Japan - Week One (#cf2jap18)

So our family has been lucky enough to again visit Japan. We loved our visit last year, so were stoked to get the chance to come again this year. I normally blog here about education, but whilst I'm holidays I thought it'd be nice to share some of our adventures and perhaps even provide some helpful tips for anyone reading may soon also be lucky enough to visit this awesome country.

OK, so the first thing I think I should share is how awesome the pocket wifi is here. I highly recommend organising this as soon as you can if you plan on visiting Japan. This can be done from your home country via the Internet if you're super organised and want to save some time, however, this is not entirely necessary. There are a number of providers of pocket wifi here in Japan and they have stores all over the place. I picked up mine at the airport. The coverage and connection are so good - we have five devices connected and have rarely suffered from any dropouts - the only I've experienced have been whilst travelling through some of the massive mountain tunnels on the Shinkansen, and that's totally understandable. Funnily enough, I wrote and uploaded my last post, which contained many images, whilst on the bullet train and I'm writing this one whilst on the train, too. So yeah, pocket wifi is damn good.

Alright, besides from connecting to the Internet, what else have we been up to? Please read on.

Tokyo

The first day saw us hitting up some of Tokyo. We were only there for a short time, and we'll be heading back in about a week, so we didn't exhaust ourselves trying to check everything out. Instead, we just kinda casually visited variuos parts of the city.

We were staying only a couple of blocks away from the old Tokyo Tower, so naturally, we checked that out first. We passed a shrine along the way and admired the small Ojizo-sama statues, known as the 'guardians of the traveller', or the 'protector of children'. We also went to Tokyo Station for some awesome vegan ramen from T's Tan Tan before taking a casual stroll around the Imperial Palace. Finally we went over to Shibuya to do a little shopping, check out the 'scramble'' at the massively busy zebra crossing, before getting ready to head over to Gifu.

Gifu and Typhoon Trami

After Tokyo we headed to Gifu for a bit more of a rural experience. This place is pretty cool.

We had planned on doing some cormorant fishing, however Typhoon Trami had other plans. With winds hovering around 200+ kph at its centre, and rain spread out over a massive area, cormorant fishing operations were shut down.

Instead, we spent the lead-up to the storm checking out Gifu Park and the Nawa Insect Museum. We then went briefly into town before heading back to our ryokan and closing up the typhoon shutters to ride out the storm.

Aside from the overnight noise and the fact that we didn't get the opportunity to go cormorant fishing, Typhoon Trami didn't really cause us any trouble. Like I said above, we simply rolled down the shutters and rode the thing out. I jokingly likened it ti the scene in 'I Am Legend' where Will Smith locks up his house and attempts sleep in the bathtub with a shotgun as the zombies rampage overhead. In reality, Will Smith's predicament would be way worse than what we faced.

The next day we awoke to a beautiful morning and seized the opportunity to check out the awesome Gifu Castle.

We took the cable car up to the top of the mountain, stopped and fed the squirrels at the squirrel park and strolled up to check out the castle. It boasts awesome 360º views of the city, Nagara River and surrounding areas. It also holds artefacts such as shuriken, caltrops, war armour and samurai swords, as well as a bunch of information about the historical significance of Gifu Castle and the various rulers who lived there. It was a really nice day, and I'd totally visit the area again to spend some more time and learn some more. I'd also be keen to get some cormorant fishing in, too!

Hiroshima

So from Gifu we went to Hiroshima. We briefly visited here last year in sweltering 35º + heat, so it was good to come back again in relatively cooler weather. Our hotel was awesome, with epic views of the old castle and city. We spent the day exploring the castle and visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I was a bit disappointed in myself for not bringing along the paper cranes my students had made in class after reading 'Sodako and the 1000 Paper Cranes', however, I did make an offering of one crane on behalf of my school and promised myself to send over our school's cranes after returning home.

We also met some local school children and they offered us some cranes while using the opportunity to practise their English. It was so cool to balance out the sadness of the museum visit with such a friendly exchange!

We are now currently in Kyoto and about to head off on some more adventures. Here's another Japan travel tip for you: if you're ever on a platform waiting for the Shinkansen and you have some time to spare, head to one of the little noodle shops and et yourself some freshly made soba or udon. It's a bit of a 'dude thing', but totally worth it. So good!

If you do the Twitter or Instagram thing, you can also follow our adventures on the hashtag #cf2jap18.

Thanks for reading!