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Japan 2026!
  • Shalee Gherbaz
  • Shalee Gherbaz

Japan 2026!

One month in Japan doing Shalee's customised "Golden Figure 8 Loop" Japan itinerary of the central island of Japan. Lue lisää
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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Our Couples Photoshoot

    1. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    This afternoon, we had our couples photoshoot at Studio Kokoro Arashiyama. This was something that I really wanted to do, and Michael was happy to tag along and get some snaps with me.

    They did my hair in a traditional Japanese style (it weighed about 6kg honestly it was HEAVY), and then I had a make up set with natural foundation instead of the white, and had a base outfit that paired with two different kimonos - one for the couple's section with Michael, and one for my own solo shots.

    We set the ratio to 3,2,1, with 3 being solo shots of me, 2 being couples shots, and 1 being Michael's solo shoot. It worked really well doing it this way, as Michael gets so many photos from cosplay that he was happy for me to nab some extras.

    Really happy with how the shots have come out. We paid to get all 65 of the raw, unedited images, and then we chose 6 for them to edit and retouch. We should get the edited shots back in 3-4 weeks, but have a sneak peek of some of our faves from today.    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Pizza in Nijo

    1. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ 🌙 10 °C

    Michael was very much feeling keen for a proper pizza, so he found a little place a km or so away from the hotel that looked like the real deal. Can gladly say that it was, in fact, the real deal. Lovely, stone oven baked pizzas. One was a margarita with fancy cheese on it, and the other was a salami pizza, and we both had blood orange juice, except Michael had his spiked with blackcurrant liquor (he rated it very highly). Buon apatite!!!!Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Temple cat!

    2. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

    This morning we headed out to another offcut plum festival out in southern Kyoto called the Jonan-Gu Weeping Plum and Camellia Festival. This festival is supposed to be very popular with local Japanese as it is a full temple and shrine complex with an amazing plum garden that pairs with the camellias so that the plums bloom and fall at the same time as the camellias, creating a beautiful contrast of colours.

    On our way there, we stumbled across a mini temple complex, and it had a temple cat! So of course we had to stop and say hello. The walk to Jonan-Gu was lovely, as this small temple complex actually expands with traditional houses all through the area. A nice little find we got to have all to ourselves.    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Jonan-Gu Shrine and Grounds part 1

    2. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

    We are going to have to upload this in multiple parts as it was just... You'll see.

    The first part is the beautiful temple, shrines and grounds of the area. They were extremely well kept, with gorgeous architectural details. It really was a beautiful complex with so many gorgeous flowers! I think the photos speak for themselves.

    Also, a side note, the early bird gets the worm. We walked straight into the ticketed plum garden area without waiting a minute. By the time we returned, the line was all the way down to the lower shrine. Their website did warn that wait times to get into the plum garden could be up to ninety minutes, so we were very grateful to have gotten in so quickly (it was absolutely packed inside though, which you'll see why soon!)    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Jonan-Gu The Plum and Carmellia Garden

    2. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    I have once again found that my travel research planning has come to fruition with the gods of luck. We have come at the PERFECT time. The plums have all bloomed and are midway through falling, and the camellias have started to drop.

    This was PACKED (but easily manageable) and for good reason. Outside of the peak of Sakura season, I don't think it ever gets as good as this. It was phenomenal. Magical. I've never seen anything this pretty. To think we've peaked with the magic of the snow in the mountains, and with the beauty of spring in Kyoto... I couldn't be happier!

    The photos speak for themselves. I'm going to have to upload two parts for this garden because every photo came out special and I want to cherish all of the..    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Yummy lunch in a Chinese Restaurant

    2. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    We walked back up towards the train station and grabbed some fried goodies for lunch at a local Chinese place. The interior of the restaurant was really cool, and the food was great! We had a karaage set, some dumplings and Vietnamese spring rolls.

    The shining star was the skin on the karaage (they left lots of it on and I love fried chicken skin) and how decent the spring rolls were. They were as good as the ones we actually had in Vietnam, with the rice noodles inside and the glass fried coating. Really impressed!    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Nintendo Museum (and a score at BookOff)

    2. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    Next up was the Nintendo Museum, which was a short train ride from the plum festival (hence why I arranged our day like this). We had the 2pm slot and arrived in the area at 1pm, so we ducked down to the local BookOff that was about 800m away. I was absolutely rapt, as I found a Serena Pokemon card that was one of the shiny ones, and it was only $9 (not $100 like the rare Serena card in the BookOff in Tokyo). They only had 1, so I nabbed it. I'll get it framed, as this might be as good as I can find when it comes to Serena merch! Michael also got two AMAZING Naruto art books, with each containing gorgeous artworks as well as two full sheets of stickers!

    The Nintendo Museum was loads of fun. You go in and they have the museum/history area that you aren't allowed to photograph in - which takes you through all the different games and consoles that have evolved over time - and then you have the interactive area where you get coins on your entry card and you can play a range of Nintendo games, from console style, to whacking ping pong balls with a foam bat, giant games, shoot em games, the works. This part was super fun, as I really enjoyed playing the physical interactive games, and because Michael preferred the other stuff, he gave me some extra tokens so I could play more games!    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Fushimi Inari-Taisha

    2. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    Our last stop for the day was to visit the "thousand gates" at Fushimi Inari-Taisha. This was also an easy commute, having to get one train straight to the front of the complex.

    The complex is lovely, with a very strong red contrast amongst the forestry and nature. Because we went at dusk, it was much quieter than it is during the day. And as soon as we ventured right into the thick of the gates (walking a good few km in), there were sections we had entirely to ourselves. It was awesome! Again, more good planning on my part.

    What was extra cool is that we got to see the gates at dusk, so when we went up it was lighter, and by the time we got back it was dark, so we witnessed the gates in two different lighting conditions!    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Indian for dinner!

    2. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    By the time we had gotten out of the shrine it had started to prepare for rain, so we quickly ducked over to a hole in the wall indian place a few hundred metres outside of the super touristy area that I had flagged on our potential food options list. We were both keen to see what Indian food would be like here in Japan, and it didn't disappoint. It was delish. Michael got the cheese naan, I got the garlic naan, and then we shared a butter chicken, mutton korma, and some spiced Indian fries (which tasted awesome dipped in the curries!)

    It was finally raining on our way back, so I got to use my cat umbrella finally. Alas, I picked the wrong day to not wear a cardigan and just opt for a long sleeve, as it got quite chilly. Luckily for us, we just had to catch two trains and then we were back at our hotel. I was able to use the communal spa bath at the hotel (despite my tattoo) which was sooo relaxing after a whopping 22k steps today! We spent the rest of the night packing and preparing for our domestic flight to Nagasaki for tomorrow.    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Osaka Itami Airport

    3. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ 🌧 13 °C

    Kyoto decided to rain this morning, so we had to do some mad dashes with our luggage to get to the train station as well as stand under a tiny bus stand at Kyoto with all the luggage on the border of being drenched, but apart from that it was smooth sailing from check out of our hotel to getting through everything at Itami Airport for our domestic flight to Nagasaki via Japan Airlines.

    We have officially hit the halfway point of Shalee's figure 8 itinerary loop, now heading down to the southern parts of the mainland for the bottom loop of our trip. Hopefully the sun will be out and we will get some lovely seaside scenery to switch things up yet again!    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Safely in Nagasaki

    3. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ 🌧 12 °C

    We had a smooth transit to Nagasaki today. It was quite a long wait at the airport, but that was how we planned it so that we could relax and have some lunch. Both of us had super delicious soups for lunch!

    The plane took off on time, and we got to have the special universal studios plane! There was a bit of turbulence on the trip, but apart from that, we had booked the emergency seats so we had so much room, and the seats were surprisingly quite large.

    We comfortably got our baggage, took the airbus limousine to Nagasaki Chinatown, then had a brief walk to the hotel. Overall, everything went relatively seamlessly to get us down south!    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Shinchi Chinatown for dinner

    3. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

    We ducked down for a lazy dinner in Shinchi Chinatown, which is such a short walk from our hotel. On the way we found a really cool bookstore with a bunch of cheap merch. I got some tangled merch, Michael got some Donkey Kong merch, and I even managed to get some Yuri on Ice merch, which I was NOT expecting! And super, super cheap.

    The Chinatown here is really pretty. A lot of it was closed at night which gave it this really cool, eerie kind of vibe. Still, we were able to get two of the places that I had flagged as wanting to try. One was a mom and pop gyoza place that had only 8 seats in the whole joint. These were absolutely delicious. Super, super light, well cooked, and tasty, and super cheap.

    Then we had kakuni manjo from another place I had found in advance. Kakuni manjo is a speciality in Nagasaki. It's kind of like a marinated pork belly in a very soft, fluffy bao bun. These were AWESOME. So tasty. So soft. Yum!

    Finally, we came across the most gorgeous studio Ghibli shop at the bottom of Chinatown. It had so much good merch and had this awesome tree you had to walk under to get to the second level. It was so good to explore.

    Then just a lazy night before a big day of exploring the city tomorrow!    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Breakfast delights in Nagasaki

    4. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    We had a light sleep in this morning, heading down through Chinatown again on our way to Glover Gardens. On the way we stopped at two bakeries to grab our breakfast treats, grabbing a range of Nagasaki regional speciality foods.

    I was excited to find pork pepper buns again, so nabbed one, and we also had these little sweet balls. We have no idea what they are or what was in them, but one was matcha and one was strawberry, and they were delish!

    Both the bakeries that I had flagged as potential eateries were closed, but luckily there were many other options. We came across an adorable cafe and enjoyed specialties, one being some sort of flange cake, and the other was a mochi dessert. Our drinks and treats were oh so yummy, and the lady running the cafe was adorable, and there were many cute things to look at.    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Inoro-no-oka Picture Book Museum

    4. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    On the way to Glover Gardens, we stumbled upon a beautiful children's picture book museum and shop. It was gorgeous! So many children's books from all over the world, including Australian ones! The building was stunning as well, and the museum element went up to the 2nd and 3rd story, including a range of original large artworks, history on children's authors and various art gallery works. Even the bathroom was adorable.

    Michael was able to find Peter Pan and both Alice in Wonderland books in Japanese at reasonable prices, and I picked up a few souvenirs!    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Glover Gardens

    4. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    Glover Gardens was a very interesting piece of Nagasaki history. It's the wealthy grounds, buildings and homes that were owned by the Glover family, who were a family from Scotland who settled in Nagasaki and had substantial influence and developments in the port and fishing industries, landing them into substantial wealth and prosperity. There was a military boarding house, the family home, and even a school on the grounds. And escalators to get up the hill (I don't think that's traditional but it is certainly convenient hahaha).

    We saw a group of girls in Regency gear (or some sort of historical get up) that looked awesome. They were fluttering about taking pictures, perfectly dressed for the environment they were in. It was lovely to see their costumes and the girls having loads of fun.

    The views from the balcony of the military boarding house were pretty fabulous as well!    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Lunch and walkies

    4. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    We wandered about looking for a restaurant that sold a Nagasaki speciality Turkish rice. The first place on my list... It was sold out! The second place... It was closed. The third place... It was open and had a limited amount of Turkish rice left! So we nabbed it along with a margarita pizza.

    Turkish rice is a dish you'd never expect to eat. Katsu chicken with curry sauce on a Chinese spiced rice and paired with salad and... Spaghetti Bolognese. It's the ultimate Hodge podge. Yet... It worked. It was yummo. As was the Marg pizza, which was beautifully light and oh so very saucy.

    Polished this all off with a sumo mandarin juice for Michael, and I nabbed an iced oat matcha from the tea shop next door. Scrummo!

    As we wandered back to the hotel to have a quick power nap, Michael got some cute snaps of life along one of Nagasaki's. many bridges.    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum

    4. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    After a power nap, we caught a tram up to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum to pay our respects and take the time to learn about the horrible suffering the innocent people of Nagasaki endured as a result of the US dropping a nuclear bomb on the region.

    There were so many things we didn't even know, like how Nagasaki was never even meant to be a target, and only suffered because of cloud cover over the primary target. How many people died. How Aussie prisoners were killed. How shadows literally imprinted into objects from the blinding light of the bombs. So many facts and images to ponder.    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Mt Inasa lookout blows us away...

    4. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ 🌙 10 °C

    We went up the cable car to check out the "million dollar view" from the top of Mt Inasa at night. It's meant to be one of the top three night views in the entire world.

    It was.

    It was awesome! But it gets better.

    We went to pee. Me on a warm seat inside. Michael on a cold seat outside because the men's was out of order. This delay meant I had to sit and ponder the view inside for a bit longer.

    Suddenly it was there. I thought I was delulu. I had to ask a Japanese man if my eyes were correct. They were.

    In the time it took to piddle, the sky had cleared and the moon had appeared. In full. And it was blood orange. There was an eclipse last night. We were seeing its remnants.

    Michael and I looked at each other, him now returning from his cold widdle. We knew. Up we flew. Back to the top.

    We got the shot as best we could, but only the naked eye could capture this moment when one sees the moon this ravenous without a telescopic lens. The eyes would have to remember the little details. The patterns. The clarity. It was awesome.

    What a day! What a night! What a city!    Lue lisää

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  • Shalee GherbazJapan 2026!Matkaaja

    Hamanomachi Arcade

    5. maaliskuuta, Japani ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    We shipped off our luggage to Fukuoka to arrive tomorrow afternoon and checked out of Hotel Forza in Nagasaki. We had some amazing pastries from the bakery a few doors down as well. The salt bread... who knew that one of the tastiest baked goods would be the humble, basic salt bread. Delish.

    Today is just about exploring locally through Hamanomachi Arcade until we wander up to get the limousine bus to Huis Ten Bosch. This arcade gives me Melbourne laneway vibes for some reason. There were so many different shops and restaurants here. Super cool to just wander and explore. Michael got some souvenirs, and finally, FINALLY was able to purchase his fancy pen that has been sold out EVERYWHERE in a stationary store here. It wasn't the 0.5mm he was hoping to get, nor the exact colour, but the fact he could even get one at all... It was a massive win, and he's gotten the pen he wants at 40% of the price he'd have to pay in Australia.

    I got sucked into capybara merch after hearing the cutest song and realising they had a themed ad to hook you in. Plus, he was so soft, and his tail spins! Ugh, I just love Capybara!!!!!

    I have really loved this city. In hindsight, I'd probably have added a few more days here to really explore it, especially on a weekend and at night when everything is pumping. It's probably my favourite city yet!    Lue lisää

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