On our 6th day in Kawaguchi-ko we were up at 4am again and decided to walk around Kawaugchi-ko and try some of the local attractions. We first returned to the northern shore to see how the blossom was getting on. Luckily they were at full bloom against the blue sky, perfect for photography! It was … Continue reading Japan 2017: Day 15- Kawaguchi-ko pt 6; boats and ropes
Day 14 and another morning of no visible Fuji for sunrise, such a shame. We headed off at around 6am to get to Chureito Pagoda, as from the night before we knew it was all in full bloom. Although the flowers were on our side, the weather was not, and Fuji had a cloudy hat … Continue reading Japan 2017: Day 14- Kawaguchi-ko pt 5; Tanuki-ko, waterfalls and sakura
Day 12 was going to be another fun packed day of adventuring around the fuji five lakes area. On this morning we decided to pick another spot for sunrise and got up very early to drive over to the other side of Ohashi bridge, to a little spot of rocky shore line. Unfortunately no red … Continue reading Japan 2017: Day 12 – Kawaguchi-ko pt 3; Yamanaka-ko, Gotemba, shrines and mountains
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
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
As a summary of our trip in 2013 here is our day to day summary Day 1: Tokyo- Land at 9:30am Narita airport- head to Jimbo-cho to check in and then visit Ueno park, explore Jimbo-cho in the evening Day 2: Tokyo- Asakusa Senso-ji temple, Skytree, Yasukuni shrine in the evening Day 3: Tokyo- Ghibli … Continue reading Japan 2013- Itinerary
My Nihon 