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Japan Wrap-Up
Perspective There is an aesthetic beauty to much of the conformity in Japan, whether it be groomed trees, or the near-ubiquitous neutral clothing palette, or the way of displaying produce like each fruit or vegetable is a little gift. On the return to Portland I was struck by our relative inelegance: mismatched and loud clothes,…
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Japan Day 12 & 13 – Shopping, Osaka Castle, Sewerage Museum
Our final two days were low key. We decided to use the Timeshifter guidelines on the way back, where the suggestion was to get up early and go to sleep early. The small challenge was that most things in Osaka open at 11 or 12 and stay open late. Thankfully the two locations of the…
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Japan Day 11 – Osaka World Expo
The only item on today’s itinerary was the Osaka World Expo. It was quite the process to arrange: tickets purchased last December, then lotteries two months and two weeks in advance for pavilions. The lottery system and online pavilion browser are so user-hostile that I had to watch a video and use someone’s spreadsheet. We…
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Japan Day 10 – Hello Kitty Shinkansen, Himeji Castle, Osaka acclimation
Our day was planned around riding the Hello Kitty train, which only runs once a day from eastern Japan to Shin-Osaka. Our planned arrival back in Okayama was to the minute and the transfer went smoothly. Long distance train travel feels close to magic in Japan. I timed one of the Shinkansen stops and there…
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Japan Day 9 – Shikoku Mura Museum and Mt. Yashima
We spent a while last night looking at the options for Teshima. The island is smaller than Naoshima, but the museum looks amazing and it also has art installations. However, it has even more limited ferry and bus service. Instead, we decided to stay in Takamatsu and spend more time going to destinations on the…
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Japan Day 8 – Naoshima art
Today was a mix of astonishing art experiences and logistics acrobatics. I was drawn to this area of Japan by The Setouchi Triennale, a contemporary art festival held every three years that has a mix of permanent and temporary installations. Although our travel time did not overlap with one of the official festival weeks, there…
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Japan Day 7 – Travel to Takamatsu, Ritsurin Garden
I love Takamatsu! To get here we took the limited express to Shin-Osaka, the Shinkansen to Okayama, and the Marine Liner to Takamatsu. The limited express leg is a quirk in how the Kansai West pass works, as “West” starts in Osaka. We arrived at Kyoto station pretty early to eat and get our bearings.…
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Japan Day 6 – Golden Pavilion, Train Museum, Maruyama Park
This morning we wanted to get an early start because we were going to Kinkaku-ji, one of Kyoto’s busiest locations. We ended up timing things with the rain instead. It started immediately after we got on the bus, poured for the 45 minute ride, and stopped seven minutes after we got off. It felt great…
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Japan Day 5 – Nara Deer Park
While I was planning our itinerary I expected it to be warm and rainy, not hot and humid. Looking at Weather Spark, the actual temperatures have been higher than the 90% percentile. Here’s today: https://weatherspark.com/h/d/143438/2025/6/25/Historical-Weather-on-Wednesday-June-25-2025-in-Kyoto-Japan. If I could plan it again I would try to keep our outdoor activities focussed in the early morning and…
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Japan Day 4 – Kiyomizu-dera to Maruyama Park, Shopping, Gear show
There was a light rain as we walked to a small breakfast place near us. I had オムライス (omurice), which was mentioned with relative frequency in my Japanese language study materials. It’s seasoned rice wrapped in a thin omelet with ketchup. I’ll be looking up a recipe as it was delicious. We took our time…