From Hiroshima it was a short trip to Miyajima island, with the 30km journey being covered by tram, train and ferry. While the island is actually named Itsukushima, it is more commonly known as Miyajima, which is Japanese for shrine island. So, it is the famous shrine and iconic ‘floating’ torii gate that is the … Continue reading Miyajima Island – Days 47 & 48
Our temple stay at Kōya-san included breakfast, so we joined the line of foreigners in the dining area. We ate what we liked out of the set vegetarian breakfast, which wasn’t very much for some of us, and it looked surprisingly similar to dinner last night. The sitting on the floor to eat also doesn’t … Continue reading Koyasan to Okayama – Day 42
On Friday we headed to Kōya-san, several hours South of Osaka in the Kii mountain range, where we spent one night at a temple stay. Kōya-san is a temple town on Mount Kōya that was first settled in 819 by the monk Kukai who is known posthumously as Kōbō-Daishi – one of Japan’s most significant … Continue reading Koyasan – Day 41
On our first full day in the Iya Valley region, we headed to the top of Mount Tsurugi. The other two families had booked in for white water rafting, and seeing it was a beautiful clear day we decided to head to Mount Tsurigi. Mount Tsurigi (剣山 Tsurugi-san) – meaning sword – is a 1,955 metre high … Continue reading Mount Tsurugi – Day 4
Rejuvenated by the soak in the onsen we departed early from Tsumago heading towards the Iya valley. A taxi from the hotel to Nagiso station we then train back to Okayama (four trains) where we pick up our hire car from Toyota car rental. It is also at the car rental where we meet up … Continue reading Travel to Iya Valley – Day 3
We awoke to a bright clear morning in Ginza, Tokyo where we had spent the night getting in to the hotel around midnight. We all slept well and decided to have the extra sleep in to take the 10:30am train. We found a coffee shop across the road for a quick breakfast. Egg and bacon … Continue reading Arrival at Tsumago – Day 1
After months of planning and anticipation the day for our departure has arrived. An early start was required, with a 6:25am departure from Canberra heading to Brisbane. We had a two hour stop over in Brisbane at the Qantas club before boarding the nine hour flight to Narita. The boys did a great job on … Continue reading Departure – 出発
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