We’re speeding out of Tokyo on the Narita Airport Express, on our way home after spending the past three nights in Tokyo. Again, we’ve only just scratched the surface of this sprawling mega-city, and we’re rapidly coming around to the idea that in general one visit to Japan isn’t enough… so we’re already talking about coming back next year.

There’s not much you can get up to in detail if you’ve only got two days to spend in Japan’s capital, and what we did do was really just a whistle stop tour.

For your average tourist, Tokyo is shopping nirvana.… (more)

Leaving our luggage at the Granvia, we’ve taken a trip out of Kyoto and up into the hills, where we’re staying overnight in the monastic complex of Koya-San. We’re guests of the monks here at Ekoin, where we’re experiencing a taste of life as a Buddhist pilgrim.

It was a long, winding trip up into the hills, taking a few train rides and a funicular into the scenic woodlands. Although the journey was much easier for us than back in the day when people would walk here, It still took us nearly three hours to get to Ekoin from Kyoto,… (more)

We’ve been in Kyoto for three days now, and the only thing that springs to mind in front of everything else is: we’re not here long enough. There’s so much to do here that you really need to spend at least a week here, especially if you’re going around the temples in a less than expedited fashion.

Even the train station is so large it needs at least half a day to explore properly, and is actually a great jumping off point for the subway line and JR train routes to outlying sites of interest (especially as you can pick… (more)

Right on the top floor of Kyoto station is a food court dedicated to the thinner of Japanese noodles - the ramen. Being a lover of all foods with noodles in them, I was quite looking forward to trying this, and ordering a ramen dish here is almost as fun as eating it.

All the restaurants here have glazed representations of the food they serve in the window, like a 3D menu of sorts. This is ideal for tourist who don’t speak a word of Japanese as you tell the waitress what you want by just pointing to it.

Ordering… (more)

After spending the morning fighting past hordes of young Japanese schoolchildren at the Todai-Ji temple, we’ve left Nara and have traveled to 30km north to Kyoto. We’re here for the next four nights staying in the labyrinth like Hotel Granvia Kyoto, integrated directly into the city’s massive and architecturally stunning train station.

Kyoto station; you really have to see this place to really appreciate it. Architecturally, there’s not a single sign of uniformity or symmetry anywhere as far as I can see, and it’s so high the escalators seem to go on forever (the roof actually takes about 10 minutes… (more)

We’ve just arrived back at our luxurious digs, after an early evening stroll around the parks and temples of Nara. We’re stopping here at the city’s flagship hotel (as have many of Japan’s royal family), before heading off to Kyoto tomorrow. We’re here for only two reasons - one to stay in this hotel (check) and the other to visit Todai-Ji Temple, specifically the Daibutsu-Den hall which contains the largest bronze Buddha in the world.

We were quite late getting out into the local area, after getting a bit confused on the train system (very easy to do on local… (more)

We’ve spent the day wandering around the world famous city of Hiroshima, which has proved to be an incredibly interesting but ultimately harrowing experience.

On the face of it, Hiroshima appears to be like almost any modern city in the civilised world. It’s teeming with cars and people, and modern stone and glass mountains are all around. It’s also a city that tourists visit for one reason, and one reason only - It’s one of the only two cities in the world that’s ever been subject to nuclear attack.

Wandering around the city, there’s not much to indicate this, but… (more)

Our first traditional meal here in Japan will also probably be our largest. This is the first time we’ve ever been anywhere where we’ve felt it would be rude to turn away food (something I’m really not accustomed to doing.)

I’d always wanted to try sushi, but have always been put off at the last minute. As we had a fixed menu here, it was my chance to try it “in captivity”, and I was actually really quite pleasantly surprised.

We sat down to an enormous selection of fantastically prepared fish that was laid out so intricately it was more… (more)

We’re just settling in to our room in the Hotel Granvia Hiroshima, after spending the morning and early afternoon wandering around in the hills and browsing the tourist gift shops in Miyajima.

The morning had been pretty strenuous by our standards. We were up quite early, as breakfast is served here at 8pm sharp so it’s a use it or loose it situation (our host “Grandmother” Fumiko gently reminded us of this by knocking on our door at 08:01 precisely).

Thankfully, breakfast wasn’t the same multi-course culinary juggernaught as it was at dinner, consisting of toast, eggs, jam and coffee… (more)

We’ve just arrived at Momijisou Ryokan* up in the hills at Miyajima near the coast, after a brief overnight stop in Himeji. After the worst nights sleep we’ve had since we came away we caught the Shinkansen (quickly becoming my favourite way to travel around) to Hiroshima, transferring to the island by ferry. We’ll be staying here for the next couple of days, wandering around in the “nature” (as it’s referred to by the locals) and checking out the temples on Misen Mountain.

The surrounding area appears to be very scenic, with our digs smack in the middle of some… (more)

Unfortunately, our flight to Tokyo was with NWA (the airline formerly known as North West Airlines), which in my opinion is one of the worst airlines we’ve ever flown on (and we’ve flown on a lot of them).

Whenever we’ve used them, the service and facilities have always been minimal in my experience when compared with other carriers such as BA or Virgin, and aren’t even half as good as some of the Asian airlines (all of which offer some of the best service around). The cabin staff don’t really stop to give you the time of day, the planes… (more)

We’re rocketing along in a bullet-train (or Shinkansen) on our way to Himeji, after arriving here in Tokyo a few hours earlier by air. We’ve just spent the past five days in Hong Kong and are now on the second leg of our journey, spending the next fortnight touring around in Japan.

It was a bleary-eyed start to this morning, especially as I had only just acclimatised to local Hong Kong time. We had an 08:30 flight, so we left in plenty of time to arrive, check in and load up on Starbucks before jetting off.

Thankfully, the flight up… (more)

Monkeys were the order of the day today, as we visited Tai Po Kau nature reserve. Originally a plantation for growing pine trees, it’s now a complex of nature walks of various length and a home to many long tail macaques. Other than the zoo, this is probably the only place you will see monkeys in Hong Kong, and definitely the only place you will see them in the wild…

It was quite a journey out of Kowloon to the reserve, taking about an hour and two MRT trains to get there. We had a good start to the day… (more)

It’s been a bit of a touristy day today - we’ve spent most of it shopping around for camera gear, and we’ve been all over the city from Stanley Street on Hong Kong Island to Mong Kok on the mainland.

Shopping for photo equipment in HK can be a bit hit or miss, and if you’re really, really unlucky you could end up getting royally ripped off*. Bargaining with shopkeepers can be a difficult if it’s something you’re not used to, so the second best thing you can do is shop around - we were quoted anywhere between 4000 -… (more)

For some reason, last time we were in Hong Kong we ate very conservatively, sticking to Western style food as much as possible. I guess the risk of getting “travellers tummy” (or what Emma so gracefully describes as “gut rot”) was on our minds at the time, but it did prevent us from “eating with the locals” so to speak.

This time around, I thought we should make an effort and found ourselves dining at one of the smaller restaurants in Kowloon. This place must have been authentic, as the shop facia was in Chinese only, and the English on… (more)

We had a bit of a false start today, with jet-lag finally catching up with us around about midday. Unfortunately this led us back to the hotel, where what turned into a “quick nap before we go out again” turned into sleeping for the rest of the day until about 7pm. The day wasn’t totally wasted snoozing though; we did manage to get out for a few hours in the morning, making our way back to familiar ground to get ourselves re-acquainted with our surroundings.

We decided to return to what had become our favourite place to lunch on our… (more)

We’ve just spent our first night at Eaton Hotel, after arriving in Hong Kong yesterday at about 4pm. It’s about 7am right now, and for some reason this time I feel relatively free of jet-lag and ready to go out and explore the local surroundings.

Unlike our last trip here (was it only 18 months ago?), this time we’re staying in Kowloon on the mainland, rather than Hong Kong Island itself. We haven’t really been out much yet, but just by looking out the window it already seems to be much busier than before. The weather looks pretty unpleasant, but… (more)