Japan March/April 2026

Our trip to Japan is coming to a close. Headed back to Tokyo today. It is a rainy day and very gray. Matt and I were up earlier than the guys again and got our proverbial 7-11 lattes and breakfast. Matt did the sausage sandwich again. Not me. I decided on a yogurt berry smoothie. I’m trying to be nicer to my body. It was good and seemed to sit decently well in my stomach. We decided to take a taxi to the Shinkansen, instead of battling trains in the rain with our luggage. We got to the station pretty early and spent some time in Tully’s, eating and drinking.  Boarded the train and headed to Tokyo. The trip was uneventful. I spent the time reading and blogging. We were in Tokyo in about 2.5 hours. When we arrived, it was lightly raining. We decided to Uber to our AirBnB to leave our luggage before setting out to explore.  Mohan wanted to shop today. He was clear that he was happy to do this by himself as he was pretty sure we wouldn’t enjoy it but nobody had a better idea; we a...

We decided to do something different today. We are going to take the train system to Kobe and do a hike to the Ashiya Rock Garden. This hike is described as hard and includes some “scrambling”. We are all on board. Mohan is not sure but he is a good sport. Started the day with our typical 7-11 lattes. Matt and I got an English muffin sausage, cheese, and egg sandwich. I also bought some Danon yogurt that had probiotics in it. Decent but not great. After Dan and Mohan got up, we headed out to the train station, grabbing more lattes along the way. Getting to Kobe is a complicated train trip with four different trains, including the Shinkansen bullet train. The stars had to align for us to make all our connections. When we got to the first station, I realized that my stomach was not going to give me a choice except to find a bathroom. Daniel was gracious and changed all our tickets as I ended up spending some time in there. My body decided it was time to evacuate everything in my intestin...

Matt had a really rough hour this morning early but finally fell back to sleep and when he woke up, he was feeling much better. I’m completely back to normal and not feeling any signs of sickness at all. Thank God. I talked Matt into using his cough drops and taking ibuprofen and he acquiesced.  This is the latest morning for us. Our rendezvous time was 8:45 and we did not get out earlier than that. Once Dan and Mohan joined us, we headed out for 7-11 lattes again. This 7-11 did not really have anything for breakfast that Matt and I wanted but I bought a weird Acai smoothie and we shared. It made me feel weird and I regretted it.  We are headed to the Osaka Aquarium today. Getting there was easy and there weren’t tons of people. The aquarium was really nice. Very well put together and we saw many amazing fish from all over the world. The jelly fish exhibition was crazy. There is a gigantic ferris wheel here and we toyed with the idea of riding but decided it wasn’t necessary. ...

Leaving Kyoto today. Matt and I were up and showered and headed out to grab coffee at 7-11 since our discovery that the latte there was as good as the places that cost three times as much. Dan met us there and we all bought some breakfast food and took it back to our place. Matt and I had yogurt with some smoothie mix added for sweetness and nuts. The closest I’ve come to a normal breakfast for me.  Armed with breakfast and coffee, we headed for the train. We managed to board before the rain started. Today is cloudy and cold with rain in the forecast. We got to Osaka at about 11 am and left our bags at our AirBnB. They were still cleaning but kind enough to allow us to leave our bags. It was so cold. So cold. Temps in the low 50s with wind. But we wore our coats and headed out to explore.  We walked to Doutonbori Street which is a famous street in Osaka, full of hole in the wall restaurants and all kinds of shops, tehotchkes galore everywhere. The Japanese love what I consider...

Today we will hike Mt. Inari and visit the Nijo Samurai Castle. It is an absolutely beautiful day. Blue skies and temperatures in the 70s. We have a rendezvous time of 8 am. Of course, Matt and I are up and showered well before then. We decided to give the coffee at 7-11 a try when we discovered Soto Coffee was closed. The coffee at 7-11 was amazingly good. Good as almost anywhere else I’ve bought coffee and it cost less than two dollars.  After the guys were up and ready to go, we headed out. We stopped at Family Mart for some coffee and breakfast food. Matt and I shared an egg sandwich. This is the whitest bread you’ve ever seen in your life and they even cut the crusts off! But it tasted good. The coffee here is not nearly as good as 7-11 but it is passable.  We taking a different train today which is closer to us. We were on the train in a few minutes. We missed our stop the first time and had to head back but not much time was lost. We got off the train and our hike was j...

Today is a big temple day with a lot of temple viewing and walking all over Kyoto. Matt and I were up early again and decided to walk to a coffee shop that was a bit of a walk. It ended up being almost a mile but the morning was beautiful and the coffee was good. We met some people from Palo Alto there, kind of interesting. Half way across the world and the only other people in this coffee shop were from the same part of the world as us. We exchanged some conversation and it was fun.  Headed back for our 9 am rendezvous with Dan and Mohan. We all headed out to Soto, the coffee shop close to our house. The coffee there is very good and Matt and I shared a grilled cheese. The guys got these crazy drinks called choco nut lattes - I took a picture! And they of course ate sweet stuff. Our first stop is Tenryn-ji, one of Kyoto’s top ranked Zen temples. We took the long walk to the train station. It was a nice walk and it was good to see the city. The temple is beautiful and the gardens a...