Japan 2026
The whole family takes a summer trip starting in Tokyo, heading to Hakone, Kyoto, Osaka, the Japanese Alps, and back to Tokyo.
Last Full Day in Japan
We spent the morning sleeping and relaxing after getting too little sleep before Disneyland. We made it to the train station in the middle of Rush hour and...
Disneyland Tokyo
We woke up early, before 7am so we could get fed and grab a bus to Disneyland Tokyo. We got through the morning city, avoided the various commuters, and bought...
Akihabara and the Land of Games
Since coming to Japan I've dreamed of wandering the streets and being inundated with sights and sounds. We didn't eat here, but other people did We've spent a...
A Day Off in Shinjuku
After the last 2 weeks of go go go, we had nothing planned for the day in our new Airbnb or in Shinjuku. We decided to take it easy, partially because of the...
Down from the Mountains
We woke up in our three separate hotel rooms, ready for a long train ride. We had tickets for a train at 1:10pm, and wanted to see a little of Matsumoto before...
Kamikōchi and Matsumoto
The hotel in Hirayu was the most traditional Japanese hotel and onsen we visited. We had a traditional room with paper doors, tatami mat floors, and they...
Hirayu and the Way to Kamikochi
Happy birthday to my mom! We love you! We left our Takayama Hotel early, dropped off our bags into the little vault room of the hotel, and wandered to the bus...
Take a Stroll around Takayama
We left Osaka with minutes to spare before checkout time. We headed to our local train station, and then took the local train to the shin Osaka station, which...
Tennoji & Tsutenkaku
We woke up a little later than hoped, and after a little deliberation, got dressed and headed to the Tennoji zoo. It was about 3 blocks away and about 15$ for...
Another day in Osaka
We had planned to visit the Universal Studios Japan location with roller coasters and sunshine, and snacks and sunshine, and Nintendo world and sunshine, but...
Osaka 2, the Osakanning
We awoke after the festival and packed up to leave the festival area, having seen most of what was to be offered in that side of Osaka. We've become much more...
Osaka Nyu See
Elizabeth has informed me that the title of this post would be more appropriate for Tokyo where the Statue of Liberty was. We spent about 3 hours lounging...
KyototoOsaka
We woke up at 8 am and began cleaning and packing. Thankfully most of our clothes were dry from the washing the day before. We polished of the rest of the food...
Dip Your Kyoto in the Water
We woke up at 5:30 am, made a handful of breakfast, and walked to the Kiomizu-Dera Buddhist temple. Given that it was supposed to be 105° today, it was a great...
Bullet's Go!
We had a leisurely morning, waking up in hakone. Breakfast that we bought at the 7-Eleven the night before, cleaning up and repacking all of the stuff that had...
Onsen and Offsen in Hakone
We woke up this morning in a leisurely way, eating onigiri for breakfast, packing all of our bags, and bidding adieu to our nice family hotel room in Akasuka....
Hakoyea or Hakone?
We tried to get up a little early to get through everything we had planned today. It mostly worked, and we got up and ate breakfast in the hotel room. The boys...
Odaiba is nice, the sun is hot
We woke up in the morning at about 6:30, lounged around our apartment style hotel room, and prepared for the rest of the day. We hadn't planned a whole lot to...
Asakusa me how I know
I woke up at about 4 am, over-hungry because I had peanut butter M&Ms for dinner. The rest of the family woke up over the next 3 hours, and I looked around for...
ZipAir: Plane Fine
We took ZipAir, a budget airline from San Francisco to Tokyo. After many years of traveling on frontier, Southwest, etc., I feared for the worst when it came...
Heading to Narita, Tokyo, and Asakusa
And away we go! It's been a long time that we've been planning a trip somewhere new. We've taken a number of smaller vacations over the course of the last few...