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JAPAN
Himeji Castle
November 21, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 63 °F
On the train from Hiroshima to Kurshiki, we passed by this castle, which was in photo range from the train so I snapped a few pictures.
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JAPAN
Kurashiki
November 21, 2025 in Japan ⋅ 🌙 57 °F
In Kurashiki, there is a historical district that has been restored including a canal.. There are neat little alleys and some very interesting architecture in town. It ranges from japanese style to european style due to the history of the town, and its dealings with the rest of the world. It was a major cotton exporter for a while.
There was a couple of vegan restaurants in town, and we met a very interesting couple from Oregon at one of them.Read more
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JAPAN
Okayama and Castle
November 23, 2025 in Japan ⋅ 🌙 54 °F
We stopped in okama to see the castle.They also have a large famous garden next to the castle. Coincidentally, they have a light festival going on for Christmas time. We came back at night to enjoy the light festival and some beautiful views of the castle. Afterwards, Anna was exhausted.Read more
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JAPAN
Hibiji bike route
November 24, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 63 °F
There is a bike path that spans from Bizen-Ichinomiya station to Soja station. It's about fifteen kilometers. There are companys there that allow you to rent bicycles one way. It's a wonderful path well marked that only requires you to ride on the road very briefly in a couple places. It travels past many historical places and religious sites. It made for a great day outing from Okayama.
We had a wonderful time visiting the different shrines, temples and burial mounds, and best of all, no stress of getting hit by vehicles.Read more
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JAPAN
Kyoto day 1
November 26, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 52 °F
Kyoto is quite a historical town in Japan with seventeen Unesco World Heritage sites. It's also on the "golden route" of tourism in Japan. When we arrived at the train station for our hotel, we were immediately taken back aback by how many people there were. One of the sites is right across the street. We visited Fushimi Inari the following morning, and man was it crowded. You can't tell from the photos because I spent a lot of time cropping people out of them. We hiked to the top of the mountain, and on the way back down, we met a very nice local japanese man, who we chatted with for quite a while. It is rumored there are over ten thousand torie gates here and over one thousand stairs to the top. I didn't count them, but it is possible.
After dealing with all the crowds, we decided to go back to the hotel for the rest of the day.Read more
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JAPAN
Kyoto 2
November 27, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 57 °F
This day we visited the Gion district in hopes of spotting one of the elusive geishas. We also bought tickets to go see a show which highlighted seven culturaly historical traditions of Japan. This was the only way to guarantee a geisha spotting because there was a geisha, doing a dance for the show.
The Gion district was again extremely crowded, and we mostly walked around the outskirts, until some of the crowds died down after dark.
Parts of the show were very entertaining and enjoyable, however, the flower arrangement and tea ceremony were a little boring.
No pictures were allowed during the show.Read more
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JAPAN
Kyoto 3
November 28, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 55 °F
Over the next few days, although our days were full, we didn't do much. One day we took a trip to Osaka, so Anna could buy her fancy new fitness tracker. It turned out to be an all day thing because we got most of the way there and realized we didn't have our passports with us. Which is necessary to get the tax free status. It was a huge mall, so of course we shopped around a bit while we were there.
Another day we walked the Philosopher's Path (Tetsugaku no Michi) a path said to be walked by the monks while they were meditating. We visited the Keage incline. A rail system put in place to move barges, full of people and goods from the sea up to a lake without any disembarkation.
We visited the Golden Temple (Kinkaku-ji) and Ryoan-ji. Which were both absolutely stunning with the fall colors.Read more
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JAPAN
Osaka
December 2, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 66 °F
In Osaka, we visited the Osaka Castle. It looks a lot like almost all the other castles that we visited in Japan. Because of that and the crowds, we decided not to tour the inside.
We also used osaka as our base to do our next two jaunts.Read more
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JAPAN
Koyosan
December 3, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 45 °F
One of Anna's big wants was a temple stay while we were in Japan. Kyosan, located about three hours by train up in the mountains from Osaka, has huge religious significance. We booked an overnight stay in one of the over a hundred temples located in town. We stayed at the Komyo-in temple.
We arrived early, so we dropped our bags off and walked to the largest cemetery in Japan. Large companies buy plots here to honor their employee's, and bring prosperity to their business.
When we went back to check-in, we were greeted with a large cup of matcha tea, and then shown to our room. Only the rooms are heated. The hallways are not and it's a shared bath. Needless to say, you only went to the bathroom when you absolutely couldn't hold it any longer.
They served us a delicious vegan meal for dinner. Afterwards we went out and walked the cemetery again at night.
It started snowing.
In the morning, we woke up to a shallow blanket of snow's covering the grounds. It made the stay that much more magical.
In the morning, the monks perform a Goma (fire burning ceremony). We all had the opportunity to write our wishes on a stick, and the monk prays over our wishes as he throws them into the fire.
After we checked out, we again left our bags and walked around the snow covered town seeing some of the other sites temples and shrines. To reach the town by train requires a venicular ride from the train station up the mountain to the town where you can catch a bus. So we again caught the bus to the cable car to the train and went back to Osaka.Read more
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JAPAN
Mt Fuji
December 6, 2025 in Japan ⋅ 🌙 36 °F
The next day, we embarked on an 7.5 hour journey to go see what I always wanted to see in Japan. Mount Fuji.
We arrived after dark, but not with a clear sky under a full moon, we could still see Mt. Fuji from our hotel room.
In the morning, we caught a local bus out to Shiraito Falls to see the falls and with better views of mount Fuji.
In the early afternoon, it started to cloud over.And we thought that was the end of the views of the mountain, so we caught the bus back into town. We had some lunch at a delicious vegan restaurant and then went to see the mt Fuji heritage center.
It turns out the clouds went away, and we had some more great views of the mountain.Read more
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JAPAN
TeamLabs Kyoto
December 8, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 59 °F
We returned to Osaka, and the next day ventured back up to Kyoto to visit an interactive art display called TeamLabs. This company has several of these places located throughout Japan. All with different themes. The theme for this teamLab is BioVortex.
There are numerous exhibits located throughout the building that you immerse yourself and interact with. There is water depicted by light that bounces off your head. There are small silver balls that float around you, being blown by the wind. We got lost in thick foam and couldn't find our way out without help. The lights and colors of the exhibits, and the way you interact with them is impressive.
Near the end we were able to draw creatures that were scanned into and reproduced in the display. Which you could then interact with.
They say a minimum of two hours. We spent seven.Read more
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JAPAN
Final days in Japan
December 9, 2025 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 54 °F
With only a couple of days left, our final days were spent in Osaka.
We used our hotel credit from our Amex card and booked a room at the Hilton. What a step up in luxury from our normal more affordable hotels.
We didn't do a whole lot. We tried to track down Anna's mitten that she lost on the train with no luck, and saw some sites in the general vicinity of the hotel.
Tomorrow it's off to Busan, South Korea.Read more
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Trip end
December 11, 2025