Travel Journal 2010

This is the route for our trip to Japan… We’re flying to Tōkyō Narita Airport, where we’ll meet up with the tour group and head to Tōkyō together. With a stop in Kamakura, we’ll carry on to Fuji National Park, where we’ll spend the night in an onsen. Then we’ll catch the train to Hiroshima, with a stopover in Okayama. Our last stop will be Kyōto. Finally, we’ll head back to Germany from Ōsaka Kansai Airport.

We originally planned to visit Himeji-jō castle in Himeji, but it’s currently being restored. Instead, we’re going to check out the Kōraku-en landscape garden in Okayama. Not bad either…

We can’t wait to see what’s in store for us!


Map: Natural Earth, Public Domain

It’s finally happening: our trip to Japan is kicking off! We’re at Frankfurt Airport right now and already massively excited. We’ve heard and read loads about Japan, but still don’t really have a proper idea of what to expect on this journey.

The start could hardly be better. Instead of flying in a jumbo jet as planned, we’ll be on board a brand-new Airbus A380, the biggest passenger plane in the world. We can’t wait.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

We’ve arrived in Tōkyō!

First off, we explored the Asakusa district, which is also where our hotel is. After that, we took the metro with the tour group to the Shinjuku shopping district. It’s packed, and the building facades have adverts playing on huge screens, blasting sound over the massive junction.

It’s easy to use the Tōkyō metro. You look up the fare to your destination station on a board, buy a ticket and use it to go through a barrier. If you’ve accidentally gone too far, you just pay the difference at the destination station. Fare dodging isn’t a thing here.

Let’s just hope the weather gets better. During the transfer from the airport it rained heavily, and for the rest of the day it was heavily overcast and rainy.

The weather gods are finally smiling on us. Time for some sightseeing around Tōkyō.

The Emperor’s Palace is a beautiful spot right in the middle of the city, though access ends pretty early on the outside at the Nijubashi bridge. At the Meiji Shrine, we learned how to ritually purify ourselves and pray. After that, we headed up to the 52nd floor of the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, where you get a fantastic view of the whole city. A boat took us back up the Sumida to Asakusa, where we checked out the Sensōji temple. Lastly, we took the underground to the packed, posh shopping street Ginza.

We’re just freshening up now, because we’re about to head out with the group to a Shabu Shabu restaurant. It’s a sort of fondue where you dip meat and veg into a broth.