In about a weeks time I’ll be on the road again.
This time I’ll be heading East to Japan! I hadn’t planned to visit Japan this year. But when I learned that my friend (who had lived in Japan for a little under a year) was planning to visit, I tagged along! It’s not everyday you get to travel with someone who’s already familiar with the culture and can speak the language. In addition, He wanted to head south to some of the more rural areas. I’m not sure if I would have made it to these parts of Japan on my own, so it was a good opportunity! Moving forward, we’ll call him “Salmonella”. During his time in Japan he was adventurous enough to give chicken sashimi a try and well, you can tell by his (self chosen) alias that it didn’t go well.
With this in mind, I was a little less concerned about “seeing everything”. Because we’d be doing a few things “off the beaten path”, I had resolved early on, that this wouldn’t be my last trip to Japan. So going into this, I felt that whatever I wouldn’t be able to get to (and there’s a lot!) I’d be able to make a return trip at some point in the future and get to it then. In the meantime, I looked at this as an opportunity to see things I personally wouldn’t get to see as easily if I wasn’t going with Salmonella. All in all, it was a win win situation!
I think similar to my trip to Australia, there weren’t many “big ticket” items that that were on our list of “must sees”. Of that list there were:
- Churaumi Aquarium
- Hiroshima War Memorial
- Tokyo – Shibuya Crossing
- Visit a Japanese Whiskey Distillery
- Eat Kobe Beef
On top of all this, one thing I’m most excited about is the food. I’ve heard so much about how amazing the food is, and how different it is from region to region. So in a way eating was a must as well.
Once the trip started taking form another friend decided to come as well! (We’ll call him “Funkycat”, in honesty I don’t know why). In fact he booked a great flight deal that would take him from Vancouver to Korea to Taiwan and then to Japan. So he would be meeting us in the first few days.
This helped us frame a start date and we started looking for flights from North America. Because there are several routes across the ocean, our first struggle was whether or not to fly in and out of the same city. We decided that we would be moving around enough that we could fly into Tokyo and end our trip in Osaka. We eventually found a JAL flight that allowed us to do just this. So my friend and I booked our flights and we were set!
After some deliberation we eventually settled on the itinerary below:
- Fly from Vancouver to Tokyo
- Spend 3 Days in Tokyo
- Fly to Okinawa
- Spend 3 days in Okinawa
- Fly to Miyazaki
- Rent a car and drive to Kumamoto (Stopping along the way)
- Train from Kumamoto to Hiroshima
- Spend one night in Hiroshima
- Train from Hiroshima to Osaka
- Use Osaka as a base to visit the surrounding cities
- Fly from Osaka back to Vancouver (with a layover in Tokyo)
Once we had our inbound and outbound dates set we started looking at options to move about the country.
The furthest point for us would be the Island of Okinawa. Initially we had looked at training south west and then flying into Okinawa from another city. However after a bit of deliberation we decided that after spending a few days in Tokyo, we’d fly directly to Okinawa, rent a car, explore the island and then fly back to southern Japan arriving in Miyazaki.
From there we would rent another car and drive to Kumamoto on the east coast of the Island. Along the way we would stop to hike around Takachiho Gorge and visit an Onsen (Japanese Bath house)
We would then board a train in Kumamoto for a short hop to Hiroshima where we would stay a night, explore the city and the Peace Park. We’d then train to Osaka and settle there while taking day trips to Kyoto where we’d visit some historical sights as well as visiting the Yamazaki Whiskey distillery.
We have a less stringent schedule in Osaka as there are a lot of small side/day trips we will do. Salmonella spent most of his year in Osaka, so I imagine he will have plenty of recommendations for us too!
From there is a short domestic flight from Osaka to Tokyo, a small two hour layover before flying home to Vancouver.
In the end we’re covering a good amount of the country. In looking at the logistics, it looks and feels like it will be a whirlwind trip through Japan. I suspect this will be more of a sampler or teaser for this amazing country. I already know that there is no way I’m going to be able to see, try, eat or experience everything I want to and a return trip is certainly in the cards. I’m excited to get underway. Can’t wait to visit the land of the rising sun!