Final day in Japan! We caught the bullet train in the morning back to Tokyo – might sound weird as we have gone back and forwards but originally we had a flight booked with AirAsia from Osaka but they rescheduled our flight, delaying it by 14 hours which would have meant we would have missed our onward flight to Bali. They told us this before I left the UK so I rebooked the flights entirely to put us on a flight from Tokyo Haneda. At least Haneda is much easier to get to than Narita! We left the bags at the station – not the place I was hoping to leave them that I spotted last time we were in Tokyo but the station is actually a maze so couldn’t find the left luggage place!

We decided to do a few more touristy things in Tokyo that we hadn’t had time for last time we were there. First stop: Senso-Ji, Tokyo’s oldest temple, originally opened in 645AD but bombed and destroyed in WW2 and rebuilt as a symbol of rebirth. To enter the temple complex, you go through the Thunder Gate, Kaminarimon. It’s absolutely huge with an incredible paper lantern hung in the entrance with a beautiful engraving of a dragon on the underside, hidden from view.

Walking from the gate towards the temple buildings, you go through an absolutely packed tourist market selling various knick-knacks from phone charms and key rings to clothing, slippers and robes. The crowds are just immense, and it’s hot without anyone near you; with so many people in close contact, it’s absolutely stifling. There’s also a nursery school on the left hand side; I pity the poor parents trying get through the throngs of tourists to collect their children! We then came to the temple proper, which was impressive but again so many people!

We went on the metro over to Ikebukuro, so I could visit the Mega Tokyo Pokemon Centre. Yay for Pokemon merchandise!!

For our last meal in Japan, I took mum for her first okonomiyaki at a little place on the 8th floor of an anonymous building. The lift opened directly into the restaurant. We cooked the okonomiyaki ourselves at the table. So delicious!

Our time in Japan had ended… Thank you to everyone I got to see while here, and sorry I couldn’t see more friends! We got the bags, headed to the airport to check in for our flight, and at 11.55pm got on our red-eye flight to KL. Bye bye Japan, hope to see you again soon!

Good morning Japan, so happy to spend my first ever morning in Kyoto! We didn’t have any breakfast goods in the flat so decided to go out for breakfast, and good grief. This was, without a doubt, absolutely the worst breakfast I’ve ever had in my life, and I’m including corn gruel at -20C in this calculation. Tofukuji, despite being so close to Kyoto main station, had very little that ever seemed to be open. At 8.30am, only one place aside from the convenience store was open, so we went in there, wondering how bad it could be. The menu was incredibly lacklustre, options were toast or shaved ice. I decided to err on the side of caution, and had a shaved ice and cheese on toast. I remember that cheese in Japan isn’t the best but was prepared mentally for crappy cheese, but not so prepared for the monstrosity that was presented to me.

Oh well never mind, let’s carry on to the next temple, Kurama-dera up Mt Kurama (yes I have been calling it Kuruma i.e. car in my mind the whole time!). To get there, we took a Keihan train to Demachiyanagi which took about 20 minutes and then the Kurama train itself was a further 35 minute scenic ride up into the mountain and arrived at the town of Kurama. We walked through the town to the temple, and rode the furnicular (YAY I LOVE THEM) up towards the mountain summit, and wandered around the temple complex. It was beautiful but only slightly cooler up in the mountain, and the 34C heat with high humidity was killing us! Mum had a fortune done and then we grabbed some tori kara age from a little shop (yummy chicken) before getting the trains back down.

In Kyoto station, we stopped off for a drink and a cake, as we’d been on the go since 9.30am and it was now 2.30pm. Mum had a fresh orange juice which she assured me was delicious; I should bloody hope so as it was £6 for a glass! I was reminded of the Simpsons episode where they go to Japan and buy a $100 square watermelon! We also had delicious cakes, I had matcha and white chocolate and mum had a sponge cake with strawberries.

We then went to Arashiyama bamboo forest; everyone says that pictures cannot do it justice, and they really can’t! It’s so ethereal as the bamboo is so tall, the gentle wind makes them knock together and a hollow wooden sound reverberates through the forest. They are all different shades and it’s just a wonderful place to experience.

We followed the path along to Tenryu-Ji temple which is a Buddhist Zen temple built in the 1300s and classified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The gardens are beautifully designed and sculpted, with empty space and ornate natural trees juxtaposed by gravel and lakes to provide the negative empty space to compliment the intricacies of nature. The temple itself is a wonderful building built of dark polished wood and large, open, airy rooms with white walls. We stayed there until closing and watched the sunset.

Finally, to celebrate our last night in Kyoto (and indeed last proper night in Japan) mum finally felt ready to go out for her first ever sushi experience, and where better to try it than in Japan! We were looking at several places, including some places near where we were staying, but everything seemed to be shut. We decided to try a little place down a back street called Tomi Sushi and ordered a mixed set as well as some fatty tuna. Mum tried everything, even the octopus, and loved everything except the octopus! Weve also discovered that she loves the pickled ginger and really likes wasabi.

After a gorgeous meal we were ready to head home, so did a scenic route through Gion and along the river, and an old Japanese man appeared from nowhere and started talking to us; it turned out that he used to live in Britain for 20 years, and he was constantly studying English to try and improve it. He fished some ancient bits of paper out his pocket upon which he had written Japanese sentences and multiple possible translations, and asked me to pick the most natural sounding translations. He hugged us goodbye and we went on our way!

Another day in Japan, another day travelling between cities! Today we waved bye to Tokyo (for now) and set off for Kyoto where I had booked an Airbnb flat one stop from Kyoto central station. But first we had to get our stuff together in the ryokan… It transpired that my mum was incapable of actually wearing her backpack on her back… You know, like you’re supposed to… The last time we’d travelled with her carrying her backpack like a baby, we ended up stopping every few minutes, so this time I decided enough was enough and wore my normal backpack and daypack attached together on my back, and my mum’s pack on my front, leaving her to simply carry her tiny daypack (think a primary school child) and her cloth handbag. Easy yes? Well I think the photos speak for themselves (!)

Slowly made it over to Tokyo station, and had a lovely scenic ride on the bullet train to Kyoto. I had ensured when booking our seats that we would be sitting on the right hand side of the train, so mum could try and get a view of Fuji. As we rounded the corner, I tried to point it out to her, but cloud was enshrining the top so mum didn’t understand when I was attempting to explain to her just how tall it was. It was nearly out of sight when… The summit of Fuji emerged from the cloud, and we could see the peak encircled by a halo of fluffy clouds. We arrived into Kyoto, jumped on the Nara line trains one stop to Tofukuji, and found our compact flat was just round the corner from the station, most conveniently!

We then headed straight out to see Fushimi-Inari shrine before dark. It is just absolutely breathtaking – obviously there are a lot of tourists visiting it, but even still as you proceed up the mountainside through the gates, you get the occasional moment of being completely and entirely alone, a brief period of solitude where you can just look around and marvel at this beautiful place. And then of course a surge of tourists come through all shouting in their respective tongues, children going berserk, dogs running around, and the moment is gone. But life is just a series of moments I guess so couldn’t ask for any more 😊 At least there wasn’t a child pissing in a train carriage unlike China!

That evening, mum wanted to have some gyoza (panfried dumplings) so we went to a place called Tiger Gyoza. We had three types of gyoza, our favourite being spicy pork ones made with edible charcoal so they were black in colour. Perfect accompanied by a beer 😉

The last time I came to Japan, in 2009, one of the most important things I did was go to Utsunomiya to visit an old family friend of mine. Back when I was 13, I went to school near a Honda factory and so many of the employees sent their children to my school. Many of my friends were Japanese and it started a lifelong love of foreign languages for me. One family were the Toyodas – their daughter was the year above me and their son was four years above me. We would always talk with the mother as she was always at the school gates, and also volunteered at the school and helped with some cultural sessions. In 2009 I went to visit with her and stayed at her family home for a week, and also experienced my first earthquake while there(!), so I was very excited to return and see her again and this time with my mum.

We started the morning with breakfast at the hotel, I had washoku (Japanese style) whereas mum went for the western option – I’ve never seen a fry up served with mashed potato before!

We caught the Shinkansen at 10.30 am to Utsunomiya, a quick journey of less than an hour, and immediately on arriving we could see Mayumi waiting to greet us from behind the ticket barrier 😊 The station has changed a lot, it’s a lot bigger now, more shops and the area around the station is more developed now as well! We jumped in her car and went to a Starbucks for a drink and a cake, as well as a catch up – my spoken Japanese is pretty poor and her English was nearly non-existent, so we made use of my dictionary and also tried out the google translate voice translation feature, which wasn’t too bad and helped my mum to speak directly with Mayumi!

Mayumi then took us back to her home, which hasn’t changed at all in the last 7 years.  Mr Toyoda was there, and it was lovely to see him as well. We discussed families, changes in respective countries, and Mr Toyoda subtly tried to set me up with his son(!) – I think I’ll take that as a compliment 😛

We spent a happy couple of hours together, had an ice cream, before getting on the train back to Tokyo. Was so nice to see them – hopefully won’t have to wait another 7 years before seeing them again!

First proper day in Japan for my mum, as yesterday’s trauma of getting from the airport obviously didn’t count! Managed to negotiate a later checkout for free, and so we emerged into the world at 11am. Leaving our bags at the hotel front desk, we went for a morning coffee/cup of tea, and then jumped on the metro over to Roppongi for a nice bit of lunch. We went for more Katsu at a place called Imaka, mums first Japanese meal, and it was lovely! I had chicken Katsu and mum had pork, and we shared some curry sauce on the side.

After that, we went off to explore the Imperial Palace gardens… Which of course were shut, which seemed depressingly predictable by now. Why was nothing going smoothly 😞 We had a look around the outside and the fish swimming around in the moat were beautiful!

We then headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags and carry them to the next place we were staying, which was a modern designer ryokan in the north of Tokyo, near Minowa station. It was so so hot and humid outside, around 37C, it made it very difficult to transport the bags across Tokyo, and so we ended up going from aircon to aircon spot inside the station to try and cool down momentarily. Mum looked like she was melting, no real surprise there. When we arrived, we were shown to our little room on the third floor with tatami and futon, aircon and shared showers and bathrooms on each floor. The aircon had not been switched on so it was about 30C inside the room! We promptly left to go and cool down. The staff offered us a complementary jacuzzi visit as they have one inside the premises. Mum immediately signed up for it, and I mentioned my surprise at this to her, as she had spent the last 3 hours complaining about being hot and yet signing up for a hot bath?! Turned out she didn’t realise it would be hot, so we promptly cancelled our reservation! We also found some adverts for the 2020 Olympics… Good luck Tokyo! Hope it goes better than Rio!

l took mum on an evening tour of central Tokyo, when it was just starting to rain. We first went to Akihabara and looked around there until mum got overwhelmed by all the electronics(!) we also visited Harajuku for a brief wander round, before we went to Shibuya and across the big busy pedestrian crossing, which was quite weird to see from under an umbrella. Finally walked to Shinjuku and found a cheap and cheerful ramen place, called Udon: Mentsu Dan. Lovely udon noodles, nice broth, and 200 yen for two glasses of ice cold draft beer? Onto a winner I think! By the time we got back to the hotel, the room was lovely and cold, and we had a great night’s sleep, ready to go to Utsunomiya in the morning!

My day began horribly early, at 6am, very quietly exiting the dorm room and getting dressed in the bathroom, as I wanted to go see Miyajima before leaving Hiroshima (my train being at 12) and also wanted to see it as close to high tide as possible. High tide was at 9.30 so I planned to be there around 8, before it got too busy. I left the hostel at 6.45 and walked through the empty village to the streetcar, getting to the ferry port about 7.15am. So early 😞

Found the JR ferry, as it was free if you had a JR pass – I activated mine the day before as I was going to Hiroshima, and had checked the ferry timetable in advance and knew it would leave around 7.40. There were about 3 people in the queue ahead of me, and only about 25 total got this ferry! Lovely scenic ride across, only 10 minutes, and I was there!

The island was so empty this early in the morning, people were still raking the paths clear of deer droppings and general detritus from the day before. Amazingly empty on the island, so tranquil, and a pleasant 31C as it was still so early in the morning.

Walking along the coast, you can see the Grand Torii Gate materialising out of the water majestically. I went into the Itsukushima Shrine, and even that was still relatively empty of tourists. It opened its doors at 8am and I arrived only a few minutes later. Walking on the boards which seemed to be floating above the surface of the water, past ancient shrines and the monks selling fortunes was really quite eerie. Also didn’t really understand the meaning of many of the temples, but it didn’t matter, as the atmosphere was just wonderful. A kind chap took my photograph on th edge of the temple nearest the Grand Torii Gate.

After that, I walked around the island a bit, watching as it steadily started to fill up with foreign tourists, day-trippers, and large organised tour groups, before heading back to the ferry and going back to the mainland. The queue for the ferry at this point, only 9.30 or so, was immense, hundreds of people. If you want to go, try and get a really early ferry and coordinate it with the time of the high tide, in order to have the best experience possible.

It was now time to begin my long journey to Tokyo to collect my mum from the airport! Got the streetcar to the hostel, collected my bag and checked out, then a streetcar and a train to the central train station, before the Shinkansen to Shin-Kobe and another one onto Tokyo from there. Arrived at Tokyo at 4.40pm, and as the airport train I planned to catch wasn’t until just after 5pm, thought this would be plenty of time, right? WRONG!! Turns out that if you have a JR pass and want to take the Narita Express to Tokyo Narita airport, you have to have a reserved seat. Nothing indicated this, not Hyperdia, not the NEX website, nothing, until I reached the platform and was told to go all the way back to a reservation window. The queues were so long… I got to the front of the queue at 4.59 by which time they had stopped advertising the NEX I planned to get, so I asked for a reservation for the next one, thinking I was going to be late. Mums flight had also been delayed so I thought I should still be just about able to meet her. The ticket office gave me a reservation for the train at 5.03pm – it was now 5.01!! I legged it down to the platform (once I eventually found it) as I knew if I missed this one, I would have to queue again to get another reservation. Made it with 30 seconds to spare… And for a “fully reserved train” I’ve never seen it so empty. In my carriage were about another 4 people. Why I couldn’t just get the train… So annoying!

Went to the airport, collected mum (who was knackered after travelling for 22 hours) and took her to our hotel. Should’ve been simple as it was just one subway line from Tokyo station, 3 stops. Right? WRONG!! The station was having major renovations so to get from the entrance of the station to the actual ticket gates for our subway line took 15 minutes of going up and down stairs, around corners, through shopping centres, all with no aircon – not great! Finally got to Hanzomon station and the heavens opened – by the time we got to the hotel (only a 3 minute walk) we were absolutely drenched! However it was a lovely hotel with a view over the Imperial Palace Gardens, not that we could see much that late at night! I went out for Katsudon at Maisen in Harajuku, which was delicious, you could even choose the breed of pig and cut of pork that you wanted! Went back and went to bed, ready for a day showing my mum around Tokyo😉