After a solid week in Beijing, we decided to go on vacation to Japan. Lovely country – highly recommended. We will definitely go back here – next time hopefully knowing some more Japanese.
Trip overview
Day | Where? | What? |
1 | Beijing à Tokyo | Some shrines in evening. Quick Tempura dinner. |
2 | Tokyo à Kyoto | |
3 | Kyoto | Temples |
4 | Kyoto | Daytrip to Nara |
5 | Kyoto | Temples |
6 | Kyoto | Daytrip to Himeji |
7 | Kyoto | Temples, Sento bath |
8 | Kyoto à Fukuoaka / Hakata via Hiroshima | Visit peace memorial park in Hiroshima and the museum |
9 | Fukuoaka / Hakata | Nagasaki day trip – A-bomb sight and museum |
10 | Fukuoaka / Hakata | |
11 | Fukuoaka / Hakata à Beppu | Onsen at hotel |
12 | Beppu | Sand Onsen and Fugu dinner |
13 | Beppu à Osaka | Umeda Sky Building, Aquarium |
14 | Osaka à Tokyo | Dinner and drinks with drunk Japanese salary men (unintentional!) |
15 | Tokyo | Tsukiji market, Ginza, River cruise, Shinjuku, Roppongi |
16 | Tokyo à Beijing | Shibuya, Love hotel hill |
Kyoto
Temple overload! Fantastic city with 17 UNESCO world heritage sites makes Kyoto a worthwhile place to visit. It is also a fantastic launch pad for day trips to other places in Kansai. We particularly enjoyed visiting Nara – Japan’s first capital, which has Japan’s biggest tree building and deer that roam the street – watch out they might bite you in the ass!
Fukuoaka / Hakata
Good launching pad for sites in Kyushu. Handy transportation for Nagasaki and decent city in itself. Only let down was that we decided to sleep in and missed the sumo wrestling tournament we were planning to attend. Caught a glimpse of the big guys outside of the arena though. Great Ramen!
Beppu
Onsen, onsen, onsen! Fantastic Japanese invention. Basically it is a steaming hot bath for soaking, where people go to wash and relax. We enjoyed three baths a day in the Ryokan (Japanese guest house we were staying in), and also went to an external one to try sand bathing. Really lovely and relaxing.
We also sampled Fugu (pufferfish). Having Fugu dinner brings a little excitement into your life. If the chef is good, the dinner is fantastic. If the chef is not so good, you might have a serious problem. The puffer fish is poisounous and there is no antidote so if the fish has been badly prepared you will most likely die from eating it – however, reasonably uncommon.
Tokyo
Start and end to our trip in Japan. Fascinating in itself and you could probably spend two weeks just here. However, also extremely busy and too much of a reminder of city life for the two of us to want to hang around for an extended period of time. We did see a few interesting things though. Highlights included Tsukuji fish market and Love hotel hill (in Shibuya). In Tsukuji fish market you can see your lunch sushi before it has been cut into those delicious little pieces. We took it all in and enjoyed the freshest sushi of our lives afterwards.
Love hotel price information.
All the best,
Lars and Louise
