Today was the day to leave Kyoto, after five nights of travelling far and wide each day we headed towards Hachioji, a small area on the Western edge of Tokyo. The only claim to fame for Hachioji is the nearby Mt Takao, a popular hiking spot with a view of Mt Fuji on a clear … Continue reading Japan 2017: Day 9 – Hachioji & Mt Takao
For our third day "in" Kyoto we headed to the nearby Mie prefecture to spend some time in unspoilt nature. Mie prefecture is not well known among the Japanese prefectures by international tourists which leaves a very quaint feeling here, we loved it! The journey was a little tricky using local trains to a small … Continue reading Japan 2017: Day 8 – Akame 48 waterfalls & Nara
Staying overnight in Hiroshima enabled us to travel over to the very famous Miyajima, in Hiroshima bay. To get there you need to take a local train to the ferry station (JR pass can be used) and then get the ferry. There are two ferry companies running frequent boats between the port and island, both … Continue reading Japan 2017: Day 7 – Miyajima island
For our next trip, getting the most out of our JR passes, we headed far to the south, our destination for a nights stay was Hiroshima. We managed to book (not by choice) very early tickets on the shinkansen with a planned stop in Himeji, as we were forced to get an earlier train than … Continue reading Japan 2017: Day 6 – Himeji & Hiroshima
On day 5 we awoke in the beautiful ancient capital of Kyoto. As we have traveled to Kyoto before we weren't planning on spending much of our time in the city itself, rather using this as a base in central Japan to travel around. Today we wanted to visit another castle, after being so impressed … Continue reading Japan 2017: Day 5 – Hikone castle
On our fourth day in Japan we left the capital to continue our journey across Japan. Unfortunately we left it until the late afternoon to book our shinkansen tickets (using our JR pass) and so all the trains before 10 were fully booked! We did manage to get seats D and E as this is … Continue reading Japan 2017: Day 4 – Kyoto
On our last day in Tokyo we activated our 7 day JR Rail Pass- such a bargain! To start our trips outside of Tokyo we headed to Matsumoto to visit Matsumoto castle all the way up in Nagano prefecture. There is no direct train to Matsumoto so we took the shinkansen to Nagano station and … Continue reading Japan 2017: Day 3 – Matsumoto
Day two was quite a busy day, we only were planning to spend 1.5 days in Tokyo and had a number of places to cross of our list, so we started early... here goes. Our first stop of the day was the nearby Ueno Park, famous for its zoo and cherry blossom trees. The somei … Continue reading Japan 2017: Day 2 – Tokyo
Here is a whistle stop tour through our itinerary of our most recent Japan trip, April 6-23 2017 Day 1: Tokyo- land Narita airport at 8:30am, travel to Ueno -> Asakusa, Sumida Park, Skytree, Chidorigafuchi in the evening Day 2: Tokyo - Ueno park for hanami, Shibuya for Genki Sushi, Shibuya park, Yoyogi park, Harajuku, … Continue reading Japan 2017- Itinerary
For our three day stay in Tokyo we had chosen the popular area of Ueno as our base. From Ueno you have easy access from Narita airport, to shinkansen lines and to some major metro lines too. Plus the park and shopping area offers lots to do and see. We stayed at the Hotel Mystays … Continue reading Japan 2017: Day 1 – Tokyo
My Nihon 