We have wound down our time in Japan.  I’m drafting this at the Narita airport, awaiting a flight to Taiwan. Our plan to spend seven weeks in Japan, which seemed like such a long time when we arrived on September 30^th, flew by. Originally we were not sure we could fill the time. We had an aggressive tour planned, and in the end, we could have easily stayed longer.

Sometimes less is more

One thing we came to realize after about three weeks, is we needed to slow down. Three days in a place was often not enough. After leaving Tokyo, we visited six places for three days each (Nikko, Hakone, Takayama, Kanazawa, Hiroshima and Osaka). By the 18^th day we were exhausted. I know the organized tours will spend one or two days in a place like Kanazawa, or Osaka, and then move on. These tours are only about 7 – 12 days. We found three days was usually not enough unless you only wanted to see the Instagram things. 

Kyoto came after our 18 days of heavy travel where we stayed put for seven days. Those consecutive days in one place, in a hotel with a kitchen, were a relief. The eight days in Tokyo that followed Kyoto were also good for the mind. Looking forward on our trip, we still have not booked Bali/Indonesia. We’ll use the lessons learned in Japan to assist us in having a better three-week experience in Bali by not moving every two-three days. Remember, it’s only a mistake if you don’t learn from it.

Walking – our primary way of seeing things.

We walked an average of 17,566 steps per day for 48 days (based on our step counter), our highest daily step total was 31,215 steps. Based on IPhone data, we walked about 12 km/day, on average. That’s 576 km’s for the time we were Japan. There were a number of days our knees and feet were sore, the onsens certainly helped on the days we could access them. 

I’ll update more on Japan in a few days, highlighting some more numbers.

Thanks for reading, feel free to leave any comments.