms at the next hotel without fail. The hotel accommodations were always first-class---and quite roomy in a country famous for its cramped quarters. The Japanese restaurants where we ate were the best, and we gorged ourselves on mouth-watering raw tuna and other sashimi delights, as well as outrageously expensive Kobe beef (from beer-fed and massaged steers) until we couldn't eat any more. When not being transported in first-class bullet train coaches we rode in luxury buses, having been divided into two small groups of about 20 people each in order to minimize the "herd" feeling that characterizes large tour groups. We were each given radio headsets so that while touring a castle, temple, emperor's palace or other historic site we could listen to our guide's live, real-time narrative even when we felt like wandering away from the group. But most important of all was the quality of our two Japanese tour guides, Kyoko Tanabe and Koji Yagino, who were with us throughout our tour of Japan's Honshu and Kyushu islands. The little group that Alma and I rode with had as our guide Koji-san, a 73-year-old lecturer in Japanese culture at Tokyo University who wore huge, Jiminy Cricket-style glasses, had an impish smile and, if given a good talent agent, could have been a world class standup comedian specializing in ethnic humor. Kyoko-san, who led the other group, also was delightful as well as being deeply knowledgeable about Japanese history and culture. But we spent most of our time traveling with Koji-san, who is fluent in both English and Spanish, coaches a Tokyo Little League baseball team, is an opera aficionado and has a degree in theology. We quickly learned that he could impart vast amounts of knowledge—not only about Japanese history, culture and religion but about Australia and America--while at the same time keeping us all in stitches of laughter. Koji was a treasure and we all came to love him very dearly. I hope his employers appreciate how good he is. More about Koji in the daily diary below. The Aussie road staffers were terrific, too: Tour manager John Cowper, an aging hippie whom I suspect wishes he was a Rolling Stones roadie, jumped off of Qantas Airways' management track years ago to fulfill his love of travel by becoming a cabin crew member for 30 years before retiring and becoming a tour leader; Scott Smiles is a retired diplomat who has lived in a number of foreign postings, including those in Asia; Kym Peck lived in Japan for 2 ½ years as a student and speaks Japanese, and tour doctor Marcel Berkhout (I told you this was an up market tour) runs things in the emergency room at Melbourne's Epworth Hospital when not helping run tours. They were all great fun to travel with and they continuously made things work. In many ways, this was a food-lover's tour of Japan, and besides gorging ourselves daily on sashimi and old standbys like tempura, we discovered many styles of Japanese cooking that we had not encountered in Japanese restaurants in Australia, the U.S. or elsewhere. Some of them were: okonomiyaki (translated literally as "cooked as you like"), a pancake grilled in front of you tepanyaki-style containing shredded cabbage, noodles, prawns, squid, pork, a fried egg, scallions and topped with a rich sauce; yakitori, grilled chicken or beef on a skewer; dote-nobe and shabu-shabu, which is Hida beef, fish or vegetables cooked fondue-style in either broth or Soya milk; karage, which is chicken deep-fried in salty batter with lemon and mayonnaise. We ate at Japanese restaurants virtually every lunchtime and dinnertime, limiting our western food intake to only breakfasts, and at night we drank Saki (some restaurants, disastrously, offered up all the Saki we could drink). Following is an abbreviated diary of our trip, which began in Melbourne on April 11:
- The Silk Route by Private Train - Beijing to Moscow
- Tour of The Silk Road Tour By Private Train
- This blog was written by Jane & John Simpson to their family and friends back home.
- The Silk Route by Private Train - Including Shanghai Extension
- Tour of The Silk Road Tour By Private Train
- A tour diary from Megan Harris' 2009 trip with The Captain's Choice Tour - The Silk Route by Private Train, Moscow to Beijing.
- COME FLY WITH ME....
- Tour of Equatorial Explorer
- around the world in 21 days or so The story of our 'Equatorial Explorer' holiday March 09 This is a diary of our holiday - with 'our' defined as Geoff's and mine. When you read this please appreciate that we seek only to represent our views and do not speak on behalf of anyone else. The facts are as we recall them- if they are wrong, so be it, as it makes no difference to the main purpose of this diary, which is to serve as a reminder for us of a wonderful holiday, and to provide some entertainment for interested friends. The tense wanders all over the place, and the story may not even be totally grammatical but it's the best we could do! Also, when we say CCT we are referring The Captain's Choice Tour Jenni Gowan, March 2009
- Wonders of Indochina
- Tour of Wonders Of Indochina Including Luxury Mekong River Cruise aboard Jayavarman
- This is a tour diary written by Karen Boulton who was a Tour Escort on the 2009 departure of Wonders of Indochina. Please note - Karen travelled on our inagural Wonders of Indochina tour which did not include a 7 night cruise aboard the Jayavarman.
- Cape Town to Cairo 2008
- Tour of Cape Town to Cairo - luxury African tour
- A Tour Manager's insight into the 18 September 2008 departure of Cape Town to Cairo
- Amazon, Andes & Incas
- Tour of Amazon, Andes & Incas - a luxury tour of South America
- This blog is written by Vicki Curtis - a Captain's Choice Tour Escort who also works in The Captain's Choice Tour London office.
- Equatorial Explorer 2008
- Tour of Equatorial Explorer
- It Takes Two to Tango
- Tour of Chile & Argentina - Silverseas Cruise
- Read this honest and entertaining account of two passenger's experience on the 2007/08 cruise of Chile & Argentina aboard 'SilverWind'. The Captain's Choice Tour will be operating this tour again in January & March 2009.
- Cape Town to Cairo
- Tour of Cape Town to Cairo - luxury African tour
- Tour of Cape Town to Cairo 13 September- 1 October 2007 Read the long awaited Tour Escort's diary from the Cape Town to Cairo Tour September 07 by Vicki Curtis
