Japan 2011

Our trip was after the major earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 so we tried to avoid the northern part of Japan so we focused on Central Japan. I have to say i was impressed with the Japanese people because in spite of all the losses and sufferings they stayed together and helped each other to go through this tragedy. What was shocking for me was the fact that in several hotels where we stayed japanese travelers were thanking us for visiting Japan which i found very unusual.While we were there we also felt a few after shocks from the major earthquake which were pretty scary (considering the fact that we come from an area with no earthquakes) but more about that later on in the Tokyo page :)

Our 25 days itinerary was:

Tokyo (3 nights) - Hirayu Onsen (1night) - Takayama (3 nights) - Shirakawa-go (1night) - Kanazawa (2 nights) - Matsumoto (2 nights) - Tsumago (1 night) - Kyoto (4 nights) - Uji (1 night) - Mt Koya (1 night) - Osaka (2 nights) - Hiroshima (2 nights) - Tokyo (1 night).

This was a very relaxed itinerary with plenty of time to see everything but if you don't have enough time you can easily cut off at least 6 days from the following towns:

• Takayama - 1 1/2 days should be enough - the only reason we stayed so long was because of the Spring Takayama Festival which is ranked top 3 in Japan so we didn't want to miss that
• Kanazawa - 1 full day is enough to visit everything in the town
• Matsumoto - 1 day is enough to visit the castle and go around town
• Uji is pretty close to Kyoto so there is no need to sleep there for one night - a half a day (4 hrs) trip from Kyoto is more than enough to go around Uji and try all the different tea types in the town
• Mt Koya is a very expensive place to get to (because you can't use the Japan Rail Pass) and being there already i think it's not worth the time or the money.