Day 14
Last full day / night in Japan.
Traveling back to Tokyo today. We made a mistake and got on the only Shinkansen that wasn’t covered on our rail pass. Thankfully, the staff were very kind and helpful. We were lucky to see Mt Fuji on the way home. I’ve heard of people living here who didn’t see it for 10 years due to cloud cover.

Day 13
We made it to our last official stop of the trip- Hiroshima. We are pretty exhausted by this point, so we kept things simple with one goal: to see the A bomb dome. Day 13
The building is still intact mainly due to the fact that the bomb exploded directly overhead (the pressure blew out the ceilings and much of the structure, but the walls and some distinguishing features of the dome remained because the force wasn’t at an angle).

Day 12
Out of Osaka and off to our last destination: Hiroshima! But not without a pit stop in Himeji to check out Himeji Castle. Himeji Castle is famous for a few reasons. It’s one of a handful of cultural sites in Japan that is still orginal (I believe most of the places we’ve visited have been rebuilt). If you’re my father, you might recognise it as the ninja training camp in You Only Live Twice.

Day 11
Universal Studios Japan!
It was a really fun day.
We stayed close to USJ so it was easy to get there early.
The park has good number of rollercosters but all of the best ones were the traditional coasters. At least half were a 4D motion ride with a bit of track movement. Super Nintendo World was so cool to look at. Which is most of its value. There’s a bunch of little activities around the area which interact with these power bands you buy.

Day 10
We tried to have today be a resting day in prep for our big day at Universal.
We slept in and didn’t leave the hotel until about lunch time. A short ferry ride over the bay and we were at Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan.
It’s a weird mixture of feelings at places like this. On one hand there are some amazing tanks with large beautiful creatures. But these tanks are nothing compared to the full on ocean.

Day 9
Today mostly consisted of travelling from Kyoto to Osaka.
But before we go, let’s talk a little about where we stayed. It seemed fitting that while we were in Kyoto that we stay in a ryokan, a Japanese-style inn. Often smaller family run businesses with tatami rooms, futon beds, Japanese-style baths. I enjoyed sleeping lower to the ground but Rachel and I both thought they could be a tad thicker to make the side sleeping a bit easier. Both of us were big fans of the bath.

Day 8
We got up before the crack of dawn so we could get to 2 locations in Kyoto before the crowds.

1st was Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. We arrived just after sunrise. It was quiet enough to hear the bamboo rustling in the wind, & despite being tired, it was serene & beautiful. Next we went to Kinkaku-Ji, the Golden Pavilion.Only one building remains of the complex, which was built as a retirement home for a shogun in the 1400s. After his death, his will stated he wanted it turned into temple.

Day 7
Our first full day in Kyoto we visited Kiyomizudera, a wooden temple famous for its 13 metre high wooden platform. Legend has it that if you are brave enough to jump, and can survive the fall, a wish will be granted to you. This practice is no longer allowed. Rach commented that the entire temple was a bit of a wish temple. There are statues that, if stolen & replaced elsewhere, granted wishes, a pagoda where women could come to wish for an easy birth, stones that can bring love, 3 streams that could bring long life, success, or love.

Day 5!
We went to see the snow monkeys near Nagano, which was Rach’s most excited for. They said to expect a 40 minute hike into the mountains, but it was a very easy (and beautiful!) walk through snow covered trees, past the picturesque Korakukan ryokan, up to see the monkeys. The ryokan was built in 1864, and they quickly found that the monkeys were coming down the mountain to laze about in the hot pool, making it unavailable for guests. To fix this, they built an some pools for the monkeys. Why go to the human onsen when the monkey onsen was closer?

Day 4 was mostly a catch up day before we traveled off to Nagano.

Popped into Ameyayokocho market then went back to Shibuya. Rach is trying to hunt down a specific skin care product. And I wanted to check out Shibuya sky. Was cool to see a few spots from The World Ends With You. Shibuya Sky. 47 Floors up, it’s got some amazing view of the city. When you are staying in the core of Tokyo and getting the train around, the city feels very accessible. But up here? You can’t see the edges on any side. It was also VERY bright.

Few little adventures in day 3.

Started the day by checking out Sensō-ji temple.

The oldest temple in Tokyo and it’s in such amazing shape!

The scale of these buildings was really impressive. The curves and murals. The photos don’t do it justice On the way back home, we went to the kitchen district in Asakusa to buy some knives.
Rach did a bit of reading up and found that Kamata was the place to go. I didn’t get a photo but the store was very humble with a stone wheel spinning away. Mr Kamata then engraved them for us.

More snaps from day 2.

After getting pancakes, we popped into Kiddy Land. I held back on getting this Kirby car but I did pick myself up a Ponyo (Ponyo might be the secret best Ghibli movie) twitter.com/i/web/status/1… After that we checked out Meiji Temple.

Our Japan honeymoon has begun!
Not too much to talk about on Day 0 so let skip straight to day 1.

I spent most of the day getting nerdy things out of my system.

Got myself familiar with the train system (took the train 6 times today) and went off to Akihabara. Buildings with stories on top of stories full of cool things to look at. I didn’t take many photos so I could protect my mostly normie status but boy it was fun. Endorphins firing off every time I saw something cool that I’ll never buy.