Japan March/April 2026

We are to our final day in Japan. We have the whole day to enjoy as our flight does not leave until 9:30 pm tonight. And we received notice this morning that the flight would be delayed until 10 pm.  Matt and I were up earlier than the guys as usual. It has definitely become a 7-11 morning habit and we headed out for coffee and breakfast. Came back to the place and got all packed up. We will be storing our luggage at the AirBnB today while we explore.  We decided to take a water bus on the Sumida River and see Tokyo from the water. This is the warmest day we’ve seen here. The variety of weather is astonishing - from the 40’s in Hakone to 80 today in Tokyo, and everything in between at the other cities, from overcast days to clear skies, cold bitter wind and warm balmy evenings, sprinkles and pouring rain, we’ve seen it all. The water bus ride was about an hour long, under bridges and through the city. We enjoyed it very much. When we disembarked, we walked all along the beach ...

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...

Matt and I were up earlier than Dan and Mohan as they stayed out much later than us. We got showered and headed out for a coffee. Found a little place that had good coffee but pricey. Wandered around a bit. It is supposed to rain today but right now, it is nice. Cloudy but warm.  Headed back to our home away from home and all of us headed out for the day. Our first stop was breakfast. Very interesting place. A salad, half a piece of toast, a boiled egg and coffee. Of course, everything is a small serving. I think breakfast might be 250 calories. But we ate some coffee jelly with ice cream too. Pretty weird but fun to try. Headed to our first temple, Kiyomizu-dera. It is interesting. Temples everywhere here and I mean everywhere. And then the gates that separate the divine from the secular, everywhere. We took pictures and marveled at the temple and then headed to our second temple, Nanzenji. We stopped at a very interesting bagel place and had bagels unlike bagels at home, that’s f...

We woke up to sunshine and a cloudless sky this morning. We were fervently wishing this was yesterday as we could have hiked Mt Kintoki, but it was not to be. Matt woke up early and went out and walked an hour before the rest of us were ready to go. I did my Onsen experience and then showered and got packed and ready for a travel day.  More wonderful food. The experience at this AirBnB is one we will never forget. Everything uniquely Japanese, wearing the clothing, following all the hygiene rules with shoes and clothes, and the unbelievably special food. So glad we had this experience.  We haven’t given up seeing Mt. Fuji. We decided to leave our bags in the luggage locker at the Sounzan station and take the Ropeway back to Owakudani and see the Mountain. Getting our bags into the lockers was a challenge as we had to have 1000 yen in coins. But thanks to Daniel, we figured it out finally, rather Daniel did. We stowed all our bags and boarded the Ropeway. It is a beautiful day ...

We woke up to a cold and rainy day, as expected. But we are determined to make the best of it. Unfortunately, the hike we’ve been looking forward to doing won’t be possible this morning in the pouring rain due to mud and unsafe conditions. Additionally, the whole reason for doing the hike is to see Mt Fuji and the whole area is socked in with fog. You can’t see anything. But we will make the best of it as this is part of traveling, and part of life, adjust and enjoy with what you have. We haven’t given up hope that maybe we can do this later in the day.  We started the day with the incredible breakfast provided to us at our Japanese AirBnB. The food was so unusual, many different items, probably 10-12, and just a few bites of each. But the array of flavors and foods is incredible. Just wonderful.  After breakfast, we walked in the pouring rain to the Sounzan station, umbrellas overhead. We got on the Hakone Ropeway, cars which remind me of a gondola, and headed for our first s...

Today we will leave Tokyo and head for Hakone. The weather is supposed to be awful and we are praying it will be ok. We got up and had some coffee and breakfast at the little cafe close to our room. After breakfast, we headed to the train station. Getting to Hakone is an event. We started on the Romance Car Train and went from the Shinjuku station to the Hakone-Yumoto station. From there, we transferring to the Hakone Tozan Railway. This was a very interesting mountain train that had to switch tracks a couple of times and went through quite a few tunnels. The countryside is beautiful but it is literally pouring. We transferred from the mountain train to a cable car which took us the rest of the way. This cable is the second steepest in the world, only outdone of course by the Swiss. I’ve been on that one I think! Mt. Pilatus.  We finally arrived at the area of Gora called Sounzan where our room is. We took a taxi to our room and dropped off our luggage since it was not time to chec...

Up again at 9 am. We slept well again. So grateful for Ativan and Melatonin . We’ve had no trouble sleeping through the night. Headed right to the train when we got up. Started our day early doing the train thing. At the train exit, we stopped at a cafe called Le Pain and had breakfast. Pretty good.  Our first stop was Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. It wasn’t raining yet and we were feeling happy about that as rain is in the forecast all day today.We stopped at the entrance to the park and bought a Cherry Blossom ice cream cone. I really liked it. Dan tells me lots of people don’t. The park was beautiful and we loved walking through seeing more of all the beautiful cherry tree blossoms on display. We walked from there to Meiji Jingu, a shrine dedicated to the Emperor Meiji. The gardens here were somewhat austere with gigantic gates leading into the garden. This is very much a sacred place with no photos allowed and silence required. It was interesting to see it but we didn’t sta...