We are now over half way through our time in Japan.  So far, our trip has been AMAZING (emphasis added). Our daily activities are listed in the blog portion of the site and there are some updates on Instagram.

When we reflect on what is and has been amazing in Japan, the answer is (drum roll please)…almost everything. You can see us with a Samurai warrior in Nikko – how cool is that? I loved the culture and food when I was here in 2021/22.  Meg has completely embraced it and loves it too.  Meg thinks she has eaten more sushi since arriving in Japan than she has in her entire life. Of course, shell fish sushi is off the table for her due to her allergies, however it is still easy to get none shell fish sushi. 

Travel has been fairly smooth

Japan, for those who know, is well serviced by trains. In some cases, buses provide necessary connections.  We’ve managed to book almost all of our trains, although that did come with some challenges.  One of the on-line sites would not accept the credit card we are using.  We have a no foreign exchange fee card but it seems to be blocked from certain on-line transactions.  When we could not book on-line, we went to a train station and booked from a ticket machine where the card worked without issues.

We have found not all trains can be booked at all machines, depending if it is JR Central, JR West, etc. Not to worry, at this time, the only reserved ticket we need is Kyoto to Japan.  I read that train runs every 10 minutes, and we’re 2 ½ weeks from needing it so we’re not stressing.

Accommodations

For the most part these have been good to very good with one exception.  Our place in Tokyo was a very noisy dump and we ended up buying our own sheets at Ikea.  Many of the hotels are small and often the bed is jammed up against a wall.  This means that one of us has to crawl over the other one to get in or out of bed.  Since we’re not spending a lot of time in our hotels, it is not too bad, but it is good to know if we want to come back that we’ll need to be careful if we want to stay somewhere longer term.

Onsens

For those who have not been to Japan, the Onsen is a wonderful experience.  It is a public bath where you get undressed, shower to get clean and then soak in various hot tubs. The water at different Onsens has different elements.  As Japan has geo-thermo water almost everywhere, these hot springs are tapped into and they fill up the hot tubs so you can soak. We’ve found a few that have outdoor sections and you can look at the moon or stars as you soak.  You come out completely relaxed and very clean.  So far two of our hotels have had onsens attached to the property so they were free, otherwise there is a fee.  Also remember to take your own towels, otherwise you have to buy/rent a towel.

Driving in Japan

While we were in Nikko, we rented a car.  You need an international drivers licence, which I obtained prior to leaving. They drive on the “other” side of the road in Japan, so it took a bit of getting used to.  Also the cars are smaller, a lot smaller as shown in this picture.

Meg was an amazing navigator and always reminded me to be on the other side of the road – I think that was, in part, self-preservation. Parking is a challenge in Japan, you don’t simply park on the side of the road.  The parking lots are a bit different but we were able to figure them out.  Nikko, for us, was a good place to rent a car.  Our hotel was a bit out of town, we redeemed points for that one and we knew it was a hike.  Other guests were taking taxi’s to town where the bus system would take them around.  The car gave us freedom to come and go as we pleased.

Our second half of Japan

As we enter the second part of our Japanese tour, we’ll be heading to Hiroshima, Osaka, Kyoto and back to Tokyo.  I’ve been to Kyoto before and we were in Tokyo earlier on this trip, however Hiroshima and Osaka will be new.  We are also going to meet a friend in Kobe as a day trip from Osaka.  Based on a recommendation from someone we met travelling, we’ll pop over to Nara for a day while in Kyoto, where we’ll be for a week.

Thanks for reading, I’ll post more in a week or so.  Meg will keep updating the blogs so you can follow daily if you like.  We both post on Instagram.