Japan

I had Japan in mind for some years, was actually planning to attend a U2 concert there but then came pandemic and the travel restrictions. So when the tourism ban was off, we started planning. When they finally abolished the obligation to wear a mask- we were in heaven!

We started planning quite early, bought the flight tickets in April for the trip in October, so 6 months in advance. We used different engines for the search and then went to the airline and booked the tickets directly. As we were expecting the trip to be quite costy, we looked intensively for the best flights that would offer good price, not more than one connection and no long layover. We flew Air China (part of Star Alliance) from Madrid to Tokyo Haneda over Beijing. We were debating to fly into Tokyo and out from a different city. In the end we flew in and out of Tokyo because most international flight are through Tokyo.

One thing you should pay attention to when planning the trip is that Tokyo has two airports- Haneda and Narita. Haneda is though much closer to downtown Tokyo.

Next thing we did was plan the trip. It wasn’t easy job! Between Hokkaido and the paradisiac southern islands we should have covered around 3.800 km in two weeks… So we started cutting and in the end defined an itinerary that would take us from Tokyo to Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, Himeji Castle, Naoshima, Shimanami Kaido, Hiroshima, Miyajima, part of the Nakasendo trail, mount Fuji and back to Tokyo (and home).

We booked our accomodation vía Booking in June and some of the places we wanted to book where not available anymore. My advice- book everything as soon as you can. The same advice would go for activities- Team Lab, sumo tournament, etc.

We did two more smart aquisitions and those were the JR Pass for moving around and a pocket wifi from Japan Wireless that for our group of 4 was excellent choice. Pick up and drop off at the airport which means we were fully connected to internet at all times. While renting the pocket wifi I was offered the option to add a translator. Since it was only 20€ for the 2 weeks I took it but we never used it. With internet and Google one has more than enough to get around (even though English is surprisingly not that widely spoken).

Very excited and ready for this vacation, we set off!

The flights were long (12+4) and by the time we got to the first hotel we were on the “road” since more than 24h. My legs were swollen but we were not tired and the jetlag was easily overcome with some effort to go to bed when it was getting night.

I am now realizing that I do not remember what we did the first day so I had to check my photos 😊. We set off for a short stroll (we wanted to move, yes) through Yanaka, a rather “old” part of Tokyo with narrow streets, one of the oldest and largest cimiteries and wooden houses- with a backdrop of skyscrappers! One thing we did not realize is that It was going dark around 6pm…so our walk was mostly in the dark- a pitty! 

We finished the day in a Izakaya trying our first authentic sashimi and sake.

Day two we had booked tickets for Team Lab. I guess everything we did could be rated as “highly recommended” so I will simply tell you where expectation was higher than reality. Team Lab are installations by a Japanese company, spread in several places, now even international. As a fact, we were looking to book entrances in Beijing, during our 9h layover on the trip back home. I would spoil the surprise and even pictures or movies cannot describe how nice the experience is. Just go and you will say I was right. (Book as early as posible!)

To move around in Tokyo we bought daily metro tickets and they were excellent buy. With Google Maps we found our way always. Google would indicate the track, direction, how many stops, even which car is better for connections and which exit to take. It makes us stupid, yes, but I would not waste my time looking for directions on my own especially when the things to do/see list is soooo long.

So when we were out of Team Lab we headed to Tokyo tower. You’ve seen (at least on TV) Paris’ Eiffel Tower, right? So Tokyo tower is the Asian replica ( and it is not as bad taste as the one in Vegas). Went up to the last level and we saw forthe first time Tokyo…well, as much as eyes can see! 

Next stop was Meiji Sanctuary, one of the largest Shinto Shrines in Japan. Apart from the temple itself, the Toriis and the sake barrells everything was interesting! And we considered ourselves very lucky to witness a wedding there- the bride wore no white dress but a beautiful colorful kimono.

Shinto and Buddhism are Japan’s two major religions. Shinto is as old as the Japanese culture, while Buddhism was imported from the mainland (China) in the 6th century. Since then, the two religions have been co-existing relatively harmoniously and have even complemented each other to a certain degree.

Next we strolled around Harajuku and on to the Shibuya crossing. I told you I will say when expectation was higher than reality- Shibuya crossing is so. I mean yes there are a lot of people and lights and a diagonal crossing but this is not THE most crossing Japan has… One can book (well in advance) tickets for the Observatory deck of Shibuya Sky (level 45) or (if you did not book in advance) you can take a lift to one of the lower free levels and still get a good view. Oh, and while you’re at Shibuya, don’t forget about Hachiko’s statue.

Our last stop for the day was Shinjuku with its full of lights, smells and colorful streets (plus Godzilla and the red district).

On day three we headed to the colorful Sensoji Temple (budhist). We had a walk in the gardens around and then headed to the National Museum of Tokyo.

Kimonos, knives, Samurai’s armours, you name it, it’s all there and not only from Japan as they have an extensive collection from all over Asia.

Around lunch time Masaki came to meet us and she took us to lunch, trying Japanese specialties. 

After lunch, when Masaki went back home, we headed to Ginza. The big boulevard is closed for traffic on Sundays. I have never seen so many Louis Vuitton stores in my life nor have I seen so many luxury stores all gathered in one place… But what we did see and impressed us was the Kabuki theater. By the way, did you know that only men perform there?

One last stop for the day- Roppongi Tower for some Manga exhibition and a night view over Tokyo.

Day four- we knew it will rain so we built our plan to spend the day mostly inside. Yet, there were portions of Tokyo that we still wanted to see so we brought out the umbrellas and off we were! We walked the Omotesando street from Harajuku to Nezu Museum. Why? Because this street with its trees and fine shops and modern buildings resembles the Champs Elisee. By the opening hours we were lining up at Nezu entrance. Next was the National Art Center Tokyo. Amazing building, nice exhibition and good food in the basement canteen.

Next stop was Akihabara, the electronics shopping hub, full of manga, anime and anything else that might cross your mind. I personally would not recommend it unless you are interested in such products. 

To finish the day we went again to Shibuya, with all the buzzling we found it almost familiar.

I did not tell you anything about the hotels. Very clean, with all ammenities (including pijamas!) but small (to European standards). I mean all available space was very well used but we were not able to have two suitcases open at the same time. And the small size rooms were especially in Tokyo.

On day five we moved to Kyoto. We took a rush hour metro (I know, bad idea, especially with the luggage, but we survived) and then the bullet train. With the JR Pass we had covered most of the trains and what is reccommendable is to reserve seats and large luggage space (it is free but you need to do It in one of the JR offices). I would recommend you reserve the seats and the big luggage room as soon as you can, for all your trip.

We arrived in Kyoto, dropped the luggage at the hotel and started exploring. Well, we started with lunch, some gyozas (my mouth is wattering right now) and then walked through the Nishiki Market. We were no longer hungry but the eyes and our noses were charmed. One thing that I loved in Japan was that people do not eat on the street. Yes, they have street food but if you buy it you stay in front of the place, eat your piece and then walk away. There are no litter boxes on the street and everything is so clean.

We continued our walk crossing the river to the Gion part of town (where most Geishas are living) and went to visit the Kenninji temple. What a “WoW”! First we walked through a typical Japanese house, with those beautifully arranged interior gardens and some rock gardens, for our zen. Then we walked into the great hall with its beautiful dragons. Not to forget that the temple itself has more than 800 years…

Strolling through Gion later on we reached the meeting point of our evening free tour and then we walked around Gion with stories about Geishas, Maikos and Samurais. Just a quick note- geishas are very rare to be seen, most of the times Maikos are to be spotted and (geishas) are very educated, doing entertainment for rich people (and no, additional service is not included).

We ended our tour and the first day in Kyoto at the Yasaka Sanctuary.

Day two in Kyoto was an early wake up because there was a lot to see. First we wanted to get to Fushimi Inari before the crowds (and with the morning light). We did a nice walk and so many pictures! These red torris on the backdrop of the green nature were a continuos “don’t move” foto moment.

After Fushimi we moved north of Kyoto to visit the Golden Pagoda. It is beautiful and worth the visit but expect crowds and no privacy. I wanted to visit two other temples in the nearby but we did not run well on time so we skipped the temples, took a taxi and headed to the bamboo forrest of Arashiyama. Don’t think the crowds were less here…no way! But still nice to see, especially hearing the noise of the wind blowing through the forrest.

To end the day we got back to Gion. We wanted to explore more of the old wooden houses streets (of course- we and half of world’s population!). And for dinner we had our first crazy choice. I told you already about izakaya and when you visit Japan you will see that small (up to 10 seats) places are very common eateries. What we found out that night is that apart from small, some of these places have a machine at the entry where one is ordering and paying for the meal. All excellent, right? Of course, but not so great when the description is only in Japanese. Luckily (and trust me that you’ll thank me for the pocket wifi tipo) Google translate helped (again) and we were safe- we had a delicious dinner, almost what we imagined we ordered!

Next day we took the train to Nara. Imagine a big, open (no fences) park, with some streets crossing the park but with cars stopping to allow the deers to cross. And then deers coming so close to you, without fearing humans. As a bonus we also saw the big Buddha at the Todai-ji temple.

After a quick lunch from a street food place (takoyaki, delicious octopus balls) we headed to Osaka where we met Masaki again. But before meeting Masaki we visited the Osaka Castle. Now just that you don’t get dissapointed, the castles (at least the ones we visited) are empty. They provide an excellent view of the city though. With Masaki we headed down to Dotonbori. And as much lights and sounds you see during the trip (or as often I mention them here) you’re still surprised by the crowds, lights, movement.

We had dinner with Masaki – the famous okonomiyaki and tried the warm sake- we all agreed it tastes better than the cold one.

And back to Kyoto to end the day.

Last half a day in Kyoto and still so many things left to explore… Masaki had to catch a train to Osaka and then a flight to her Hokkaido so we stayed in the city center, exploring the park around Yasaka Sanctuary and the Chíon- in Temple. Around noon we packed all the luggage in a taxi and headed to the train station, direction Himeji.

All train stations have lockers for storing luggage, which is excellent. Not so great when there’s none available in the size needed but even so, at least during our trip, this only happened once. So luggage stored, heading to the castle. 

Himeji is a UNESCO herritage monument, the largest and still intact Castle of Japan and definitely worth a stop.

Next day we took a train and a ferry to reach Naoshima. As the island was getting almost forgotten, someone had the great idea to bring it back to life through art. So today there are several collections that can be visited (I will not stop repeating: book entrances in advance!) such as Benesse, Hiroshi Sugimoto or Chichu Art Museum and several outdoor exhibits. We also took the time to visit the Ando Museum and the Art House Project- mainly beautiful restaurations of local houses.

Day 10 of our trip was meant for sport activities- biking as much as possible from the Shimanami Kaido biketrail. On its fullness the trail runs xxx and is connecting Onomichi and Imabari over six islands. We did not book the electric bikes in advance so when we got to the rental place we were left with the classic option. The ride was nice (if we do not count the scratched knees and an arm or the complains from the beginning). We managed to do half of it and I was proud of the team. It is a nice ride and with more time and a little training it can be done whole in one day. I was a little dissapointed by the scenery- maybe the longer route is more pictoresque but ours was rather industrial. A strange combination of beautiful nature, industrial buildings and ocasionaly, residential areas. 

After a late lunch and some refreshments we were ready to hit the road back, recover our luggages and take the train to Hiroshima.

We started the day with a train and a ferry to Miyajima. (Btw, the JR Pass is covering as well the ferry cost to Miyajima, the turistic bus in Hiroshima and provided several discounts to turistic sites. Ask always if there’s an advantage when holding it). Miyajima is an island in the “interior sea”, in front of Hiroshima. It has a cable car that takes tourists up to an Observatory deck or, for those who enjoy a hike, to several temples. In the harbour it has a temple floating on water and a Tori (red gate) in the water. The place is very instagramable so you can imagine how many people visit the place daily. Hiroshima and arounds are known for oysters- almost everything has oysters in it so of course we tried it.

Once back on firm land, with the perfect before the sunset light we got off the turistic bus at the Hiroshima Castle. We were expecting just another castle like the ones we saw before but Hiroshima’s was nicer, with a lot more of wooden external decoration (despite being reconstructed). Pictures taken, next stop was the dome. We strolled through the Castle park, going out through the main gate, passing by some impressive, new and very chic buildings and then…here it was! 

Maybe it was the light and the weather and the colors, maybe it’s the age or maybe it’s the current wars in Ukraine and Palestina but I got goose bumps. The building itself is well known to everyone, seeing it live is just more personal. Close by is the children’s memorial and on the same lane the pond, the flame and the arch, below which you can see the dome in the background. We managed to get into the peace memorial before the closing time. The whole afternoon was emotional. One cannot think but how much wrong we do to innocent people in the name of…what??? And when will we stop?

Since the next day we had an early start (train departure at 6.20am) we went for an early dinner and nothing else. My feet were hurting so bad. But I was happy.

Early wake up because the night before, when we wanted to reserve our seats and luggage places our choice was fully booked. So either train at 6.20am or one at 12.30. The midday one was not an option- we would waste too much time…

In 3h we arrived in Nagoya, changed trains and arrived in a lost small town in the Gifu Prefecture where we got reservations for a sumo tournament. I am not a big fan of this sport but since it’s so unique to Japan, I did not want to miss it. And puzzling with our travel dates and locations on one side and the tournament dates on the other side, we booked tickets for Tajimi. What can I tell you about Tajimi? Almost no-one speaking English, limited lockers at the train station and no other option to deposit our luggages while at the tournament so we took them with us. Luckily a nice man offered to store them for us and we were free to move in the building. So to my surprise the event was more than a competition. Apart from the ritual presenting every competitor we had two music sessions, one show on how to comb the fighters’ hair, a cómic session and of course, the fights. I was not counting on spending 4h there but time flew and we enjoyed it a lot- highly recommended!

In the early evening we took another short train ride to Nakatsugawa where we slept the night before walking part of the Nakasendo road (Nakatsugawa has nothing special as town but as you step out the train station you hear music, jazz…through street difusors. When did you hear this last time, if ever???) Originally Nakasendo was one of the roads connecting nowadays Tokyo to Kioto. The road was full with post towns, some of them well preserved to our day. We chose to do a small walk, 9 km long and I was not expecting to take us more than 3h to finish it (including breaks, fotos, etc) so wake up time was not that early and I could even try the onsen the hotel was offering. It was more for curiosity because (sorry to say) despite the talks about the thermal springs, they are just thermal spring water. A nice to try but not a lifetime experience.

Back to our Nakasendo trail- we walked from Magome to Tsumago and had a lovely sunny autumn day. The trail runs mainly through forest, with some bells to be rang to scare away bears, some going up and down but minimal, two waterfalls and of course, two postal towns.

When we finished the hike we took the train back to Tokyo.

We still had things we wanted to see or go back to so we used the evening for this. We went back to Shinjuku to see the 3D cat, we had sushi, we did some shopping… I guess we all felt that two weeks were too short.

Last full day in Japan was for mr Mount Fuji. We managed to get there changing two or three trains (because we did not book the direct bus in advance…), took the cable car to the Kawaguchiko panoramic view platform of Mount Fuji, had a street food (again delicious) lunch and went to see the Chureito Pagoda with Mt Fuji in the background. Another beautiful day!

Last day we agreed to leave the hotel at 11am to catch the train to the airport and because a long sleep was not what l wanted to enjoy in my last day, I stepped out at 7am. The sun was up, the streets started to get filled with people rushing to the office and I headed to the Imperial Palace. It cannot be visited inside as it is the official residence of the imperial family but guided tours of the gardens are offered in English – unfortunately this is another tour we missed because of thinking to book too late. Nevermind, I had my share of a calm, sunny morning in the external gardens of the Palace. So it was 8am and what was I suppose to do? Opened Google Maps and look for what is left to be seen. And that’s how I ended up walking around Ginza until the meeting hour with the others.

Am now finishing this story in a plane to Germany, 2 weeks after our return to Europe…so many mixed feelings. Japan is a beautiful country, I am highly recommending it to anyone, it was not as expensive as I feared it to be (we spent altogether below 2.5k€/ person for the two full weeks, everything included). It is clean, safe, accesible. The people are nice and respectful, even though not many speak English we were approached and asked several times if we needed help even when they were not speaking English. They respect not only others but also their rules. Seeing how they line up on the left side of the mechanic stairs to let others pass was almost driving me a little crazy…up to the point that last week, in Europe, I almost claimed that people do not line up on any side. We were traveling in a train fully booked, some seats were showing reserved and yet nobody was sitting there. And you read well, we were standing and nobody was sitting! Because the seats were showing “reserved”. 

I saw them as special among the Asian countries but actually now I think they are specials among all countries. They definitely have something different! With all this and considering all we’ve seen and experienced I would not like to live there. I love my adoptive land that is loud and full of life and colors and hugs and kisses.

Arigato Japan, hopefully see you again soon!