We boarded the less sleek and less speedy but no less comfortable train from Nagoya to Hida Takayama and were soon on our way north. We passed through urban areas before suddenly finding ourselves surrounded by steep hillsides, densely covered in forests of trees and bamboo. The train ride, which took us a couple of hours from Nagoya, was fantastic, with great scenery the whole way. As we climbed into the mountains we followed a river, at times wide and lang...

We arrived in Kyoto station after our short and, of course, perfectly on-time journey from Hiroshima in the early evening. The weather was back to the heat and humidity of Tokyo, and we were soon sweating as we walked out into the modern town centre to try and find our hostel. Having heard so much about the historical aspects of Kyoto, we were quite surprised walking out of the huge 15-storey station complex to find lots of neon, tall buildings and the funky r...

Seconds after taking our seats, the sleek, white, dolphin-nosed shinkansen train set off from Tokyo central station on our route to Hiroshima. The first part of the journey took us through lots of built up areas, but eventually into more rural areas with views of the coast. I spent the first few hours of the journey looking at the scenery whizzing by, and writing about our time in Tokyo, before we arrived at Shin-Osaka station and had to change trains. After a...

The flight from Cairns to Tokyo took a bit under 8 hours, but it passed really quickly. We were lucky enough to get fire exit seats with masses of leg room, so I spent the first half of the flight stretched out sleeping. We managed to get a free hot dinner before landing as well. You normally need to pay for food on Jetstar flights but we asked if there were any hot meals left and were given some which people had reserved and paid for but not eaten.On the flight ...