A summary of Japan, and trip-acquired wisdom so far...

Things we loved about Japan:


1. Every station has a 20 second theme tune, ranging from the bizarre to the ridiculous.

2. Toilets – heated toilet seats, multiple buttons, and recorded flushing noise buttons – presumably so you don’t have the embarrassment of plop noises in a public loo.

3. Incredibly friendly and helpful people.

4. Healthy and cheap fast-food chains.

5. Pretty lights & pretty sights.

6. Cold stone ice-cream.

7. Incredibly clean – owing to what can only be the world’s fastest and most efficient cleaning staff.

8. EVERYTHING runs on time – even the tube has a schedule down to the minute.

Not so great things about Japan:

1. Expensive – they say you get what you pay for... but everything was very expensive, and we’re about £250 over budget after 1 week. Eek.

2. Getting run over by bikes on the pavement.

3. The lack of Fuji.



Travel wisdom acquired in week 1:

The packing list was utter crap – clearly centred around people travelling to warm places only. Had we have relied totally on the list we would have been wearing socks and sandals in the snow – which really wouldn’t have gone down well. It was cold and wet enough in the trainers that we decided to stick in anyway. An extra jumper, maybe a 2nd set of Pyjamas, and a hat scarf and gloves are a good bet, and I’m pleased we stuck some of them in. The spare Pyjamas would have been handy, as it’s much harder to get things dry in cold places than in warm ones.

Natural wonders often require decent weather – missing Mt Fuji was a horrible way of being reminded of this, and we’ll be far more careful in future!

Take a phrase book/learn some language – we really enjoyed it, and contrary to popular belief, not everyone in the whole world speaks English (and nor should they).

Write down hotel directions/draw a map – nothing worse than thinking it’s straight opposite the tube station, when in fact it’s not – it’s hidden behind a building, a bit to the left, several side streets away.