In total we stayed in six different hotels, took over 30 trains (including subways; we took ~6 Shinkansen bullet trains), and took over 600 photos. It was hot, but not unbearable; we saw a lot of crowds but it didn't really affect our trip too much. It rained just one day. We ate lots of sushi and some great Japanese steak as well, also a lot of Japanese Shave Ice and ice cream. We also sampled "new" food like Okonomiyaki (Japanese crepe with noodles and sauce layered on) and an eel omelet (a specialty in Hiroshima).
Our top items from the trip, in chronological order:
Walking Around Tokyo
Our first day in Japan was the hottest - we did a mini-walking tour around four areas of Tokyo - the Imperial Gardens, Akihabara, Tsukiji Fish Market (sushi lunch!), and Tokyo Sky Tree (tall tower with great views of the city).
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| Henry at Imperial Palace Gardens |
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| Walking through Tsukiji Fish Market |
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| Looking up at the Tokyo "Sky Tree" from the base |
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| View from the top of Tokyo Sky Tree |
Japanese Steakhouse
For our second night in Tokyo we ate at a Japanese steakhouse. We got a private room and ordered a few platters of thin steaks that you cook for yourself at the table. One of the top restaurants on the trip!
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| Steakhouse Dinner |
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| Getting ready to cook some dinner |
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| Platter of Japanese beef |
Matsumoto
Our first leg post-Tokyo was to the mountains (the "Japan Alps"). We took a train to Nagano (host of the 1998 Winter Olympics) and then on to Matsumoto, which has a beautiful castle. From there we continued to Omachi.
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| Matsumoto Castle |
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| Comfortable Shinkansen train |
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| Familiar setting - getting off a train ! |
Alpen Route: Omachi to Toyama
To travel across the mountains, we followed the famed "Alpen Route" from Omachi to Toyama. We stayed in a traditional Japanese hotel in Omachi (no beds, just straw mats and then they setup futons for us), and we gave them our luggage to be transported to the end of the route. To make the journey ourselves, we took a bus, followed by a trolley-bus through a tunnel, a cable car, a gondola, another bus, and a railway train. You can stop at each place to see scenery, take hikes, or eat. We had intended to stop and do a hike at one of the stops but the weather got progressively worse as we ascended the mountain, so we wound up just having a nice lunch and then continuing on. While not as nice as it certainly could have been, it still was a neat experience to travel through.
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| Traditional Japanese hotel room in Omachi |
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| The Alpen Route ! |
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| Kurobe Dam, first stop on the Alpen Route |
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| Above the dam, from the second stop on the route |
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| Funicular car, third leg of the Alpen Route |
Kyoto Temples
Kyoto was the capital of Japan for hundreds of years and is famed for over 1600 temples throughout the city. After arriving there in the afternoon we walked around to see a few of the more notable ones - some very beautiful views.
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| Crowded climb up winding Japanese streets on the way up to the temple (Starbucks on the left!) |
Henry's Birthday Evening
We were in Kyoto for Henry's 14th birthday. Amazingly, the same restaurant we'd gone to for his birthday last year (a Taiwanese dumpling restaurant) has an outlet in Kyoto, so we went there, followed by some games at a Japanese video arcade.
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| Din Tai Fung |
Kurama to Kibune Hike
We took a train ride to the mountains about a half-hour outside of Kyoto for a beautiful hike over a mountain to another village where we caught the train back to Kyoto. Along the way you walk along some more Japanese temples and lots of bright orange lanterns.
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| Enjoying shave ice - a common treat at the end of a hot hike |
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| Henry finds a geocache on the way back to the train! |
Japanese Baseball!
We took a Shinkansen 20 minutes south of Kyoto to Osaka to see the Orix Buffaloes host the Soft Bank Hawks. We sat on the first base line in the domed stadium. Groups of fans in the outfield sing and chant (home team in RF, away team has an equally large contingent of fans in LF), complete with trumpets and megaphones.
Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Museum
Hiroshima has a large park in the center of town where the epicenter of the bomb blast was, including the remains of a building which oddly wasn't destroyed and a museum. The museum was a bit one-sided We learned that Japan, after trying to setup an independent Manchuria (some might say they invaded it) and simply "surprising" the Americans at Pearl Harbor, were victims of the atomic bomb largely because the American government, after developing the bomb through the very expensive Manhattan Project, had to justify the cost to the American people by then using the bomb.
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| The "Atomic Bomb Dome" building which survived the blast |
In general, Hiroshima is a beautiful city, surrounded by mountains with a beautiful castle. Our hotel overlooked the castle and we had a wonderful view of it. We also got to visit a cat cafe in Hiroshima - a cafe that has about a dozen cats that you can play with - and also our favorite sushi restaurant of the trip.
Miyajima
A short boat ride from Hiroshima is Miyajima, which is a beautiful island with a famous "Torii Gate" in the water, which you can walk out to during low tide. There are also hundreds of wild deer on the island. Joseph and John hiked up to the top of the mountain on the island, which is a beautiful hike leading to great views of the bay and islands.
Tokyo Disneyland
We spent our final full day in Japan at Tokyo Disneyland, which is about 30-minutes outside of Tokyo. It was very crowded (Tokyo Disney has about twice as many visitors as California's Disney and 50% more visitors than Florida). The layout and rides are very similar to the US parks; we rode Pirates of the Caribbean, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Pooh's Honey Hunt, and Space Mountain. We stayed at the Sheraton next to the park before flying back home the next morning!
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