Instruction

I have no idea why but, sometimes when you arrive on the site you get a long list of every post in white text on black background. If you are seeing this, just click on the little menu icon at the top left of the screen (the three horizontal lines) and select a page to view. The latest blog will always be at the top of the ‘BLOG’ page. If anyone knows a small child who can help and tell me why this happens, please leave a comment.

Prologue..

Following the incredible and underwhelming success of my Australian blog, which went fungal globally, achieved over five ‘Likes’, two ‘Disinterested’s’, three ‘Please Unsubscribe Me’s’ and racked up over 19 followers (not including the dyslexic Austrian who couldn’t believe we saw so many Koala bears in his country) I have decided to resurrect its ‘success’ and write a new blog for the visit of Brigitte and I to the land of the rising sun.

Our Japan trip promises to be a rip-roaring, sushi-munching, sake-sipping, karaoke-cavorting, ramen-romping, chopstick- chomping, geisha-gazing, wasabi-wary, fugu-fearing, samurai-swashbuckling and sumo-stomping (phew) few weeks.

– or maybe it will just turn out to be a leisurely journey through a beautiful alien land.

Whatever happens it’s bound to be eventful, so we hope you can join us on our journey as we try to get to grips with it all.

The Route

We set off early on Friday 5th May and spend two weeks getting lost in translation. These are the places we are visiting:

• Tokyo 6-8th May and 19th
• Hakone 9th-10th
• Kyoto 11th-13th
• Hiroshima 14th
• Miyajima 14th
• Osaka 15th-16th
• Takayama 17th-18th

I know some of you have been to Japan so if you have any advice or recommendations please let us know in the comments box below.

We seem to have quite a lot of reading material from the travel company – (Bakewell travel in Harrogate – thanks Jacquie!) – The Tokyo guide alone is 64 pages!

Therefore, before I start writing, it seems that I need to do some reading so see you all latet.

A little bit about Japan

For those who like facts, here’s a little information about Japan. Thank you Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Firstly, it is made up of 14,125 islands (who knew?) that stretch for approximately 1,500 miles (2,400 km) through the western North Pacific. Nearly the entire land area is taken up by the country’s four main islands; from north to south these are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. 

Honshu is the largest of the four and that’s the Island we are going to be touring, followed in size by Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku.

The national capital, Tokyo, in east-central Honshu, is one of the world’s most populous cities (see my Tokyo page for details).

The Japanese landscape is rugged, with more than four-fifths of the land surface consisting of mountains. We are visiting Hakone, which is located in the mountains in the far west of the prefecture, on the eastern side of Hakone Pass. There are many active and dormant volcanoes, including Mount Fuji, (Fuji-san), which, at an elevation of 12,388 feet (3,776 metres), is Japan’s highest mountain.

Complexity and contrast are the keynotes of life in Japan—a country possessing an intricate and ancient cultural tradition yet one that, since 1950, has emerged as one of the world’s most economically and technologically advanced societies. Heavy emphasis is placed on education, and Japan is one of the world’s most literate countries. Tension between old and new is apparent in all phases of Japanese life.

Can’t wait to get there!