Travels in Japan 2015 [Part 1: It’s been a while]

As you may have noticed, I haven’t been very active on this blog for several weeks. Fortunately, this isn’t because I was slacking off on my Japanese practice – rather the opposite. I just came back from an extensive 2-week long vacation to Japan with my family, where we toured all over Japan while jumping between 6 different hotels.

For someone who spends a large portion of my time on Japan and Japanese-related things, this is only the third time I’ve been to Japan and 8 years since my last visit. I think the distance, cost, and other difficulties (long flight, etc.) in visiting Japan are one of the reason it’s culture still attracts me after all these years. If Japan happened to be close enough to visit via a quick 1 hour boat ride I’d likely not be into it’s culture nearly as much.

Our first priority on this trip was to see some relatives there and we spent much time on that in first half our our trip, saving the second half for exploring and enjoying all Japan has to ofter (including Japan’s famous onsens, for which I’ll write a detailed review of).

Due to the amount of *traveling* on this trip (both on foot and other means of transportation) it was quite an effort both physically and mentally, but it was totally worth it. I got to learn more about Japan’s culture, cities, countryside, and get some needed Japanese language practice by speaking with a few of the natives there. Regardless of how many TV dramas you watch or Manga books you read, there are things you can only pick up by interacting with the people of Japan.

I’ve decided to dedicate a series of posts to this trip, focusing on things I found especially interesting, or things I feel might help  others considering visiting Japan. I’ll also try to include some relevant Japanese terms or phrases when applicable. We took over 2000 pictures and a few short videos, and I’ll try to post a few of these as well.

(Featured Image: Part of a building at the Toushouguu (東照宮）temple in Nikkou)