Day 0+1: Leaving and arriving in Japan

The flight went well, the food was surprisingly decent and listening to movies made time pass fairly quickly. Our seats weren’t great.
Taking the plane was less terrible than I expected, the scenery was pretty sometimes, and otherwise it was just a waiting game. Even turbulence wasn’t that bad.
Arrived in Japan, we went straight from a taxi to our hotel where we finally slept.

Day 2: Guided tour of Tokyo

Hotel breakfasts were in general really good, they were usually buffets so we could try a lot of different things. Breakfasts in Japan were often food that we would consider food for lunch or dinner, but that wasn’t a problem.
We started the day in Asakusa, where we visited temples, sanctuaries and local markets.
For lunch we went to a tonkatsu restaurant at the top of a shopping center, it was a bit weird, but apparently here restaurants in shopping centers aren’t like the food courts we have back at home.
Then we went to Akihabara, the city of maid cafés, cosplays and other electronics stores, we went to Super Potato (a retro game shop), but I didn’t buy anything.
We ended our day in a large park in the center of Tokyo.

Day 3: Tokyo

We did your laundry (combined washers/dryers are funny, but the drying wasn’t that great)
We walked around Shibuya, went to the Nintendo Store a bit, then had a stroll il Yoyogi Park
We spent the rest of our day with one of my friends that lives in Tokyo, we went to a fantastic sushi restaurant, walked around Ikebukuro, played some taiko no tatsujin at an arcade and went to a izakaya for dinner.

Day 4: Guided tour of Kamakura

We went to Kamakura, a town full of sanctuaries, we visited a few and had a walk in a bamboo grove as well.
Soba restaurant for lunch, I had a gimmicky spicy shrimp bowl, it was very spicy.
Back in Tokyo we switched hotels, we were trying a capsule hotel that day.
We ate at McDonalds (a bit better than here), then went to sing some karaoke.

Day 5: Tokyo

We had a cooking class at a community center during the first half of the day, it was quite fun! We learned some tricks and now I always cut my cucumbers in an accordion pattern.
We went to the Shinjuku City Hall, it was a very tall building and it was free to go to the observatory, so we took a lot of pictures here and bought a few souvenirs.
Then we went to the Meiji Jingu sanctuary near Yoyogi Park.
We ended the day in Kabukicho, the red-light district of Toyko that is the inspiration of Kamurocho, a principal location in the “Yakuza/Like A Dragon” game franchise. We went to Black Hole, a yakiniku restaurant that was real good, we had some wagyu beef there.

Day 6: Tokyo -> Mt Fuji (with guide) -> Kyoto

We took the shinkansen to the Shin Fuji station, and visited the village of Fujinomiya, with its sanctuaries. We had yakisoba there.
We spent the rest of our day walking in various parcs and natural spaces, taking pictures of Mt Fuji and its surroundings.
In Kyoto we immediately went to our hotel, a ryokan (traditional inn) and our room had a private exterior bath. The fridge was also full of free drinks!

Day 7: Kyoto with guide

The breakfast at the hotel was really fun, I had a plate filled with japanese ingredients and my partner had a more european style breakfast with 8 different jams.
Our guide today was bad, she might’ve been trying to do well but she spent the whole day asking us if we were okay and trying to invent things that were going wrong.
We visited some temples and sanctuaries (like the famous Fushimi Inari) and some parts of the old Kyoto, we had some weird okonomiyaki for lunch.
Our dinner with a geisha was really impressive. It was a bit awkward because the geisha was watching us eat and talked to us through the meal (through a translator), so we had to talk more than we were used to. The food itself was amazing, but it was a lot of fish and seafood and there was no real way to change the menu, so we had to be polite and my partner ate it all like if it was delicious.

Day 8: Kyoto

The breakfast is a bit less fun if it’s the same thing two consecutive days.
We went to a tea ceremony, it was beautiful and instructive and makes us want to make good tea.
Then we ate some pork ramen and went to a temple with a thousand buddhas, we couldn’t take pictures, however.
We ended the day by walking around a park and grabbing a meal at a convenience store (it was actually fine, and a good alternative to big or expensive restaurant meals that would’ve required us to take public transit), with everything that was in the fridge.

Day 9: Kyoto -> Hiroshima

We took the train to Hiroshima and the first thing we did there was to eat an Hiroshima-style okonimyaki (with noodles), we went to a building that was entirely made of okonomiyaki restaurants.
Then we visited the peace gardens, we didn’t go to the museum because there were too many people. It was a bit rough because even if we were november 5th, it was like 78 outside, even more in the sun.
We visited Hiroshima Castle, there was a museum inside so it was fun and instructive and the view from the top floor was good.
We saw our first christmas market (on november 5th), this one had France as a theme, so wine everywhere and food that I wouldn’t describe as typically French.
For dinner we went to an izakaya to try fried oysters (one of Hiroshima’s specialties), but it was a bit expensive.

Day 10: Hiroshima -> Miyajima

Our breakfast were homemade crêpes, they were real good.
We went to take the ferry to get to Miyajima, an island filled with deer, temples, shrines and tourists (also an infinite number of students on school trips)
We took many pictures of the “floating gate” and we went to the aquarium. For lunch we went somewhere where I could have fried oysters again, it was quite good!
We got a little bit lost trying to find the walking trails, but we finally go to our hotel and I was a bit disappointed because we didn’t have the room that I thought we would have. It was a traditional room with tatamis and futons and we wore yukatas.
Dinner had multiple courses, but they had taken our tastes in consideration and nobody had to pretend like with the geisha. It was real good!.

Day 11: Miyajima -> Fukuoka

After a fun and traditional breakfast, we went to visit a vast temple with many different wings, each more interesting than the others. I really liked the garden filled with mist and buddah statues.
Then we went to Fukuoka, we ate another pork ramen at the station and got to our hotel “The Basics Fukuoka”. We were a bit disappointed because there were no water bottles nor tissue boxes in our room, so we renamed the place “Less Than Basics Fukuoka”
We went to Fukuoka Castle and to a large park surrounding a body of water, it got really cold and we weren’t dressed enough, so that dampened our fun a bit.
Finally we went to “Canal City”, a mall built around a fake river, and we saw that there was a Kirby Café there, so I reserved a spot immediately. Food was so-so and kinda expensive, but the Kirby theming was cute.

Day 12: Fukuoka

After another fine breakfast (another buffet), we went to a temple quite the distance from Fukuoka to see a reclined buddha, apparently as long as the statue of liberty is tall!
For lunch we had motsunabe (chicken nabe) in a mall, then we took a train do Uminonakamichi Park.
It was a really, really large park and we arrived a bit late, there was a lot of walking to do. The zoo was fun, but we had to rush a bit at the end.
We wanted to eat in a yattai for dinner (a small stall with only a few spots, where everyone eats in front of the chef), but we were too intimidated by the lack of english menus so we went to a food court nearby that had okay (but too expensive) street food

Day 13: Fukuoka -> Nagasaki

We really wanted to maximise our time in Fukuoka, so we went to the art museum to see their exhibit on giant robots. It was really cool even if I’m not have a lot of knowledge in that genre. We also saw their regular exhibits and that was fun.
We took the train to Nagasaki, at the station we had a shuttle to get to the hotel which was in a mountain. We were a bit worried that the trip to the hotel would give us trouble (in public transit it would’ve been), but with the shuttle it was no issue.
Our hotel was really fancy, something like “all employees in a room would stop whatever they were doing to get up and bow whenever we got into a room”. The view was superb and our room was great. We got a bottle of champagne as a welcoming fit.
That being said, when it was time for lunch we were a bit stuck at the hotel (the shuttles were over for the day), so we went to the hotel restaurant. It was the equivalent of $30 for a bowl of rice or a piece of meat, so dinner turned out quite expensive.

Day 14: Nagasaki

In the morning we went to the bomb museum in Nagasaki, then we visited a cathedral (since Nagasaki has a larger christian population than other parts of Japan)
Then we went to chinatown and had some local specialties like noodle dishes and pork buns.
In the afternoon it was raining but we went to Glover Garden, a park built around the old house of an european businessman who lived in Nagasaki.
We brought convenience store food and ate that with the hotel’s champagne.

Day 15: Nagasaki -> Okayama

After a so-so breakfast, we took the shuttle and then took the train back east, this time to Okayama.
We did our laundry then ate at Coco Ichibanya, a curry restaurant, it was good.
Our hotel in Okayama was built on top of the train station, so we had a good view, we took a walk alongside a park build alongside a river.
The burger restaurant we wanted to try was closed, so we had to get lunch somewhere else. Then we visited another mall.

Day 16: Okayama -> Koyasan

We really wanted to maximise our time in Okayama, so we went to a big park on the morning, Okayaka Korakuen, which was a reconstruction of a park from olden times.
Then we went to a cat café, it was cute, a cat climbed on my back, he was too motivated.
Going to Koyasan was a long trip, it’s a village of monks in the mountains, so we had to take three different trains and a cable car.
At Koyasan, it was pretty cold, we couldn’t keep our shoes on and most of the place wasn’t heated (except our lodgings). We had a traditional room with tatamis and futons here too.
After a small walk in Koyasan, we had a fantastic vegan dinner prepared by the monks, then we did calligraphy by copying sutras.

Day 17: Koyasan -> Osaka

We woke up at 5h30 to assist at the morning proceedings. It was really impressive, even if it was about 44*F in the room.
We left immediately after a delicious breakfast, it was snowing and that was a bit rough, especially our shoes that were left outside all night…
Instead of immediately going to Osaka, we took a detour to Himeji to see the castle. It was fun, but they had us take our shoes off (and it was cold there too) and the castle itself was less interesting than the one in Hiroshima.
We got to Osaka quite late, so we ate at an okonomiyaki restaurant and went to sleep.

Day 18: Osaka

Today we went to Universal Studios Japan! We left the hotel after breakfast and even if we got there at 8h30, we only were able to have a ticket for Super Nintendo World at 13h45.
Universal Studios was quite vast and well built, but focused a bit more on visuals than rides. There were a lot more restaurants and shops than rides themselves.
The first ride we did was based on “The Ring” and it was a dark rollercoaster ride. Then we did a spiderman ride (a 4D experience), then we went to see a pretty good WaterWorld show. There was still some time left so we went to do a few quick rides like “Hello Kitty Dream Cupcakes” and “Elmo’s Go-Go Skateboard”.
Super Nintendo World was pretty impressive, but there was a ton of people and not much to do. A bunch of minigames in the park with queues that ultimately only gave meta-progression for an app. We started by having a meal, and there was an hour long queue to go to the toad restaurant. It was like the kirby café, a bit too expensive and the food was not amazing, but the experience was cool.
We waited an hour and a half for the mario kart ride, it also was a 4D experience and I’ve found it real confusing and disappointing. We walked a bit more around the park, had a bite at Mos Burger then went to sleep.

Day 19: Osaka (with guide)

After doing our laundry, we went to Osaka Castle, it was interesting with the museum inside.
We then went to Shinsekai, a shopping district full of colors. We had launch at a kushikatsu (fried skewers) restaurant near Namba station, then had a nap.
At evening time we had the capcom café. The theme was Ace Attorney, but their food didn’t look like anything from the games. It still was a fun experience.
We ended the day by going to Dotonbori, also present in the Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise, there were a ton of people and the displays around were really impressive.

Day 20: Osaka -> Tokyo

We wanted to maximise in Osaka (stop me if you’ve heard this one before), so we went to Osaka Aquarium in the morning. It was quite big and full of people, their most impressive specimen was definitely the whale sharks.
Then we arrived back at Tokyo after a few hours of train. Our last hotel was quite cool, we had a big suite on the top floor.
We wanted to eat sushi before leaving so we went to the other store of the chain we went on day 3, Toriton. While we were waiting to get our table, we visited the mall attached to the Tokyo Skytree.

Day 21: Return home

We were woken up by Air Canada telling us that our flight back home was cancelled for technical reasons and they were trying to find another flight. It was a few stressful hours, but ultimately they found something the same day, a bit earlier than our initial flight.
It was raining quite heaviliy so our plan to visit Sumida City (to try and find the landmarks from the game Paranormasight) kinda went nowhere. We went back to the mall and I bought Super Mario RPG there.
The flight back on All Nippon Airlines went well. It was more comfortable than Air Canada, even. I listened to “Blackberry”,”Bullet Train” and “The Batman” during the flight. We had a transfert at Chicago then took a smaller plane to go to Montreal, this one wasn’t comfortable at all!