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Uji & Inari: 03.26.2018 – Day 9
Good Morning, it’s MONDAY! All time record of the trip!! Woke up around 8:30am, now we are talking! Starting to get into the time zone habits. 🙂 We had the opportunity this morning to Skype with my sister and brother-in-law, Erin and Jaron, which was really nice. I get homesick a lot easier than David does. Once we finished getting ready for our day, we stopped and got hotel coffee for our travel. We took the Marriott bus to Katata station and then took the train to Uji station (one of our destinations for the day). When we arrived in Uji, we stopped at the info center to ask where…
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Lake Biwa: 03.25.2018 – Day 8
SUNDAY FUNDAY – Sunday morning in Japan – it’s TRAVEL DAY! We started off the day by waking up somewhat early (7:30ish); this is our last morning in Kanazawa. We packed, got ready, and checked out of the hotel. We dragged our luggage to a local Starbucks to get breakfast. I got a Meat Cake and David got a Espresso Cake. Due to the long upcoming train ride and the additional hassle of having all our luggage, we wanted to plan accordingly by making sure we purchased lunch beforehand. I stayed at Starbucks with our luggage, while David ran to grab some foodies around Kanazawa station for lunch. Kanazawa didn’t…
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Kanazawa: 03.24.2018 – Day 7
Happy Saturday! 🙂 Woke up latest ever, 7:00AM! Starting to get adjusted to the time difference! We got ready for the day and started heading towards the Omi-Cho Fish Market. We stopped at Starbucks for breakfast, picked up some coffee and food. After, we explored the Omi-Cho market and saw different foods and items compared to Tokyo’s market; sea urchin and huge crabs were very popular. After walking around for about an hour, we started searching for the recommended Yamashan Sushi Honten Restaurant and waited in line for a little bit to get in. We ordered the Sushi Bowl that the ramen chef recommended from last night. The rice was…
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Kanazawa: 03.23.2018 – Day 6
Good Morning EVERYONE!! David and I are in Kanazawa, up bright and early at 6:00AM! (This was sleeping in compared to the past couple days.) Another normal morning, got up, went to get the Hotel breakfast: Fun note about the hotel breakfast, they had Grilled Sardines! We didn’t try them, but thought it would be a good add on to show the kinds of food we have been seeing in these buffets. Side bar: David ordered an omelette. He said it had more eggs in it then the Odaiba hotel in Tokyo. He thought this was interesting because it seemed to be more European style. Typically every breakfast we have…
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Kanazawa: 03.22.2018 – Day 5
Another standard morning, woke up and got breakfast. The rest of the day consisted of relaxing and enjoying the rest of our time in Tokyo, viewing the Tokyo bay from our room. Once we finalized packing, we checked out of our room (very sad to leave Tokyo) and headed to Tokyo station to head to our second destination Kanazawa. We picked up some bento boxes to have for lunch on the train, they were really yummy!! We took the JR from Tokyo station to Kanazawa and it was about a 3.5 hour train ride. Once we arrived at Kanazawa station, we headed straight to our hotel at the ANA Crowne…
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Kamakura: 03.21.2018 – Day 4
We started out today with a lazy morning (David laughs during this description), got out of bed at 6:00AM and had our standard hotel breakfast. Oh my what rebels we are!!! Since the weather was particularly rainy and gloomy, we relaxed in the hotel for a decent amount of time. After relaxing, we decided to get up and make some moves. One of our itinerary items for Tokyo was Kamakura so we decided to seize the day! We took a train to Kamakura, in total this was an hour and a half train ride. During the train ride, the weather quickly changed from rain to snow. Not the best day…
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Tokyo: 03.20.2018 – Day 3
It’s tour day!!! David and I were so excited for today! Our friends Brian and Theresa recommended this website called ToursbyLocals.com to book a private tour with a local in Japan. Our tour was scheduled for 03.20.2018 at 9:00AM and it provided a 7 hour private tour around Tokyo. By far one of the best experiences! Chie (our tour guide) provided us a list of options we could choose from for the tour, here is what we selected: Tsukji Market (with recommended Sushi restaurant for lunch) Asakura Traditional Japanese Garden with Tea Our day started out early (like all days have so far). Woke up, had breakfast, and then we…
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Yamanouchi: 03.19.2018 – Day 2
Another bright and early morning with canned coffee and breakfast at the hotel: We attempted to go to the Ueno Zoo to see the baby panda but the Zoo is closed on Mondays. We traveled back to Tokyo station to begin our long journey to see the Snow Monkeys!!! In preparation for the trip, we grabbed a snack for the ride. The green tea we purchased at a convenience store came with a sock to insulate the beverage, cute right!? We took an hour and a half bullet train to Nagano and then jumped on a 50 minute express bus to the outskirts of Yamanouchi. Once we arrived to the…
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Tokyo: 03.18.2018 – True Day 1
Woke up around 5:00AM, obviously we haven’t yet adjusted to the time change. David went out to get us coffee. He came back to the hotel room with CANNED coffee!! Since it was so early, all the coffee options were still closed. Regardless, David managed to find hot canned coffee in a Vending Machine!!! Very cool! Around 7:00AM we went down to get breakfast; it was delicious. Picture caption: Hotel breakfast The chef was extremely delicate while cooking my Salmon Eggs Benedict. It was like he was creating a piece of art. After breakfast, we went exploring around Tokyo! The majority of the day was spent in Ueno Park enjoying…
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Tokyo: 03.17.2018 – Welcome to Japan!
We landed in Japan around 2:30PM (local time) on 03.17.2018. So far so good, it was quite the adventure getting the SIM card for our phones, doing money exchange, and finding our way to the hotel. Here are some pictures from the remainder of our day: Picture caption: Narita Airport Picture caption: Hotel room balcony Picture caption: Pork cutlet with sesame miso sauce Picture caption: Ikura & salmon rice bowl
