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Day 15 – Ine
We’ve visiting the village of Ine today, in the far north of Kyoto prefecture. Its main claim to fame is the houses built right onto the waterfront, called Funaya. It’s like living right on top of your boathouse, which makes sense because Ine is an old fishing town. The population has been shrinking steadily over…
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Day 14 – Arashiyama bamboo forest
Arashiyama is one of the places that you visit for that Old Japan vibe, and you’ve surely seen its bamboo pathway in pictures before. Arashiyama is a very touristy area, which is fine by us because we want to do touristy things today. The first of which is kimono rental. There’s quite a few places…
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Day 13 – New Years Day in Kyoto
We all have a well-deserved sleep in and go out for traditional new year activities. Shimogamo shrine is a bit of a trek north, but we want to go there because it’s the major shrine for this sort of thing, being close to the old imperial castle. As expected there’s a lot of visitors, but…
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Day 12 – New Years Eve in Kyoto
We spent most of the day travelling, down to Tokyo, pick up Michelle, then onwards to Kyoto. Not huge legs by any stretch, but no time to rest. We booked an Airbnb close to Fushimi Inari, it’s a nice cosy spot and conveniently walkable.
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Day 11 – Zao Fox Village
Another rented car, this time we’re hitting up some places not so close to Sendai.
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Day 10 – Down to Sendai
Getting the Hayabusa shinkansen down to Sendai takes a few hours, and we take it easy for the rest of the day. We basically eat three dinners.
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Day 9 – Hakodate sightseeing
An ambitious expedition to visit both Goryoukaku fort and Mt Hakodate in one day. Learnt that those tanks outside everyone’s houses are indeed for kerosene! Used for heating, which is foreign to us because we’re so used to using gas back home Kujira steak, it’s not bad. Kinda like kangaroo in a way Goryoukaku was…
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Day 8 – Snow crab for breakfast
First thing: wake up. Go out in the snow to get to the markets. Eat a whole crab for breakfast, 8000 yen each (he’s a really big crab).
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Day 7 – to Hakodate
I take back what I said about it being fast, it takes the best part of six hours to get to Hakodate today. Mostly because it’s so far south and there’s no straight line directly there from Sapporo, it’s a big curve around Uchiura bay.
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Day 6 – Merry Christmas, Christmas Tree
We’re going out today to see a Christmas tree. Yes, a singular one.
A little portfolio.
