Monday, March 21, 2016

Japan-Kansai Trip 2016 - Day 2

Day 1 was about recovering. The overnight flight, the shock of not bringing the Intl License and the long journey to our hotel.

Day 2 was the real start of our trip~ this trip was one which I wanted to show J some of the wonderful sights in Japan and not many places better than Nara to do that!


We started off by taking the 2+ hour train ride back the opposite direction towards Osaka. 



From Tennoji station it was a change and another 40+ minutes to Nara... Gotten ourselves the bus-pass that gives us unlimited rides on the local bus system and off we went to find our hotel. After checking in and leaving our luggage we took off to visit Todaiji


Had lunch at a soba place near Todaiji.


Then off we went to play with the roaming deers ...


Then more food...




The grandeur of Todaiji never fail to awe me. This and Kiyomizuderu are probably the 2 things I wanted to show J the most during this trip.

After Todaiji we had a few hours before the illumination display so we roamed around Nara and found ourselves some sushi!








After filling our stomach we walked towards Nara Park where a really special light show was waiting for us~





After a cold and long walk we proceeded to the bus-stop and went back to our hotel.

I felt that the one day in Nara, though short, was really wonderful and really brought us to a world filled with history, nature and mystic~ 

Next stop Kyoto!

Posts from this trip:

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Japan-Kansai Trip 2016 - Day 1

Every year around CNY we will make use of the extended holidays to take a long holiday. So far for the past 2 years we have chosen Hokkaido, but this year the missus decided it's time to break away from that routine and go to Kansai instead.

An overnight flight to Haneda, transit to Kansai airport, just because direct flights were either full or exorbitantly expensive.

I had been sick the week prior to the trip. In fact I was still very sick prior to the flight but adrenaline somehow took over and I sort of revived once we landed in Japan.

Unfortunately my wife was left with the task of packing and preparing for all of us and left out the international driving license. That meant our initial plans to drive around Kansai had to be changed into one reliant on the rail network.

Upon recovering from the shock, first we cancelled our car booking, before checking the routes available to us. Nanki-Shirahama was so far South that it wasn't shown on the rail network map. Nothing a bit of Internet couldn't fix. 2 changes of the ride and we were on the Kuroshio rapid to Shirahama. 


The overnight flight, transit flight from Haneda and multiple train rides finally took its toil on J and he basically shut down his engine while on the 2-hour ride..


At the end of the 3-hour or so journey was a wonderful seaside town with a very different look and feel from Osaka, Nara or Kyoto.

We first made our way to the Toretore market to enjoy a good afternoon sashimi and outdoor BBQ seafood lunch. 




After lunch we took a taxi to our hotel, which overlooks the famous Shirahama beach.


We took a little walk on the beach as there was a bit of time before check-in. The wind was piercing cold but the sand was wonderful. I could imagine what the place would look like in summer.


After a 10-15 minutes walk we were both cold and tired so we tried our luck at the hotel even though it was only 2:30pm. Thank goodness for Japanese hospitality and we were lead to our room.





Our room was on the top floor, with a semi-outdoor bath which overlooked the beach. It was a welcome reward after all that traveling. 

Hotel: ホテル三楽荘
Room: Around 48,160yen for 1 night (39,360yen after utilizing our Jalan.net points) including b/f and dinner

Dinner was...