2milktea's Travel Blog

Northern & Central 日本

September-October 2018

The story

This year we decided to take our first long trip together, and the destination was clearly not so difficult to choose. JAPAN, of course, was the clear winner this time. We wanted to experience Japan during the autumn season.

Our 17-days-trip was a truly unforgettable memory. We visited different places in Japan from the North down to central areas. We tried almost every kind of foods and drinks we found along the way. And we did try to talk to local people in Japanese :)

Hakodate • Hirosaki • Matsushima

Nikko (Chuzenji) • Tokyo • Kyoto

Osaka • Namba • Wakayama (Koyasan)

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Before the trip

We booked our tickets quite early ahead of time, so there was pretty much time for planning. If you somehow know us from before, you could easily predict how our travel plan would look like. Well, we did come up with a veeeery detailed plan with everything we could think of, from flighs info, activities for each day, maps for each region to detailed shinkansen (新幹線 - high speed bullet train) trips for each day {!! Only in Japan !! We don't think we could do the same elsewhere}, shopping list (of course), you name it.

Even though it's not the first time in Japan for me, there's still many things we had to consider carefully. Here is top 5: (1) JR Pass, (2) Suica/Pasmo/Icoca card, (3) Portable Wifi or Simcard with (un)limited data, (4) Japanese adapter, (5) $$ Cash (and more cash) $$.

Without talking about the choice of places you would love to visit in Japan, accommodation is the next big thing to consider. There are many options to choose from AirBnB, Western-style hotel to traditional Japanese inn aka. ryokan (旅館). If you travel on a budget you might choose AirBnB. However, this was not our option since we would like to experience as a local Japanese so we tried to book as much ryokan as we possibly could (btw we're not really into how AirBnB works). When it comes to ryokan, they often offer you the meal package (both breakfast and dinner) which we highly recommend (if you don't mind spending extra money for this experience :P).

After editing the plan many times, we finally got what we needed before the trip. We couldn't wait for the day to come.

Wait ... there was something! Two days before the day, we saw on the news that Japan was hit by Jebi typhoon (considered to be the strongest typhoon to strike Japan since 1993). We felt very sad for Japan and worried about our trip to come. We tried to contact the airline and found out our flight was canceled due to the fact that Kansai Airport in Osaka was heavily damaged and closed after the typhoon. We were in a panic since we might have to cancel our trip. We tried to call the airline almost constantly. And in the last minute, we were able to get the last two seats to Narita Airport in Tokyo on the same day. Well, we could finally pack our luggages after all :)