Week 2: Exploring the Cities

Once we're at Nagasaki, the south end of Japan, we will pretty much retrace our steps except this time explore the cities, whilst still paying homage to our joint interest in Japanese history.

I've allocated 3 days in which we have to get back to Tokyo. In those 3 days our stops include Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe and Nagoya. Among these sites, includes the symbolic torii gate and the Kinkaku-ji, also known as the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto.

(Left: the Golden Pavilion, right: the torii gate).

We will again be using the Japan Rail to travel back to Tokyo. Once back, we'll give ourselves 4 days to explore Tokyo and the surrounding area. One day will definitely be spent in Shibuya, a small ward in Tokyo, but is the fashion centre of Japan and night-life central hub. My brother and I are both into fashion, he is much more than me I'd say, so this would be an impassable opportunity for the both of us. We would happily spend all day browsing and shopping the different varieties of clothes among other things.

(Shibuya at night)

Another day will be spent at the National Tokyo Museum, which includes ancient Japanese relics and records of Japanese history pre-dating 2 thousand years! This will be the ultimate cherry on top to our love of historical sites and will hopefully satiate our hunger.


(National Tokyo Museum)

The following day, we will bus to Mt. Fuji (you haven't gone to Japan unless you've seen Mt. Fuji up close I hear). We will have previously bought a packaged one day tour to Mt Fuji and Hakone. The bus tours around Mt. Fuji with a guide explaining facts and the relevance of each point of importance around the large mountain. We will also ascend the mountain, climb about 2300 feet via the Fuji Subaru line. At cloud level, we'll get an amazing view of Tokyo and surrounding area and is a great place to get some awesome photos! Then we come back down and the bus takes us back into Tokyo.


(Mt. Fuji behind Tokyo skyline)

The last day we will use as a free day with nothing planned in particular. We may go sight-seeing some more, walking downtown and exploring the leviathan Tokyo or eating in nice restaurants. We may check-off last minute things on our to-do lists and do whatever we want depending on our mood.

Then finally, on July 19th, 2015, we catch our flight back to Toronto and our long awaited holiday comes to an end!