Flying stop to Nagoya to see a friend and do some shopping.
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Tokyo to Sapporo
Eighteen years after my first trip to Japan, this marks my first time on the island of Hokkaido in the north. The area is a winter tourist spot due to the excellent snow and skiing, but we’re here to escape the heat further south. That’s written tongue-in-cheek/very relative as it’s 34ºC right now.
Read MoreBullet Train to Tokyo
There's something really cool about the phrase "Bullet Train to Tokyo".
Read MoreThe Pilot
I absolutely adore the bullet train - they're like aeroplanes on rails. The above photo is of the E2 series Asama shinkansen, which took us from Tokyo to Nagano in under 2 hours, at a top speed of 160 mph.
A weekend in the Kinki region - Tokyo to Kyoto
A while ago, we planned a city-break to Kyoto in the Kinki Region of central Japan. The Kinki Region, also known as Kansai, is a popular tourist destination for Japanese and non-Japanese alike. Much like the Kanto region in the east, the Kinki/Kansai region is not an administrative unit, but rather a cultural and historical one. It's famous for food, culture, Geisha, and temples. It's not famous for rain - but it should be if our weekend was anything to go by!
I've not taken a shinkansen (bullet train) for over a year, so I was rather excited. As we pulled out [exactly on schedule, naturally] from Tokyo Station, the intensity of the rain increased until it was streaming sideways across the window. I wonder what the view from the front window was like...
I took the Nozomi class shinkansen and arrived in Kyoto after two hours of ultra-smooth, ultra-fast train travel.
Directly outside Kyoto station is the bus terminal, which I thoroughly recommend using to navigate around the city in a timely fashion. Walking everywhere means you will not see everywhere. Some temples are pretty close to each other, but definitely look into getting the bus to cover larger distances with ease.
Our accommodation was in the northern Sakyo Ward, which is around 30 minutes on the 206 bus from Kyoto station. The flat fare of ¥220/person (pay when you get off - and please have your change ready!) seems pretty reasonable.
After almost three years in Japan, we've experienced our fair share of Engrish, but this really has to take the cake. I have no idea what it means. Whatever it means, Charlotte has until 10am tomorrow morning...
I'll post some photos from the weekend in subsequent posts. I took far too many to cram into one post, even after some rather ruthless culling. I hope you enjoyed the start of this journey - stay tuned!
Bullet-train in Tokyo
Bullet-train in Tokyo │ NEX-C3 & SEL 16mm F2.8 │ 16mm, ISO 640, f/7.1, 1/60, 0EV Tokyo is so densely populated not just by people, but the buildings and communication lines making up more of a neural network than any other city I know. There's a road, above which is a train line, above which is a motorway - and they all cut in between the sky scrapers in a way that asks the question... "which one was built first?".
In this photo, we look through the window of a skyscraper in Marunouchi, Tokyo, out towards the popular shopping districts of Ginza and Roppongi. The Tokyo train terminal is to the bottom right of the photo, where the subject is heading. The bullet trains really are something special. Whether you like trains or not, nothing is like being on one of these. The huge 16-carriage trains snake through Japan at 167mph every few minutes. They remind me of the asian depiction of a dragon, with its long, slender body and pointed nose.
Can you make out Tokyo Tower?