Much of Japan trip felt like an Amazing Race adventure! Due to our tight and kinda heavy itinerary…it was all about catching the right trains and buses to get to our destination with sufficient time to see what we wanted to see! This meant NO sleeping in (until the last 2 days in Osaka where we were just exhausted from all the running around and treated ourselves to sleeping in!) Lots of 7am/8am starts, sometimes even 6am; trying to find our accommodation was often challenging! (Even with instructions printed out, it is easy to get lost as many streets are not labelled); For a 13 day/night trip, we had booked 9 different hotels – experienced everything from ryokans/guesthouses/hostels/boutique & 5 star hotels – all of which I have nothing to complain about…all great and provided different experiences; lots and lots, ok tonnes…of WALKING! (of all my holidays, I don’t think my legs ever felt THAT tired!); sometimes eating food we were unfamiliar with, but mostly we knew what they were :P; eventually getting used to the obscure Japanese fashion – I think Tokyo & Osaka had the best representations of this (Harajuku in Tokyo & Amerika Mura in Osaka. Why don’t Sydney ppl play dress ups? Hehe). The other places were probably more on the ‘normal’ side but not quite either! Thankfully, I had Simmy as my travel partner, otherwise I would have been totally ‘Lost in Translation’…sorry for the over-used phrase, but no exaggeration there! I highly recommend anyone planning future trips to Japan to get a guidebook, or do what I did, travel with someone that knows Japanese! (or go on an organised tour, but I def think its WAY more fun to go our ur own!)
So what did I get up to in Japan?? (or as I like to call it…The Land of the Weird!)
Kyoto - 3.5 to 4 days (beginning & end of the trip)
Being the old imperial capital of Japan, there were MANY sights to see…and I guess we limited our itinerary to just some of the things we wanted to see. I really liked Kyoto due to the old city feel it has to it! They have preserved lots of old housing and streets, and that makes it rather charming! And even if I didn’t get around to seeing many of the numerous ‘sights’, I think it would have been just as fun exploring
Some of the highlights include:
I made it somewhere that is 1044m above sea level!
Tokyo – 3 days
This was the ‘modern’ part of our trip. No visits to anything old. We spent lots of time up and down the subway (which is actually quite easy to follow despite how complicated it looks!), and immediately felt like locals as it was quite easy for us to fit in. (even though I possess no Japanese language skills whatsoever. I am thankful I can read Chinese (kanji) though, a good skill to have in recognising station names! But since station names are labelled in English its no problem anyway, but it was still faster for me to read the kanji)
Highlights:
Shopping around Shibuya & Ginza. My favourites were probably visits to homeware stores (why don’t we have anything good here!) and I love Uniqlo cuz they actually stock stuff I can wear in Sydney! Surprisingly, I hardly bought any clothes this trip (most probably because I can’t wear half the things they produce there! Way too Kawaii (cute) for me!). I managed to buy a variety of other things – souvenirs, toys, stationery & even bed sheets.
Swarovski Store @ Ginza...pretty!
Mori Art Museum @ Roppongi Hills (excellent view of Tokyo if it were a clear day!) And decent museum if you are into Contemporary Art.
Stumbling across a Veronica Mars Café!!! Who would have thought! I was so pleased to find that one of my fav TV shows has a café in Tokyo!
Harajuku Girls – I think they are aware that they are a tourist attraction! Plus its just fun to see that anything goes in Japan fashion wise. (Knee high boots and beanies in the middle of summer!)
Tsukiji Fish Markets – obviously everyone reads the same guidebook…HEAPS of tourists taking snaps of the frenzy that is the fishmarket. We ate some deliciously fresh Sushi there.
Asakusa to see the Sensoji Temple – I always find it fascinating to see so many local school kids at these temples.
Eating at Themed Restaurants – Vampire Restaurant anyone?
Matsumoto – 1 day
We ventured out to Matsumoto only to see 1 castle! The Black Matsumoto Castle! Unlike several castles throughout Japan, this is one that is still standing from the original time! After Tokyo, the pace at Matsumoto almost seemed TOO SLOW. But we loved the castle, much like exploring a big cubby house! And it was very cooling to be in there given how hot it was outside!
Outside Matsumoto CastleTakayama – 1 day
This was quite high up in the mountains (the literal translation of Takayama is High Mountain)
We visited the Hida Folk Village – basically a man-made village that shows representations of several old houses that they have transported to this place from around the Takayama region – once I organise my photos, you will see how different they look. Basically houses to suit the mountain climate…which of course looks different to those in the cities. For someone interested in buildings/architecture…I of course found it fascinating.
We thought this place felt a bit too touristy (in comparison to Matsumoto anyway), as it seems like the Japanese come here for holidays as well. But in a way, it made navigating the town straight forward, since all the attractions are labelled on the streets! And there are ‘voices’ on the street…they were obviously saying something, but I had no clue what it was saying. And people at the Info booth spoke perfect English (a rare finding in Japan!)
Hida Folk Village
View from bus on the way to Takayama
Nara – 1 day
We saw the deers at the deer park roaming around freely! So adorable!! I really quite liked Nara just cuz it is filled with so much history, being Japan’s first capital and all. I think one of the highlights was actually MAKING it to Nara. We trained from Takayama to Nagoya, changed trains to go from Nagoya to Kyoto then changed trains yet again to get to Nara from Kyoto!! We didn’t even have time to leave our luggage in the lockers at Kyoto!! So dragged it all the way to Nara! (Hence I called the trip the Amazing Race)That was by far our most hectic ‘travel’ day…and thanks to the great Japanese rail network, it was actually achievable. And we had the whole arvo to explore Nara Park!
Deers roaming around
View of Nara City
One huge ancient door at Todaiji Temple
Osaka – 2 days
The biggest adventure we had in this City was locating the hotel (somehow we printed no instructions on how to get there!). The other adventure was travelling from the hotel to the airport on our last day. (Who knew Namba station was SO LARGE! I think we pretty much walked the equivalent distance of Wynyard to Broadway with our 20kg suitcases!) Other than that…I don’t think we even ventured beyond a 2km radius of our hotel. The location was so central to the Namba/Shinsaibashi area that we did not need to leave at all! We pretty much stuffed everything else on our itinerary by that point so just enjoyed our ultra cool hotel room and the convenient location! Dotombori was only 1 street away as well.
Outisde those famous crab restaurants on Dotombori street
