Japan Road Trip: Giant Godzilla Slide

Our last morning before dropping off the van was spent visiting Kurihama Flower World in Yokosuka and most importantly the famous giant Godzilla slide who lives there! We had some issues with parking since the parking gates didn't open till 8am and unfortunately we needed to be gone by then. Also being super close to Tokyo meant street parking was definitely harder to come by. The park itself is free and open 24/7 so if you arrive by public transport no problem - just a word of warning for those traveling by car!

The park is called flower world (possibly a bit of a stretch) but they did have some super pretty tulips and poppies which I loved

Even though I'm not normally a morning person, I can appreciate how pretty the light is when you wake up with the sun :)

Above is the path that winds up to the Godzilla slide, definitely left me a bit breathless, actually we encountered a few different walking groups, one lady even chatted with us a few times and loaded us up with rice crackers and treats on our way out - how nice is that!!!

And the guy himself, you go through his front and his tail becomes the slide.

The area he sits in at the top of the park, is called adventure land and you can see the massive play jungle behind him, very cool! I believe the park had more to explore down the other side but being time poor meant we had to cut down on exploration.

A bit of fee size comparison for you all

I even love the wires above him!

After Godzilla, we washed our van and headed to the drop off point to say goodbye to driving and hello Tokyo trains! We took our first train to Tabata in Kita-ku where we would find our airbnb for the next few days :) One thing with airbnb, is on a whole they seem to have slightly later check in times then regular hotels (correct me if I'm wrong on that one).  I guess due to being private owned spaces and not having the luxury of fast commercial cleaners (?!?). Anyway, without sounding like I know anything, our particular apartment wasn't ready until 3pm so we sat outside and watched the movie Splash which I shamefully had never seen before.  On a side note, Splash will now, always remind me of that one time Ben and I sat on a footpath in Tokyo surrounded by our luggage in our unwashed hobo states :p 

It was a long wait but we got there in the end, headed to the front door and that's when I realised I no longer had the front door code. We had been so use to having constant wifi access in the van but now we were stranded. It took a while to find a solution and cursing the World for being so technically advanced (Internet cafes no longer a thing). It did come around back in our favour with the train station having free wifi, so in the end only a small upset, quickly fixed and all woes washed away with our first hot shower!  Also, I won't lie, it was pretty neat having the luxury to spread out :)

Chocolate while we waited

I may of got bored and started to take photos of cute nearby flowers and plants :p

Our bed!!!! The airbnb could sleep around 5, so if you're traveling in a group, accommodation would end up being super cheap.  For Ben and I, renting through airbnb still ended up being the cheaper option against staying at a motel or even at a backpackers!

One thing I love love love about Tokyo is people have the cutest little front gardens. I love that they work around their limited space to create a beautiful space!

The view from our apartment - last time in Tokyo we stayed in Asakusa, so it was a nice change of pace to stay in a quieter neighbourhood. I especially picked our place because it was a max. 15 minute walk to the train station and it was on the Yamanote line, which gives access to all the major destinations in Tokyo without changing lines (big lifesaver!)

Us spreading out! You can also see the pocket wifi on the table, this was a lifesaver, because it meant we could take it out with us and always have Internet. Okay, I totally take back my technology cursing from before!

Our cute little pot plants in our apartment, I especially love the Engrish "Thank you for your hearty hospitality. Quite a person's irritable temper"

Our apartment literally had everything, I wish we would of looked a little closer and seen that laundry detergent sitting on the floor because we ended up buying some that had bleach in it.  As a result, some of our clothes met unhappy endings - oops!

Empty Gachapon capsules on a tatami mat - ahhh love Japan!

The little succulent was fake but that Palm tree was real, I hope I can find myself a little bonsai Palm tree for my place :)

Once we had settled in, we headed out, on the list was nose spray (after mass googling this could possibly help my blocked ears) and food!

I hope those who can read Japanese don't tell me, this has super danger warnings on it!

It didn't help either but a few weeks after returning home my ears were unblocked and happy :) 

We ended up finishing off our night with Indian where I'd never been so happy to eat hot food and no more picking off the side menus.  Actually we still went to a few more Japanese restaurants where I had to do that but this Indian still lingered happy thoughts in my mind :)

I've still got a handful of Tokyo posts to blog and then I'm going to finish up everything with a series of photo blogs of things that caught my eye in Japan, which I think will be a nice thing to wrap things up!