What can you say about Hiroshima that doesn’t seem trite in light of what happened there during WWII? It’s a surprisingly lovely city – calling it ‘bland’ as one of our group did was a particularly shitty and tone-deaf thing to say, and not even true. The peace memorial park is of course mandatory, beautiful while incredibly moving. The peace memorial museum…let’s just say we all left it feeling bludgeoned. Continue reading “Hiroshima”
Kyoto
We only spent a night in Kyoto before racing off for a day trip to Nara (next post) and the one day we were allowed for Kyoto, we actually spent outside the city proper. So I can’t say we really saw Kyoto at all, but as it was raining, the Philosopher’s Walk would have been a bust anyway. Another city for a return visit. Continue reading “Kyoto”
Kanazawa
We only had a day in Kanazawa, but it was one of the more interesting ones. First stop was Nagamachi, to visit a former samurai’s house, with a small but perfectly formed garden, and a museum of samurai armour and accoutrements Continue reading “Kanazawa”
Nara
Nara is the former capital of Japan – its first permanent one. En route we visited the Gekkeikan Okura Sake Brewery museum. The water source in Nara prefecture is particularly pure (we were invited to try it for ourselves), perfect for sake, and the region is famous for it. We were already fans though 🙂 Continue reading “Nara”
Matsumoto and Takayama
After a three and a half hour train ride from Tokyo, Continue reading “Matsumoto and Takayama”
Tokyo
Thanks to Qantas, we arrived a day late to start our tour in Tokyo. Continue reading “Tokyo”
I knew I hadn’t imagined seeing this!
At Fukui Station
from
https://twitter.com/snj_/status/574181829156077568/photo/1
Background story is here.
Our Japanese trip summarised in one photo
Mad food*, lovely people (one of whom was wild to take our photo), and buggered if I could work out what was going on in 90% of the signage over there 🙂 It was so great!
[*It’s sweet potato icecream that was as purple as my shirt, even though the photo doesn’t show that. Delicious!]
Cute animals from Tasmania!
We ran away for Xmas, and then ran home again. We had a wonderful time. Tasmania is incredible, even if its wonder has not always been responsibly cared for. We also ate some fantastic food and bought some expensive but delicious Tasmanian whisky.
Anyway, I thought you might like to see some of the cute critters we saw on our travels. [Command+click for best experience.] Enjoy 🙂 Continue reading “Cute animals from Tasmania!”
Mad Hotels
To be truthful, there were only two mad hotels on our trip. Most of them – barring the one in Whistler which was kind of old, and the one in Kamloops which was just basic because Kamloops doesn’t have anything better – were pretty nice, and all other than the one in Kamloops were five star because we booked a premium tour (and paid through the nose for it.) A few of them were in the Fairmont Hotel chain, which caters for the high end customers. So it was a peek at a lifestyle we’re not familiar with, while not particularly wanting to living like that all the time (I mean, turn down service? Chocolates on the pillow every night? Does any of that really matter?) Continue reading “Mad Hotels”