Tagged: Japan

And for the final stretch of my definitely-not-once-in-a-lifetime trip to Japan, it was a few days in Osaka. Crazy Osaka. Osaka is more about the vibes – it’s a bit more gritty, the Hackney or Peckham of Japan though really that comparison is pretty useless – it’s just…Osaka. There’s nothing I can compare it to. A city of 2.8 million, though if you include the wider metropolitan area of Kyoto and Kobe, as there isn’t a green belt separating them, then 19 million. You can walk around people-watching all day and night, or just admiring the crazy decorations in areas …

The peace of the countryside over, it was back to Japanese city life, with 3 nights in Kyoto to come. We took the Shinkansen there, which is just remarkably smooth for such a fast train – none of this being bumped around like on a UK train, just plan smoothness. The guard even turns around to bow before he goes in the next carriage. Kyoto itself is much smaller than Tokyo, 1.4 million compared to Tokyo’s 14.2 million (not including greater metropolitan areas) – and bear in mind most tourists are doing the same route, we were suddenly very aware …

After the chaos, the noise, the lights, the intensity of Tokyo – it was time to go for a chill out in Hakone. You can do Hakone in a day tip from Tokyo, but we thought it would be nice to spend more time than that in the Japanese countryside. Hakone is part of the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, and yes that means that we were close to Mount Fuji. What a stunning mountain. We got the curiously-named Romancecar from the maze of Shinjuku to Hakone – not a Shinkansen train but impressive in that after the passengers get off at …

Ohhhhh Tokyo. Where do I start? Should anyone that knows me be reading, then you’ll know I booked flights with my sister to go in 2020. Two days after booking them, I read a small news article about a mystery virus in China. Then they carried on with mask-wearing for a good year or two after we discarded them, so I decided to wait a bit longer before re-booking. Then my sister was diagnosed with heart failure. I wasn’t going without her. And around last July, on bonus day at work, I checked the flight prices – just £850 return …