Category: Japan Trip

We arrived in the beach side Ito around 4pm and headed straight for the hostel. This was a 100 year old traditional ryoken with its own onsen in the basement. After sorting ourselves out, and a spot of dinner, we headed out to the dream festival that was going on. More stands with drink, food…

If you look at a map of Japan Nagoya to Fuji looks relatively quick. Not according to JR. Back up towards the alps, across, down and around saw us finally hit Genkoji around 8pm. Got hostel sorted and had missed the last train out for Fuji. So dinner and bed it was, although not a…

Another day travelling south saw us arrive in Nagoya around 4pm. After trying to find our hostel we asked in a hotel with the same name, this ended up being our place. taking us to the 3rd floor we were shown our dorm, which was beds on the floor of a conference room. The shower…

Leaving our mountain getaway we headed for Nagano, which was just east of us but due to a big mountain the train had to go back to Matsumoto first then back up. Once here we dropped our bags and headed north for Zenkoji Temple. The main road leading straight to it. The area was set…

Spent the first day travelling via train. The first from Osaka to Matsumoto, or as the announcer likes to say Matsuuuuumotooooo. Here we met a friendly Japanese man who was explaining the scenery. He even helped us change trains. From here it was a local train that stooped everywhere and was crowded. Slowly ascending into…

Well we took a proper day trip away from Osaka into Wakayama where Koyo-san is. Unable to use our JR passes to get here we had to buy our first rail tickets, 3310 yen. Heading out the train was bumpier than the Shinkansen we had grown accustomed to. We watched the city disappear and the…

Our third day in Osaka saw us take a little excursion out of the city and to Nara, which contains a massive park with lots of temples and shrines as well as what feels like a billion deer. Making our way up and across first we passed a few temples as well as people feeding…

After a very hot mornings sleep we headed for the famous aquarium. This held different species from several regions of the world. Starting at the top of the building we wound our way down through each region getting deeper and deeper. Starting with the otters and seals at the top. As we went down there…

With only the morning left in Hiroshima we headed for the castle. This was five stories high, where we started by making our way to the top. The surrounding view wasn’t that great. It was nice of them to show us how the castle was built at the top rather than the bottom on the…

After talking to people the day before we found out that its pretty much a national holiday in the middle of August for the Oban festival. So spent some time sorting out places to stay. A nice bakery by the hostel, where I got my first bacon. Said goodbye to some new friends, one we…