Kansai Travels: Practicalities

I must say that with all of this travel experience, Nick and I are becoming a good team. I am great at doing the initial research and reservations, and he's great at manouvering through public transportation. I am good at asking for directions in Japanese, and he's good at keeping the both of us calm when lost.

Our trip to historical Japan intitiated in the "Kansai region" of Osaka, Kyoto and Nara. We got around by bus and train. It was Golden Week, the busiest travel time in Japan.

Busses were packed!



After about a week in Kansai we took the Shinkansen Bullet train down to Hiroshima. Expensive but spacious and fast!


Hiroshima uses streetcars in the city, which is fun and unique in Japan.

From Hiroshima we took a ferry to Miyajima Island.

Then we flew from Hiroshima to Sapporo on JAL. And used trains to get back to Furano. That part was easy!



We stayed in multiple different styles of lodging:

In Osaka and Kyoto we stayed in very clean-modern hostels.


In Kyoto we also stayed at in "temple lodging". We received a tour of the historical temple and brief instruction about Zen mediation. Our room was spare but beautiful.



In Hiroshima we stayed at a "ryokan" or traditional Japanese inn. This usually includes a shared bath, Japanese-style rooms, and sleeping on futons on tatami mats. The owner of our ryokan was wonderful and I managed to understand her Japanese directions most of the time!



Our ryokan host even let us try on her kimonos!


Alltogether a great trip!