Day 14 – travel day
All good things must come to an end. The travel day kicked off with getting 14 people’s multiple suitcases into a van to take us to the airport. It was definitely one of those sketchy situations where you prayed for no accidents. Did you know there are Pikachu planes? Plane food was the star of the […]
Continue reading Day 14 – travel dayDay 13 – Tokyo free day
Breakfast was back to the French cafe for our favorite red bean paste donuts. We went back to shibuya to see the famous Shibuya crossing. It is all kinds of insanity with up to 3000 people crossing the street in every direction at once. We decided to see it from a third floor French cafe. Next up […]
Continue reading Day 13 – Tokyo free dayDay 12 – Shibuya
We went to Hachiko Square in the Tokyo district of Shibuya to visit the memorial for the most beloved dog in Japan named Hachiko. This is so sad that it makes me cry every time. This dog belonged to a university professor who took the train for work. Every day, the dog would come to the train station […]
Continue reading Day 12 – ShibuyaDay 11 – Ueno
Today we went to a district of Tokyo called Ueno. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ueno First stop was the Tokyo National Museum. There is no way to see all of this museum in a morning but we focused on the archeological exhibit that showed swords, pottery, textiles, and much more from prehistoric times up to modern times. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_National_Museum After […]
Continue reading Day 11 – UenoDay 10 -Tokyo
Kanda Myoujin Shrine (Shinto shrine) https://www.gotokyo.org/en/spot/17/index.html The main part of this shrine was built in 730 it was moved to the Akihabara district of Tokyo in 1603 which you can see depicted in the mural above. There is a miniature donkey that is the sacred Animal at this shrine, we couldn’t see him as he […]
Continue reading Day 10 -TokyoDay 9 – Tokyo
To get to Tokyo, we took the fastest bullet train going 175mph for about 2.5 hours. It would have taken 5 hours by car. We all got bento box lunches from the train station called Ekiben. Most of us got the self heating kind where you pull a string on the bottom to heat it by […]
Continue reading Day 9 – TokyoDay 8 – Uji
We are visiting Japan at the start of rainy season which has not slowed us down at all. We have had many gorgeous days though. This day we took the train and then a taxi to Maruku-Koyamaen matcha factory. https://www.marukyu-koyamaen.co.jp/english/factory.html This is not at all a tourist hot spot and our group was large. They were so gracious […]
Continue reading Day 8 – UjiDay 7 – Nara
Nara is famous for the deer at the park. https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4103.html I have been keeping notes during the day and my entry for this day says “Pants bite terrify bow crackers”. A very accurate description of events. There will be a link for a video of my experience the end of this post. The deer over the years have […]
Continue reading Day 7 – NaraDay 6 Kyoto
Nijo castle https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3918.html was built in 1603 for the shogun at the time. It is famous for “nightingale” floors which make a beautiful singing squeak when you walk on them. It was a lot of fun hearing the floors go off while our group was walking through. It was an accident of architecture that turned into a castle warning system […]
Continue reading Day 6 KyotoDay 5 – Kyoto
Kiyomizu-dera was our first stop of the day. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyomizu-dera This is another Unesco world heritage site and is estimated to have been built in the early 700’s. It is located in Kyoto on the side of a mountain that has natural spring water. Just stunning. Also, you can rent kimonos here so there are many people wearing them […]
Continue reading Day 5 – Kyoto