Luke Ketley

We arrived in the beach side Ito around 4pm and headed straight for the hostel. This was a 100 year old traditional ryoken with its own onsen in the basement. After sorting ourselves out, and a spot of dinner, we headed out to the dream festival that was going on. More stands with drink, food and games. An awesome double act on stage, a female singing and male guitarist. The fireworks started and they carried on playing. It was nice to have both at the same time. A late night onsen and bed called. In the morning I grabbed another long onsen, then we headed to the beach. Checking the…

If you look at a map of Japan Nagoya to Fuji looks relatively quick. Not according to JR. Back up towards the alps, across, down and around saw us finally hit Genkoji around 8pm. Got hostel sorted and had missed the last train out for Fuji. So dinner and bed it was, although not a restful night. The next morning we got up and headed to Fuji Q, a theme park with Mt Fuji as the backdrop. Here we travelled at 172km/h, went on a 4d roller-coaster that spun us up and over as well as around. We got to run through the famous haunted hospital that actually felt real…

Another day travelling south saw us arrive in Nagoya around 4pm. After trying to find our hostel we asked in a hotel with the same name, this ended up being our place. taking us to the 3rd floor we were shown our dorm, which was beds on the floor of a conference room. The shower room ended up being an actual room at the end of the hall. By the time it was all sorted it was evening sow e headed out and checked out the area. Lots of stores with funky products. After sleeping in way too long we headed out. A walk across the city centre we ended…

Leaving our mountain getaway we headed for Nagano, which was just east of us but due to a big mountain the train had to go back to Matsumoto first then back up. Once here we dropped our bags and headed north for Zenkoji Temple. The main road leading straight to it. The area was set up for the festivals over this period. We entered the inner sanctum of the main temple, where we also entered a passageway underneath that was pitch black. Here we were meant to find the key to enlightenment, everyone found something hanging but we are unsure whether it was an actual or metaphorical key. All in…

Spent the first day travelling via train. The first from Osaka to Matsumoto, or as the announcer likes to say Matsuuuuumotooooo. Here we met a friendly Japanese man who was explaining the scenery. He even helped us change trains. From here it was a local train that stooped everywhere and was crowded. Slowly ascending into the Alps we had to change trains again and kept going. When we finally arrived in Kamishiro it was easy to find our hostel as it was right by the station and had a windmill on top. We were greeted by our host and told it was just us and 1 girl. Walked down to…

Well we took a proper day trip away from Osaka into Wakayama where Koyo-san is. Unable to use our JR passes to get here we had to buy our first rail tickets, 3310 yen. Heading out the train was bumpier than the Shinkansen we had grown accustomed to. We watched the city disappear and the rural towns appear. After a while we started to see mountains and before long we were winding our way along the side of them looking down. When the train finally arrived we had to transfer to a cable car, this was shaped like stairs at a 45 degree angle, pulled up by one thick cable.…

Our third day in Osaka saw us take a little excursion out of the city and to Nara, which contains a massive park with lots of temples and shrines as well as what feels like a billion deer. Making our way up and across first we passed a few temples as well as people feeding the deers then getting chased by them. We passed the museum and another temple as they all seemed to charge and only wanting to see a certain couple. Headed straight to Diabutsu temple, which is massive, but it would have to be as it holds the biggest Buddhist statue in Japan. Surprisingly we were actually…

After a very hot mornings sleep we headed for the famous aquarium. This held different species from several regions of the world. Starting at the top of the building we wound our way down through each region getting deeper and deeper. Starting with the otters and seals at the top. As we went down there was one big tank that held the whale sharks as well as rays and smaller sharks. Not being big on fish, I was even amazed at this.B Further down we saw the endangered species, including the awesome hawk bill sea turtle. In the depths with the lights turned down we saw the amazing jellyfish that…

With only the morning left in Hiroshima we headed for the castle. This was five stories high, where we started by making our way to the top. The surrounding view wasn’t that great. It was nice of them to show us how the castle was built at the top rather than the bottom on the way out…B The displays and information were quite cool to look at, we even donned some Armour but whoever wore it must have been a small guy. For lunch it was the local specialty of Okonomyiaki. A layered dish, from bottom up, pancake, noodles, meat, cabbage and veg, egg and sauce. Filling but delicious. That…

After talking to people the day before we found out that its pretty much a national holiday in the middle of August for the Oban festival. So spent some time sorting out places to stay. A nice bakery by the hostel, where I got my first bacon. Said goodbye to some new friends, one we planned to meet later, and off we went to Hiroshima. Got off the train and got a tram back the way we just came. The place of stay here was a Ryoken style hotel, right by the Peace park. We started our Park tour on the east side by the very real Atomic bomb dome,…