The second stop during our Christmas holidays road trip was a visit to Nagoya (25th of December) and Inuyama (26th of December). Our hotel for both days was located in Nagoya and we did a day trip to Inuyama. While Nagoya is a very busy and modern city, Inuyama still has an 'old feeling' to … Continue reading Visiting castle towns
Last Christmas, my friends and I spent 2.5 days (23rd-25th of December) around the Fuji Five Lakes as a start of our Christmas holidays tour. Our hotel was located next to the second lake, Kawaguchiko, which is the lake that is the most easily accessible with normal train and bus connections. Lucky for us though, we didn't … Continue reading Closing in on Mount Fuji
Even though it's already quite a while ago, I still want to tell you about my visit to the world heritage sites in Nikko, the places in Aizuwakamatsu and the places we visited in between those two towns. Friday the 16th of December 2016, we left the University in the beginning of the afternoon to … Continue reading Visiting a world heritage site
Well before starting to explain what I did here in Japan during New Year's Eve and in the beginning of the new year, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Make the most of your 2017, stay healthy and safe and I hope you'll have a great year! This New Year's Eve was … Continue reading A great start of the New Year: welcome 2017!
Hakone, famous for its hot springs, is a small area with a large lake near mount Fuji. From different places around the lake you can see beautiful views with mount Fuji in its center. We made the trip to Hakone in the second weekend of December. This meant that when we went there, with temperatures already … Continue reading Moving between mountains: Hakone and Hokuto
As you probably know by now, a Matsuri is a Japanese Festival, but you might not know that a Yomatsuri is a night festival. This time the matsuri took place in a small town in the mountains about 1.5 hours away by car and 2.5 hours away by public transport. The little town is called Chichibu and … Continue reading Chichibu (Yo)matsuri: Behind the scenes
Sunday the 27th of November was the last day of our trip. We had a wonderful time, but it was time to go home. Before we went back to the airport, we visited Yoichi again for a short period of time. We got out of the car and bought some hot chocolate at the family … Continue reading Sea, sand and snow
It's already time for the post about our 4th day in Hokkaido. We spent this entire day in the biggest city in the North of Japan: Sapporo. Sapporo is also the fourth largest city in Japan is you're looking at population, which is quite different from the rest of Hokkaido, where you can see almost … Continue reading Sapporo: White Illumination
On our third day in Hokkaido we saw lots of snow, again! We weren't able to see the two main shrines in Asahikawa on our second day because of an incoming snow storm (we didn't want to drive back to Furano in the snow storm), so we moved the visit to the temples to our … Continue reading Snow covered shrines, whiskey and night lights
We had a lot planned for our second day in Hokkaido. We had a lovely breakfast at the hotel. There were only a couple of other guests, so we had most of the dining hall to ourselves. You could choose between a Japanese style breakfast or a Western style breakfast. Breakfast included everything from yogurt, … Continue reading Happy penguins and hot chocolate
