It was our last morning in Tohoku, and it is always sad to leave as it is my favourite region in Japan (Kawaguchiko aside). We had a very early shinkansen to catch as we needed the specific seats with space for large luggage and all other trains were already booked when we got around to … Continue reading Japan 2023 Winter Day 8: Aomori to Tokyo
We woke up in snowy Aomori city, with a view of the Shinkansen tracks and the busy Friday morning traffic. We went for a walk around the area and enjoyed another day of seeing Japan under the snow. Once ready we checked out and walked across the road to the Times Car Rental to pick … Continue reading Japan 2023 Winter Day 6: Driving to Akita to see the Namahage Festival
As we weren't able to spend any time in Hakodate the previous day we decided to get up early before our shinkansen left at 12:48pm. We paid an extra 2000Y to check out later, at midday rather than 11am so that we could keep our luggage in the room until we returned from our excursion. … Continue reading Japan 2023 Winter Day 5: Hakodate to Aomori
After 23 days in Japan, driving over 2,700km by car, and travelling 1,420km by shinkansen we had visited 9 prefectures. I have written about each day we were in Japan here, so if you want to get the whole story you can! I thought it would be good to write about my favourite spot in … Continue reading Autumn in Japan – my favourites
After a freezing and almost completely sleepless night courtesy of Towadako Hostel we headed out to the lake side for sunrise. Our first stop after parking up was Towadako shrine, which is accessed by a short hike through the forest (beware of bears!). The shrine was really beautiful, nothing but trees surrounding the shrine buildings. … Continue reading Japan 2019 Day 4: Aomori road trip part 2
Another early start (a theme on this trip again) saw us back on the Tohoku shinkansen heading from Sendai up to Shin-Aomori station in Aomori prefecture, the most northern prefecture in Honshu. As soon as we got off the shinkansen at Shin-Aomori station we walked across the road and picked up our first rental car … Continue reading Japan 2019 Day 3: Exploring Aomori by car
My Nihon 