Welcome to part 2 of my travel blog to Japan. For the first part, you can click here.

Day 4. Kanazawa

Today we took the train to Kanazawa. It was the first time we used the bullet train (Shinkansen) to go to another city (the JR ticket train is for tourists only and a must have if you want to travel in Japan). On the platform, it said  ‘reserved’, which we found weird. Was this the right train or not? We took it anyway hoping for the best. Apparently, we should have taken the next train, because this one had reserved seats only. My friend had looked it up before online but she hadn’t read anything about it. Anyway, the train conductor asked us to follow him (through a mostly empty train) to take other seats, which I assume were not reserved. Again, we literally don’t speak the same language so I’m just guessing here. We did not get a fine for sitting at the wrong place or kicked out of the train, so that was a win.

In Kanazawa, it was our lucky day because they had their 66th annual festival called the Hyakumangoku Festival. It had a parade, people dancing on the streets etc.

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Hi there, travel lover!

Took me some time to put this blog together, but here it is. I absolutely loved Japan. The views, the people, the food (omg the food!), the temples, the toilets (yeah, nothing beats a Japanese toilet) and the all over hygienic lifestyle over there. This beautiful country is definitely on my “Must visit again” list.

So, after a really really long flight (there’s just no way around that when traveling from Europe) we first had a stop-over in Taiwan.

Tip: keep on walking in the airport until you find the massage chairs. They are free to use. Just get some coins from the store nearby.

Also, I will be covering this trip in two posts, starting with Tokyo, because it’s near impossible to cover everything in just one post.

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In about a week I’m going to Japan. I’m so excited! I’ve been wanting to go there forever and now it’s almost happening. I’m going with the same friend with whom I took the Mongolian express to Russia, Mongolia, China and Tibet (I can’t believe it’s been over 7 months and I haven’t even taken a weekend trip– been busy writing).

So, where are we going and, of course, how did I plan this trip?

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I am no friend of cold weather by any means. So it takes a lot to get me to take a vacation where I have to wear a thick coat and a fleece hat all the time. Then again, when you go to Iceland you don’t have a lot of choice. October in Mongolia meant that my ass almost froze off, so I was hoping that Iceland in April (2016) would be less bad. Btw, it was, but not by much, and only because in Mongolia I slept in a tent 🙂 (that moment when you wake up in the middle of the night and the fire has gone and it’s -20!).

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