Category: Japan
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Shibu Onsen
We headed off from Hakuba to the town of Shibu Onsen, known for its thermal hot springs. We stayed in a traditional Raku, house with two hot springs in the residence. Staying in the Raku area of the town also granted you access to nine public Onsens (public bath houses known for their healing hot…
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Final Visit to Tokyo
We had a great evening at a dinner event with retired sumo wrestlers. The MC for the show was American, a big showman and very animated. He engaged well with Aiden who was the loudest cheerer in the audience. The kids love all you could eat hot pot and edamame, fried chicken and Japanese desserts….
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Hakuba
Our time in Hakuba was amazing. We lucked out and arrived the week of a major snowstorm, lasting 5 days. Our first two days had smaller amounts of fresh snow, once the blizzard set in we had new snow days like we have never experienced, i.e. 400 mm in 24 hours. We experienced powder skiing…
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Tokyo
We headed back to Tokyo for three days to meet up with Caroline and Clark, as they are joining us for the rest of our time in Japan. We were excited to have a little bit more time in Tokyo as the city had impressed us when we first arrived. Despite being the biggest city in…
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Kanzawa
We enjoyed the five nights we had in Kanzawa, a city on the West Coast of Honshu, (Japan’s largest island). We chose to visit this city as it is known for its arts and culture. Many of the city’s building have been well preserved form the Edo period, when it was home to the Maeda…
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Nara
While in Kyoto, we decided to take a day trip to Nara. Nara was the original capital city of Japan from 592-694. A lucky misunderstanding with Google Maps led us to visit the Heijkyu-seki Rekishi Koen, the Nara Palace Historical Park instead of the Nara Park when we first arrived. This park is located on…
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Kyoto
With a slowing down of our journey speed on this half of the trip we were grateful to have 9 days in Kyoto. Our first day we visited Gion an area known for its traditional wooden houses, narrow laneways, the Yasaka shrine and Kenninji Temple. This is also known as the Geisha district, taking part…
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Hiroshima
We began our time in Hiroshima with a historical walking tour, meeting at the Gokoku-jinja Torii Gate. Our enthusiastic guide Emmy helped us learn how to appropriately pass through a Torri Gate, the procedure to wash hands and mouth before presenting yourself to the temple. She also taught us the procedure for waking the gods…
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Our First Days In Tokyo
We arrived in Tokyo Narita airport at around 5 PM, from the airport we had an amazing sunset view of Mount Fuji. It was surprisingly efficient to get our luggage go through the visa process and then clear customs. Unfortunately, we should have been travelling with the doctor’s letter for Aiden’s Vyvanse, luckily a customs…