I started planning my trip to Japan pretty early on. We first made a list of things we wanted to do, and then put them on a map all at the same time. I divided each day into morning, lunch, afternoon, dinner, and night. I did all my planning in a spreadsheet. I’ll also rate each of the activities we did. 6/5: I will treasure this memory forever and still think about it all the time5/5: This activity was AMAZING4/5:…
I really enjoyed shopping in Japan and I just wanted to share what I got! We bought so much stuff, it almost didn’t all fit on the table! This is the tetsubin. It’s made by the brand Iwachu, and it’s a teapot called nanbu tekki, or southern ironware. In total, the teapot and teacup were $75. We bought this from a shop on the Kappabashi Dori shopping street. We also got these individual nabe pot sets on Kappabashi Dori street.…
Today was our last day in Japan. We woke up early and went to Starbucks to pick up our last Starbucks mug: the Tokyo one. Then we walked to a place that specialized in udon in Roppongi for our last restaurant meal in Japan. We had to cross through specific sides of the streets because we weren’t allowed to be on some. I think it was because they were government buildings. The officers were counting us, and communicating with each…
Our last full day in Japan. We woke up early and wanted to check out the Imperial palace, and then go to Tsukiji market after that for lunch/breakfast. We walked from Roppongi to the imperial palace, which took a while, and for some reason the streets were almost completely empty, except for 2 joggers. I felt like I was in a ghost town or something. The Imperial Palace is set in the middle of Tokyo, surrounded by a river. This…
With only 3 days left in the trip, we were in a rush to get all the goodies that are only available in Japan. Today was our first shopping day. Of course, we had to go to Shibuya again. I went to the lingerie/pajama store on Takeshita street and picked out this pink fuzzy onesie. Then we went looking for a suyasan jacket for Masa. We bought a panda bomber jacket for $300, and a panda shirt for him because…
The plan for today was to go back to Kyoto really early in the morning so we could stop by Fushimi Inari shrine (the one with the famous corridor of red gates), but we were really sick of Kyoto. We left a bit later, and went straight to the train station after returning the rental car. We planned to meet up with Masa’s sister for lunch but the train we took kept getting delayed at every stop, so we were…
New Year’s Eve, 9:00 PM: We finally got to our new destination, Osaka. Being on the phone for 3 hours with Chase? What a way to end a decade. Anyway, it felt good to be in Osaka, away from the bad luck we’d had in Kyoto. And thank goodness for American hotel chains in Japan. We were treated like royalty, and the hotel room was double the size of the one we had the first time we were in Kyoto.…
Today, we went back to Kyoto. It was only a 40 min drive from the old man’s house. We wanted to check out the main attractions in Kyoto that we had not seen before, like the famous bamboo forest, the temples, and the Imperial palace. Gion district was near the temples in Kyoto, and this part was famous for their abundance of geishas. This day did not go according to plan. I don’t even really want to write about it…
After leaving Gyokuzoin temple, we hit the road. The plan was to do lunch in Kobe, pick up some groceries, and then go to stay at the farmstay we booked through Airbnb. The country scenery was so beautiful. Because of the spacing, the land looked less like suburbia and more like a rich neighborhood where everyone can have massive plots of land. It was so lush and green. We got on the highway and it was so expensive. We didn’t…
After leaving Nara, we started driving toward Gyokuzoin temple as it was getting dark. We started making our way into the mountains, and we saw so many beautiful streams and trees. The road started getting narrower and narrower. When the road got too narrow and overgrown, we realized we had mapped to Gyokuzoin temple, but there was another pinpoint we should have mapped to for meeting the monks that would take us to our place to stay. They told us…