This morning, we got home from our whirlwind trip to Japan. We visited four regions across the main island of Honshu in just about seven days. My head is spinning from the things I learned and memories I’m trying to take down before I forget. Also, I just can’t sleep on overnight flights no matter how many time zones I cross! The trip was a great introduction to the country. We saw and did (and ate!) some wonderful things, but still we barely scratched the surface of the country’s deep history and beautifully complex culture.
I’ll be spending a lot of time this next week sorting and editing the 1,800 pictures of Japan that Kevin and I took, so that I can start to share some stories soon. In the meantime, I’ve posted a few that I took on my phone to Instagram. Follow me to see all the photos, or just check out some of the ones I’ve shared so far:
Tokyo (Akasaka district) by night:
Kinkaku-ji (“Temple of the Golden Pavilion”), Kyoto:
Godaido Temple — Matsushima Bay, Miyagi Prefecture:
Arashiyama, a natural bamboo forest in Kyoto:
Seasonal early spring plum blossoms: Japan’s enviable high-speed rail system (the “shinkansen”) makes it very easy for travelers to get across the country:
Lots of delicious and artfully-prepared food:
High-brow art and culture like this exhibition on the ancient craft design of silk kimonos…
To the very low-brow like this cafe catering to obsessive fans of an anime series…
One of Japan’s finest natural and cultural treasures, Mt. Fuji:
Kevin and I are grateful for the opportunity to explore Japan and look forward to sharing our stories with the world. Thank you to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Tourism, and our talented (and endlessly patient!) guide, Eiko Sato. She was a wonderful teacher guiding us in Japanese history, culture and customs.
More posts and photos to come!
Wow, that bamboo is INSANE! Can’t wait to see/read more.
Thanks, Erin! It was a native forest, too! Not planted. Such an interesting place!
I had a hard time deciding which picture was my favorite… but I think the temple of the golden pavilion has my vote 🙂
Thanks, Chantae! It was a pretty amazing place, especially glowing in the late afternoon sun. I definitely recommend it for any trip to Kyoto!
Loved following your Japenese travels on Instagram! Japan is one of my favorite places in the world! Did it trip you out a little how clean everything was??? I mean the subway cars, the streets, the garbage trucks? A beautiful country full of beautiful people!
Hi Hilarye, You’re absolutely right. Everyone was so nice, and we were quite surprised at how clean (and how quiet!) Tokyo was! It was explained to us that when you live that close to 13 million other people you need to be clean and considerate or otherwise the city is chaos. But we all know that is unique to Japan, I mean, I’ve been to chaotic NYC and they have far fewer people 🙂
Aaah, I can’t wait to hear more about your trip! I absolutely adore Japan! My husband and I were there for three weeks for our honeymoon a couple years ago, and I’m always trying to figure out when we can go back (we decided it’s one of the few places we’ve been that we want to visit again and again). I was also one class short of minoring in Japanese in college, so I was kinda thrilled about the lack of people willing to speak English, haha.
Thanks, Ashley! I’d love to hear your stories from Japan, it was an amazing trip and I can’t wait to go back. Let me know the next time you’re in San Jose, we can meet at Roy’s Coffee, right in the heart of our little Japantown! 🙂
Hi Cassie! I really love this Instagram post! I’d like to try it for my Peru trip. Any chance you can share with me how this was done?
Of course! It’s an easy way to do travel updates when you don’t have that much time. When you’re on your computer, go to your Instagram profile and click to display the photo you want to use. Click on the button with three little dots to the right of the comment box and the option to “embed” will come up. Click that and a window will pop up with the embed code. Copy all that code it shows you and then paste it into the HTML tab of your wordpress post. Depending on your theme you may need to go into to shrink the size of the width (my post column is only 600 pixels but it displays by default at 612 pixels, so I go in to change that so the image doesnt get cut off). Let me know if you have any questions… I’ll see you tomorrow, right?!
Oh Steph, one more thing — the one thing I don’t like about this image strategy for bloggers is that the Instagram embeds here are not pinnable images on Pinterest so if you want to share the post there, you’ll need to upload the photos directly and then link them to the post. And because it’s also not pinnable for readers viewing the post who want to pin your stuff, I wouldn’t make it a habit of doing it in every post, just a few when you are on the road.
Thanks! Turns our I’m working tomorrow so I can no longer make it. It’d be great to get together sometime with Rocio and check out more great spots though!