Sapporo

We finally made it to Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan. Even though winter had technically finished, snow was still everywhere.

Cosplay Festival

Every year, in the geeky district of Osaka, there is a huge cosplay festival. Hundreds of people come dress up as their favourite anime characters - usually wearing homemade costumes - and pose for everybody in the street.

Ise Grand Shrine

Together with our friend Arisa, we visited Ise Shrine. We had been told that we must visit this spiritual place before we leave Japan as it is one of the most important shrines in Japan.

Sumo

Every March, the sumo comes to Osaka. We went last year when my mum was here, and although I didn't post about it we had a great time. We knew that we had to return once more.

Boys in Nara!

We also took the boys to Nara Park - perhaps the best place to go sightseeing in Kansai.

Boys in Osaka

Our friends came to Japan! First Louis and Josh came, and Tommy joined us a few days later. We had a lot of fun exploring Kansai, eating, doing karaoke, playing arcade games and drinking.

Wakayama Adventure World!

We went to Wakayama Adventure World last year and had a great time. Link here!! Recently, 2 baby pandas were born.. so we had to visit again.

Skiing in Biwako Valley

To our surprise, we were able to go skiing fairly near to our house! It only took us about 2 hours to get to Biwako Valley, and although it was small we certainly did go skiing. They also had a special deal to rent everything for the day - hence our matching outfits!

Kagoshima Day 2

 The next day in Kagoshima, we visited Sengan-en. It is a beautiful garden and the old house of an important Japanese family. Again, we could see the volcano from the garden. I guess it's not a bad place to build a house!

Sakurajima

We were lucky enough to have another three day weekend, so we visited Kagoshima in Southern Japan. Kagoshima is famous for black pork (which we ate), shochu (which we drank), and Sakurajima: an incredible active volcano. 

Koyasan in the Snow

SJ came to Japan, again! We visited historic and religious Koyasan once more, and were delighted and surprised to be greeted by snow!  Click here to read my earlier entry.We also just bought a new camera, so it was fun for us to play around with all the settings and figure it out. Do you think these pictures look better than the ones before?

Christmas Market!

Osaka has a great German Christmas Market every year in Umeda. My pictures were terrible, but I wanted to post something a bit Christmassy before tomorrow :)

沖縄: Some sightseeing!

We managed to drag ourselves away from relaxing at the beach or the hotel to do a little bit of sightseeing. We visited the very famous aquarium, Churaumi, and also Shuri Castle.

Life's a beach...

Yes, this is still Japan! We took a wonderful winter trip to tropical Japan, Okinawa. Mum came to stay and we had a four day weekend we could spend together. So, we booked a relaxing trip to Okinawa... It was incredible.

Geisha Girl..

On a recent trip to Kyoto I underwent a transformation... I became a maiko, an apprentice geisha.

Kumano Kodo: Part 2!

After a relaxing evening, we set off for the second day off our hike... (This post combines the second and third days - we took far too many photos of the beautiful nature).

Kumano Kodo - an ancient pilgrimage hike

We finally made it to Kumano Kodo! We had to cancel our plans twice before because of the typhoons, but we made the most of the national holiday and went this week. Kumano Kodo is an ancient pilgrimage site and a World Heritage site too. It was a fantastic, but exhausting, 3 days.

Nagoya

Unfortunately, we had to cancel our hiking trip to Kumano Kodo (for the second time!) because of the typhoon. But, we made the most of this free weekend and booked a cheap trip to Nagoya! To check out the city and two castles.

Kyoto with Annie! Arashiyama

Annie came to Japan! We had a wonderful time: karaoke, sushi, okonimiyaki, castles... We were still working, but we spent our days off together in Arashiyama.

Awaji Island

We've been so busy lately! I've been really slow with blogging. A few weeks ago we went to Awaji Island to relax. It's a small island in Hyogo prefecture, about 2 hours away from Osaka. A perfect getaway!