A relaxing and resting day today ! Late wake up around 14:30, delicious brunch and then a bit of shopping in Tsukuba. First we went to Joyful Honda, which is a huge do-it-yourself store - for the french readers, let's say it is a mix of BHV, Castorama, and Leroy Merlin ! We could buy there japanese knives, shoes, and most of all, we bought to N. the red fluorescent stick that every policemen or security guys have in Japan. So funny to find it in that store ! ...

Our flight from Ishigaki was not direct to Haneda. Indeed, the lady at the JAL front desk told us (or showed us on a paper translated in english, should I say !) that the runway was not long enough to take off with full tank, so the plane had to make a stop at Miyako, which is an island close to Ishigaki (20min flight). Hence we stopped there and we had to disembark while the tank was getting filled up. Passengers from Miyago also got on the plane, and we could t...

Nothing special today, since we had to come back from Osaka to Tsukuba, before flying to Ishigaki the next day. We thus took the Shinkansen from Shin-Osaka to Tokyo, which was our last shinkansen journey with our JR pass :-( Hence, let's make this post a special Q&A on trains. 1) JR PASS We strongly recommend you get one if you intend to travel inside Japan. It can be bought only by tourists, and it is not sold in Japan, so you have to buy it in your co...

Wake up at noon after the party in Roppongi the night before. A very nice brunch was awaiting for us, made of "crêpes", eggs, yakult ad so on... The weather was not so nice during the afternoon. But we needed some fresh air anyway, so we headed to the agriculture science center in Tsukuba. All the buildings there are surrounded by sakuras, and many people had the same idea as ours making the roads very busy: a Champs-Elysées-like feeling, but much nice...

It was a great pleasure for both of us to find N. waiting for us at the airport with a huge smile on her face ! After the kissing comes the first interaction with japanese people : exchange of our JR coupons. Everything went smoothly and our JR passes are now ready for use strating on Tuesday 13th. For the record, the JR ticket office is at -1 floor when you arrive, on your right. But for now, the main objective of the day is to fight jetlag and to stay awak...