Quite a busy few days spent here. On the first day strolled along the Philospher's Walk to see the Silver Pavilion (Ginkaku-ji) which was covered in scaffolding hence no pictures. The walk, much written about wasn't quite as good as expected, maybe it would be more picturesque with the spring blossom. Still, Rob and I managed several good attempts at trying to out-philosophise each other. Took a quick bus across to the Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji) which was much ...

Spent a rainy first day in Hiroshima and visited the Peace Memorial Park and Museum. Think the weather suited it well as was pretty oppressive reading. Such a good idea that people from all over the world have a chance to read about what happened from the Japanese point of view. So many lives lost in such an awful way in the name of peace. To lift our spirits went for some Hiroshima Okonomiyaki (noodle based pancake treat) at Sarashina's as recommended by the LP ...

Nikko to Kanazawa - had a bit of a nightmare journey as the Shinkansen trains (normally so reliable) were mostly Shincancelled leading to mayhem and grumpiness but eventually arrived. At one point when Rob tried to reserve some last minute tickets, a friendly Japanese passer by grabbed him and asked if he was Ok. He then proceded to exclaim 'gaijin!' (Japanese word for foreigner) and dragged him to the front of a queue of about 20 people. Thankfully it was the wo...

13 hours and 4 trains later..... here we are in Nikko, North of Tokyo. Arrived at Nikko Park Lodge to find a cosy alpine-looking affair with the dulcet tones of Jack Johnson in the background (it was a CD, he wasn't actually there). We were shown the ropes of where to go in and around Nikko by Ken, our host; for once things weren't Lost in Translation as he speaks perfect English. Friendly chap with lots of ideas. Then proceeded with our tour of the temples and ...

What an amazing few days. After more intense heat, profuse downpours and a Harajuku Girl count of 0 on the Sunday afternoon, we took the overnight sleeper train to Hokkaido, North Japan. Although quite exciting, changing trains 3 times and then sleeping for a grand total of about 2hours left both of us rather cranky. Arrived at the hostel in gorgeous (although very misty) surroundings. We were a bit worried that if it stayed like this we wouldn't be able to see ...