Category: japan

kurobe alpen route bus tour

snow capped mountains with a hazy moon in a grey sky

Up bright and early -around 4:30am – we arrived at Shinjuku, ready for our bus to depart at 7am. We were off on a two-day bus tour to discover Kurobe Tateyama Alpine Route.

a doctor's office in a museum dedicated to the showa era
traditional shop
  • mitarashi dango held up
  • rice cake on a stick

First up, we stopped at Hida Takayama where we explored a museum dedicated to the Showa-era and sampled mitarashi-dango whilst basking in the traditional town streets. It was nice to see the sakura still blooming in the area – getting to see sakura is always a plus for me.

thatched roofed houses of Shirakawa-go
inside a house in the rafters in shirakawa-go
  • black sesame seed ice cream in a cone being held up
  • vanilla ice cream in a cone being held up
  • 2 sticks of dango in a chestnut-miso sauce

Then we were on our way to Shirakawa-go to see the thatched houses. The village is open for ...

my tokyo hotel quarantine experience – feb 2022

I’ve been in the UK for the past couple of months, so when it was time to return to Tokyo, I knew I’d have to do a 6 day hotel quarantine.

I was at Villa Fontaine Haneda which is a brand new hotel and is right at the airport. It was a realy lovely hotel.

The food looks really good but it really wasn’t after day one. It all tasted the same and was practically the same each day. My husband ended up dropping food off for me and I am so grateful that he did. These are the vegan ...

Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art in Chiba in summer

As it was the Tokyo 2020 Olympics this summer, Marine Day and Sports Day were put together to form ‘Mega Weekend’. This was not its official title but it meant that in Japan we got Thurs 22nd, Fri 23rd, Sat 24th and Sun 25th off (unless you work in one of the many places that didn’t).

We decided to go to Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art in Sakura, Chiba. It was a reservation system and they were quite strict on only allowing people in at their stated times. They have a free shuttle bus from both Keisei Sakura and ...

how I start the day: walking in Tokyo

My husband and I went for a walk this morning. I woke up at 6:45 and and the weather was beautiful – blue skies and big, white, fluffy clouds. We got ready and decided to head down to the river.

We stayed out for about 45 minutes and saw maybe 5 other people trotting about.

The river was calm but high and we had good visibility looking out onto Tokyo. I’d like to say that I start my mornings this way every day, but I don’t.

Of course, not everything is perfect and we saw this dumped on the steps. ...

natsume soseki memorial museum tokyo, waseda, tokyo

  • Soseki street sign
  • Soseki museum sign

I love Natsume Soseki and there is a museum dedicated to him in Waseda, Natsume Soseki Memorial Museum, Tokyo. It’s built on the site where he used to live and it is a beautiful building inside.

Soseki museum entrance
  • Soseki cut out
  • Soseki bust
  • Soseki information plaque
  • Soseki museum layout
  • Soseki picture
  • Soseki walking map

Here’s a link to the walking map.

Soseki cafe with two coffees

There is also a cafe inside and I did like the coffee. We didn’t get any of the sweets because they were sold out of the 空也もなか but I don’t think we missed much.

veggie cafe, taco rice

For lunch we went to Cafe VG which is a veggie place and was lovely.

I was glad to visit the Soseki ...