Before Kyoto was ever capital, Nara was the first capital of Japan and the birthplace of Japanese culture, individual of the Korean and Chinese influence. I decided to take a day trip here from Kyoto to learn more about Japanese history. When I walked out of the station I was again surprised to see Nara was similiarly built up like Kyoto with towering buildings and no evidence of its past. Unlike Kyoto however all of Nara`s historical sights were all in one area,...

On my first day of touring Tokyo I decided to get off at the main JR station stop 'Tokyo' right in the centre of the city to walk around and see if there was anything of nots. Unfortuneatley Tokyo was quite different to all of the other cities I had explored in the all the things to see are incredibly spread out through the while city, so the area I went to was just a built up business district. After that I decided to go somewhere my guide book suggested, Shinj...

Even though I was sleep deprived and jet-lagged I was still really excited and awake when I landed in Tokyo because Japan was one of the places I was most looking forward to visiting. I said goodbye to Chris and Esther at Sydney and Christchurch airport ready to do the next few legs on my own for the first time. After I had gone through Customs at Narita airport, I collected my Japan Railways Pass that I had bought in England. This pass allows me on any JR (the ...

I decided to take a day trip to see Mount Fuji, the biggest mountain in Japan, while I was in Tokyo. The train took me all the way to Fuji-Yoshida, the town where people used to start the trek up mount Fuji from. On the train on the way in I could see the size and the snow on Fuji but it wasn't very clear so I thought I would wait until later in the day to take a photo when I thought the haze would clear. This turned out to be the complete opposite of what happen...