Last Day

Sorry - no photos today - on a kiosk at Narita Airport and there are no USB ports.

The boys were up early and we think managed to pack without leaving anything behind (but I guess we'll only really know at home tomorrow).

We headed to Disney Sea in Tokyo. It's a massive theme park, modelled on the Seven Seas, right beside Disneyland. The weather conspired against us though, and we left an hour earlier than planned because it became wet and miserable, but not before the boys test drove attractions like Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull ride, the Tower of Terror, Journey to the Centre of the Earth and the Raging Spirits rollercoaster.

The boys then discovered the shopping joys of Narita Airport (they are little retail fiends, aren't they???). Necessities like batteries, through to jewellery, Kimonos, and souvenirs of our time over here. Last chance to stock up on Japanese confectionery and snacks, before we start boarding in about 30 minutes.

Zhao still has his wallet and reports no items lost, and Stoney still has the mascot (although I can hear a few of the boys conspiring to kidnap Leo at the 11th hour).

Schedule remains unchanged, and depending upon how long it takes us to clear Customs, we should be home about 10am tomorrow.

Boys are all looking forward to their own beds, thick and juicy steaks, and not living in a room that smells like a cross between three-day-old socks and roadkill.

My late night blogs have resulted in some inaccuracies, that I need to clarify now :-

# Josh Blackey is the ex-Otago skipper, not an ex-Aussie 7s player
# The staff whupped the 14s by 4 - 1, not 3 - 1 (I missed the last try as I was receiving CPR after scoring the 3rd)
# It was not the physio who put a stop to the Firsts vs Staff game - apparently the Firsts saw the form in the first game and asked Craigy to excuse the staff.

For the last time - sayonnara!!

TW

Saturday - Shopping and Dining

Sorry - no student bloggers again. It's 11.30pm and the boys are in bed after our Tour Dinner, getting their rest before our last game on tour, and for our Year 12 boys, their last game in Grammar colours.

Our first stop today was Odaiba - it's a massive shopping complex. Again, the yen was extremely hot in the boys pockets and burnt its way through in many cases. The big eye openers were the Venus Fort shopping mall, that has a ceiling with a fake sky, where the clouds move and the light changes. The Venus Fort also allows dogs inside - so their owners can walk them, or wheel them in their purpose-built dog strollers, to the dog shops, which are packed with doggy clothes and accessories.

After some astute (?!?) purchases, we headed home to don our formal gear for the dinner. Thank you gifts were exchanged and awards were presented to the boys for.......... ah, what goes on tour, stays on tour! Toutai Kefu dropped in briefly to chat with the boys, and share some of his Wallaby and Japanese experiences.

The boys are determined to account well tomorrow. Again, we are playing one of the top schools in Japan, so we will have to be better than our last two outings to come away with the points.

Slight change of plans with our pre-flight activities on Monday, but I'll let the boys fill you in as we wait for our flight Monday evening.

Boys are very upbeat and looking forward to tomorrow, but are also looking forward to touching down in Brisbane. If you are looking for a tip for Tuesday's dinner - steak would be a good start, and leave the rice in the canister in the cupboard.

Cheers,
TW

All aboard the Tokyo Express!!

Today we left sleepy Hakone for the bright lights of Tokyo. We have all been commenting on the lack of traffic up until now – this morning we saw it at its worst. We went to Meiju University today for our morning training session. Artificial field again – George still talking up their merits. The staff took on the 14s in a game of touch. Staff 3 – 14s 1. 14s suffering much embarrassment – staff suffering two twinged hamstrings, two dodgy knees, one sore lower back and one bad hip.

We then went to Yokogama Rugby Club. It is right in the middle of Tokyo and the field (artificial – give it a rest George) probably takes up the equivalent footprint of two high rise buildings – must be worth an absolute packet. They will host our game and our post-match function on Sunday. Scheduled touch game between Firsts and Staff called off on physiotherapist's orders – luckily for the Firsts!

Shopping tomorrow – going to Akihabra (Electric Town) and Odaiba. Boys are pestering us to exchange some more cash – must be planning to bring everybody home some lovely presents. Tour dinner tomorrow night, and then the game on Sunday. May not get to the blog again until Sunday morning.

The boys are all weary and some have colds., but are all in good spirits and enjoying Tokyo and each other's company. We've delayed our shopping excursion by a couple of hours tomorrow and have them in bed early tonight (hence no student bloggers) so they can catch up on some sleep and be well rested for the last couple of days.

James Z still has his wallet and Josh still has the mascot - amazing!!!

TW

Thursday - Mt Fuji

Lots of trains and buses today as we ventured from Kobe to Mt Fuji. The weather was unkind, with clouds obscuring the mountains and the wind stopping our planned cable car ride. We had a great traditional dinner, with the entire crew wearing their Yamatos. Here's Harry and Max with more.

Today we came from Kobe and left to have lunch at a fine Italian restaurant. The lunch was magnificently crafted and decorated. It was great to have a change from the unique Japanese food. After lunch we got back on the bus and visited the 5th highest station on Mt Fuji and got a chance to by gifts from the souvenir shops. Some of the boys got blessed by an old Japanese man and got given bells for good fortune. After visiting Mt Fuji we ventured to the hotel but on the way we stopped to go on gondolas, but it was too windy, so we had to go on the pirate ships. We finally got back to the excellent Yumoto Fujija Hotel and had a beautiful traditional dinner and went to bed!

HARRY-SAN and THE MACATTACK signing out.

Off to Tokyo tomorrow. The boys are weary, but looking forward to Tokyo and our last game.

Tuesday training and Wednesday game day

Sorry - no photos today - the USB port on the PC in hotel foyer doesn`t seem to work.

Tuesday saw us training at the excellent facilities of the Kobe Steelers. Artificial field again - boys becoming quite spoilt and reckon we should have them at home. George argues that they would pay for themselves in no time - no irrigation, no mowing, no washouts - he's an economic wiz until you ask him where we'll get the up-front cash - still working on that one!!! The boys were lucky enough to have internationals all over the place to take a short session and answer questions about Rugby in Japan and further afield. We had Sean Hedger (Kobe head coach, and ex-Brisbane boy), Adam Wallace-Harrison (ex-Red and Force), Royce Willis (ex-All Black), Tinis Delport (ex-Springbok), Pierre Holler (Tongan international) and Josh Blakey (ex- Australian 7s player)、plus our own Glenn Panoho and Terry Morrison, all helping out.

The boys were then let loose upon the restaurants and malls of Kobe. The boys quickly learnt some of the traps of touring, as some were charged a service surcharge for the public holiday. They all came back with great stories of their meals though, and this evening was a frenzy of "Where did you get that stuff last night?", before descending upon the town again (although some of the boys have chosen to satisfy their Maccas cravings).

Kobe is different to the other cities we've visited so far. The re-build of the city after the big quake of '94 allowed them to have a more organised CBD, with big wide streets. The malls are huge - the one we took the boys to last night went for 3 city blocks,and then there were other malls on the adjoining blocks - huge!

The boys took on Joshua Gakuen school today. We always knew it would be a tough ask for the boys, as this school has been National champions for 8 of the last 10 years. They were extremely well-drilled, fast and tough. The 14s started like wildfire, with Tama slicing through the backline, to grubber past the fullback to score right in front. But this either lulled our boys into a false sense of security, or woke up the Japanese team, as the run of play quickly went to the Gakuen school. Despite some great defence from David G(who took out the SBW award) and a man of the match performance from Jack R, we went down 21 - 7. The boys were disappointed and know they can play better - they are keen to avenge this loss at our final game

Here's Elliott for his take on the First XV game.

Another tough day for the boys as we were up against some of the toughest competition since we played Shore's First XV from Sydney. Their backline was extremely well-drilled and they attacked our line with sheer speed and power, continuously pinning us deep in our own territory, resulting in us losing control of most aspects of the game. Although the result was not in our favour, I am proud of the way the boys kept at it even though we were on the backfoot for more then 70 percent of the time. Zhao played well, putting on some big hits and running hard as usual, winning the SBW award. Blake turned out yet another tradesman-like man-of-the match performance. Tommy showed incredible poise under pressure and kept his head in the game setting up some brilliant plays. Another outstanding player was Jedd, who once again proved to be a weapon against the Japanese defence. Al got his first try of the year when Jedd broke the line and delivered a nice pass to me and I then popped the ball to Al, resulting in a try. The boys are now preparing to play against another formidable opponent this coming weekend in Tokyo.
Elliott

Off to Mt Fuji tomorrow - hopefully we'll get some photos to you then.

Com Ban Wa!

Monday in Kyoto

We started the day at the Mazda factory in Hiroshima. Mazda is the largest employer in Hiroshima, with 20 000 people working for them. The site covers 2.23 million square metres and is 70km from end to end. We looked at the history of the company and their cars, including their first three wheeled delivery bike (picture). We watched the assembly line install engines and transmissions in 55seconds and learnt that employees can expect to do the same job on the assembly line for at least 3 years before hoping for promotion. We saw their concept cars, including the Ryuga (pictured), and a hydrogen and gas fueled rotary RX8.

We then left for the rail station and our second trip on the Shinkanzen (that travels at 297km/h). We arrived in Kyoto and immediately saw many old-style palaces and shrines. We went to the Golden Shrine, that is actually covered in gold leaf. We went to our hostel in the middle of Kyoto and unleashed the boys on unsuspecting population. Japan has a national holiday tomorrow, so it was a party atmosphere in the town centre this evening. The yen has been burning a hole in many of the boys' pockets, and they took the opportunity to boost some retailer's takings tonight.

We head to Kobe tomorrow, to train at the world class facilities of the Kobe Steelers, and to meet with some of their international players.

James still has his wallet - stay tuned for more updates.

Sunday in Hiroshima

A big day today - our first trip on the bullet train; Hiroshima Peace Memorial; lunch at a traditional Japanese restaurant and then the baseball. Here's Blake H with more.

An early morning start saw the boys board the bullet train at 8:45 on the Shinkanzen as the Japanese call the fast travelling train. Upon arrival in Hiroshima the weather was far from perfect, as the teams and coaches travelled to the Peace Memorial Park. The museum at Hiroshima was informative and moving, with many of the ruins and historical artifacts showing the aftermath of the bombing of the city. Following this, we all headed off to have some famous Japanese style pizza for lunch. This proved to be an interesting exercise with many of the boys attempting to cook their own meals, resulting in a large mess (Kritta Turner), as we struggled eating our food on the floor.

With the weather beginning to clear, the boys headed to the baseball stadium with much anticipation, keen to see the Hiroshima Carps in action. When entering the stadium the atmosphere was overwhelming with baseball crazy Japanese fans chatting and screaming for their teams. Twenty minutes in to the slow-paced game, the SCGS boys were all shown on the big screen, giving the cameras an Aussie “Thats gold".

Blake