Japan has to be one of my favourite countries to visit, it holds a different place in my heart as compared to Australia. I can never get enough of Japan, I always yearn to return to Japan almost immediately after I leave and I get so jealous of my friends who are there! Amazing sights, mouth-watering food and wonderfully polite and helpful people – there isn’t a better way to travel to unwind.
Another reason for my love for this place is because it is home to my favourite animation director, Hayao Miyazaki and one of the most talented composer, Joe Hisashi. I am a big fan of his animation and evidently, Totoro is one of his most popular characters. Probably because this is one of his less solemn films, my favourite is still Spirited Away and I absolutely adore Sootballs!
One of my absolute favorite places in Japan is Hokkaido, my sister planned a family trip back in Summer 2010 and we had such an amazing time there. Our posts will cover our trip in Autumn 2014 where we visited the Kansai area i.e. Osaka, Nara and Kyoto and we visited Hakone and Tokyo.
As usual, I use Google Maps for planning and locating landmarks that we would be interested in visiting.
As some of the famous landmarks are pretty close together, I planned some walking directions on our itinerary too; always help to find ways to unknowingly burn calories as you travel. I managed to find comprehensive guides at the Japan National Tourism Official Website. The following links will allow you to download the guides.
We visited Japan from 22nd November to 30th November in 2014, specifically for the viewing of autumn bloom i.e. koyo. Japan guide with its awesome Autumn Color Reports will guide you to where you can see the best leaves!
One thing to take note, planning your own itinerary in Japan takes a little time, especially if you are trying your best to travel on a budget. Mainly because there are usually different railway companies in each city and each of them have their own passes. After lots of research (and website translation), we found the optimum way to move around each city based on our itinerary and will cover them in the following posts. So stick around!
absolute honesty 