JAPAN RAIL PASS

To travel through Japan by rail is one of the most relaxing things I did in a long time. With the Japan Rail Pass, we were able to travel carelessly around Japan. We booked it from Germany and got some vouchers we had to exchange after we arrived in Japan. When we arrived in Tokyo, we first spend 3 days touring the city before turning in the vouchers and picking up the tickets. Theoretically, you can take a couple of metro lines in Tokyo with the Pass as well, but we wanted to save the 7-day pass we booked for the long-distance travel instead of the metro. For the trains, you can either just go to the train station and take a train (expect 2 or 3 high-speed shinkansen), or as we did it most of the time, go to a ticket office and get a seat reservation. The reservations are for free with the Rail Pass and we preferred to have a save spot on the train. Nevertheless, the cars for people without reservation were mostly half empty and when you are in a hurry you can just jump on the train and go.

From Tokyo, we took a Shinkansen towards Kyoto, before Kyoto we spend one night in a traditional Japanese Ryokan in Gero. We left the Shinkansen in Nagoya and took a small regional train towards Gero. A nice touch of the regional trains is that they have large panoramic windows (at least some of them) instead of the really small airplane like windows in the Shinkansen. Gero was a really nice small town, it´s located in a quite narrow valley with a river through the middle of the town. It´s famous for its Onsens, which are the reason we also wanted to visit it. In September when we visited it felt like we were the only visitors. The streets were nearly empty and the city was pleasant quite. After Tokyo, that was exactly what we needed. There are a couple of impressive Onsens and Ryokans in Gero, like Yunoshimakan, but we tried to make it cheap and took one of the more affordable ones. We decided on a traditional Japanese style room at Bosenkan. It´s a nice relatively cheap hotel, but I must admit not our best choice on the trip. The view from our room nevertheless was really nice.

GERO

The highlight of the Ryokan was the Onsen (hot bath), we spent around 3 hours in the evening and another hour in the morning before we left. It was a little bit run down, but we were the only ones both times visiting the bath, so more than enough space. Additionally, most Ryokans offer complimentary dinner and breakfast. Both are quite special, the dinner is in a Kaiseki style. You get a lot of small dishes, which are all nicely presented and absolutely delicious. I must admit, it involves a lot of seafood and I´m not the biggest fan of it. Nevertheless, it is worth the experience and even I ate most of the fish, the second time we had this style of dinner, later on, the trip we liked even more. Admittedly, the second time costs quite a bit more. You could decide if you want to eat in your room or in the official restaurant, we ate at the restaurant as we didn´t really understand how we could order it to our room. The room itself was a classical tatami room with futon beds and 2 sitting areas.

KYOTO

After one night in Gero, we took the regional train back to Nagoya and then the Shinkansen towards Kyoto. On the couple of days, we spend in Kyoto, I already published a separate post. From Kyoto, we took a Shinkansen towards Hiroshima. Our plan was to just spend one night in Hiroshima and visit the important (more like famous) places. We arrived at around 10 am at the main station. What we didn´t expect was that on that day there was a major baseball game and the city and train station were packed with people. It took us around 2 hours to store our luggage somewhere and we had to pay like 20€ for half a day per bag. Afterward, we took the train towards Miyajima, a small temple island of the coast of Hiroshima. It actually took around an hour to reach the ferry terminal from the main station. The ferry ride takes just a couple of minutes, but the views are quite nice. Typically Japan, everybody exits the ferry, before the security allows the new passengers to board, in a needly organized row. The ferry is also included in the Rail Pass. I can´t say if its always the case, but the sea was absolutely calm and was for sure takeable for people who normally get seasick. When you arrive at the ferry terminal on Miyajima, you are actually a little bit outside of the main “town” on the island. Leaving to the left, you can walk along the shore, but as far as I know in that direction, only a couple of hotels are located. Towards the right, the main attractions are located. Like the giant tory gate in the water, the overwater temple, and an aquarium. Considering that the island is quite small, there are actually a lot of different ways you can walk around it and all give a nice view or lead to interesting places. For example towards the large tory gate, you can either walk along the waterfront from the ferry terminal or walk through the “main” street, which offers a lot of food stalls, antique shops, souvenir shops, and other quite interesting looking things, where I don´t know if it was a restaurant, shop or gallery. Along the shoreline and around the temples you will actually find quite a lot of wild roaming deer, which are quite trusting (because they want the best from you: your food). They can get quite pushy to get your food, so be careful walking around them. Our plan was actually to walk along the shore towards the temples and then up one of the mountains on the island. We didn´t enter any of the temples, but I think you have to pay to enter and I had the feeling that they look much more impressive from the outside in the landscape than from the inside. As we walked along the shore and through the area around the temples, we figured out that you can actually take 2 gondolas up to one of the highest peaks on the island. From the temple area, you either can take a free bus up to the gondola station, or what I would recommend you can walk along a small creek through a park up to the station. The bus takes around 5-10 min and you can easily walk it in 10-15 min as you walk the direct line and the bus takes a longer route around the park.

MIYAJIMA

When you arrive at the gondola station you can choose two options: go halfway or go all the way to the top. I must say when we left the first gondola, there were only 2 paths, one to the next gondola and the other down the mountain again. I think taking the second gondola all the way up is really worth it. From the second one, you have a really nice view of the surrounding bay and the ocean. At the top station, you have many different walking trail options. You can walk around the top, towards some temples or even higher to the highest peak. We walked a little bit on the top and then took the walking track down back to the harbor. You can take the gondola back down, but we only brought one-way tickets. I would always recommend taking the gondola up and walking down, some of the areas are quite steep and have a couple of really high steps (even with my 1.95m I sometimes had to jump down as my legs couldn´t reach the next step). Therefore, walking up is quite demanding. The forest you walk through is dark and thick, quite a bit mystical and a lot colder than in the sun at the shore and in the sun. It was quite late when we arrived at the bottom again, the walk down took us around 2 hours (with one 10 min pause), so you can imagen how long it will take to walk it up.

From the foot of the mountain, we walked through the shopping streets back towards the ferry terminal, as we had to pick up our luggage from the train station and check-in into our Airbnb (which we actually booked via booking.com). The flat itself was really tiny (what we expected in the first place from Japan), we shared a small foldable sofa bed with two people and had an additional small couch. The second couch was so small, that I only could sit alone on it. As it was already quite late and we spend far too much on luggage storage, we decided to walk around the peace memorial park and then pick up some instant noodles and stuff from a 7Eleven and eat at home.

HIROSHIMA MEMORIAL PARK

We lived quite near the city center, so we could walk in around 15 min into the park. It was already around 8 pm, therefore every attraction was already closed and we were nearly alone. The memorial grounds itself are different then I expected. I can’t really explain it, but around these ruins and inside the park with the atomic bomb clock and the peace memorial it felt so unreal that 70.000 people died in an instead there. I think it is something everybody has to experience it in his own way, and I’m not really qualified to tell anything about war and death.

YAMANAKAKO

The next morning, we got up early and took the Shinkansen towards Tokyo again. We got out at a quite small town called Mishima and from their a bus towards Yamanakako. The bus is actually not included in the Rail Pass, which we didn´t really expect when we planned the trip. Always check before you start, as it was a JR bus line, which is normally included in the Pass. This specific one as well as the direct train from Tokyo to Kawagushiko, the main town in the five lakes/Mt. Fuji region are not included in the Pass.

Yamanakako, was our first stop in the five lakes region, as it was the best accessible from Hiroshima. When we arrived we realized, it is the best accessible from the south, but it was let’s say dead. We were the only ones leaving the bus at this station and most of the restaurants were closed. When we arrived at the hotel, we were the only guest and were first unsure if we actually could stay there. The owner was really really nice and we had the biggest room with a small upstairs part, where normally children could sleep. A special part of the hotel was that the rooms had toilets, but no showers or baths. There was a large community bath on the ground floor and as we were the only guest we had it completely for ourselves. Also, we were able to use some bikes for free to go back to the town main area and get something to eat. The streets were empty and we just got some instant noodles and snacks from the 7Eleven again. The shoreline along the lake was really sad looking, as the main tourist season was already over, everything was stored away for winter, at least it looked like it.

KAWAGUSHIKO

The next day, we already left again. We made our way towards Kawagushiko, to stay at the most expensive hotel on our tour. Kawagushiko is the main hub of the area I would say. Most people will arrive there as all trains and buses from Tokyo end there. One station before Kawagushiko the Fuji High Q amusement park is located, it´s a large theme park with a lot of different rides. We thought about going there, but it rained the whole day, so we stayed at Kawagushiko. Therefore, we didn´t do any other of the touristy stuff as well. You can really nice walk around the small town and the lakeside. One thing we wanted to do is to take a gondola up one of the mountains to have a better view of Mt. Fuji. Sadly as I said it was heavy rain the whole day, we went straight to the hotel and as we couldn´t check in we spend a couple of hours walking in the rain and in a small cafe (more time in the cafe than walking). We again stayed at a traditional Ryokan, Maruei, with its own private Onsen. Actually, they had 2 inside and 2 outside Onsen, one inside and one outside were each time reserved for one gender and they flip the Onsens ones a day so that everyone could visit all onsens at least ones in their stay. This Ryokan was in a much better state than the first one in Gero. We again had a traditional Japanese tatami room. This time the view was even more magnificent, the hotel is located a bit outside of Kawagushiko directly on the lakeshore and our room was overlooking the lake.

We spend most of the afternoon relaxing in the Onsens and in our lounge chairs at the large windows in our room. One thing we actually figured out quite late on the trip was that the “soft drinks” we always had actually had 9% alcohol in them. We always thought it was like 9% fruit juice or so because nowhere it said alcohol and it didn´t taste like it. At one point we realized that they had alcohol as we got quite fast drunk from the 0.5L cans. Still, one of the best drinks we had, together with the plum wine and the sake we had that night in our room together with another huge Kaiseki dinner. I really have to recommend this Ryokan experience to everybody traveling to Japan, for us it was really one of the best things. The food, the Onsens, the rooms all great, just sleeping on the ground is something you need to get used to. Saying that the second one was a lot more comfortable than the first one. I think the futons were a little bit thicker than the first ones, making it more comfortable

Quickly our last day in Japan came, we spend the morning inside the Onsen again. After check-out, we took the 4-hour bus trip back to Tokyo. We needed to repack some of our bags and just strolled around Ginza in the evening. That night, we went for another quite special dinner, an open table bbq, where you can just order meat and grill it yourself as long as you want. A nice trick, it is a great experience for the customer and the restaurant doesn´t need a chef, as you make your meal yourself. The menu mostly consists of a lot (i mean a lot) of different meats and cuts. We had mostly beef and we accidentally ordered some heart and some other quite special meat parts. They all were delicious and I wouldn´t know what it was when they didn´t put little notes on the plate. There where only a couple of small side dishes like rice or noodles, so nothing for vegetarians.

That was our Japan adventure, I hope everybody who reads this post had fun while reading them and maybe learned something about Japan. I really recommend everybody to travel to Japan, its an absolute culture shock, but totally worth it and really rewarding. One last thing, always check when your fly is going out, we accidentally booked a fly a month too early and on our last day, we were sitting in the hotel room realizing we didn´t have a flight ticket for the next day. We had to book quite expensive last minute tickets to get to our next destination: Taipeh.

More pictures of the trip can be found in my galleries for Japan, or you look through my other destinations, like Australia or the USA. My personal best ones you can find in my portfolio.