Towards our Nippon adventure

Well, we are almost ready for yet another holiday.  This time to Japan for 9 weeks.  Just one more sleep in our own bed before our adventure starts.  Somewhat embarrasingly, although we have done a fair bit of "world travel" over the years, our world view seems to have consisted entirely of Europe and we have largely ignored the holiday riches available to us on our own doorstep - Asia, and if we are to take notice of the many people we have encountered of late who have travelled to Japan, generally multiple times, we are in for a treat.  Hopefully this will pave the way for further future incursions into the Asian continent.

Planning for Japan has been an absolute focus (some might say obsession) in our household for some months now, and I think that we have pretty much locked everything down.  I will try to keep some sort of blog, but time for writing does not feature in our plans, and almost every waking hour has been accounted for, so I am not entirely sure how I will do that.  I guess the answer might be to sleep less.

In our nine weeks away we will be sleeping in more than 40 different beds and negotiating more than 100 train trips traversing more than 7,500 kilometres almost across the length and breadth of Japan.  We will be sampling all sorts of accommodation, visiting more temples and shrines than you can imagine, walking in the way of pilgrims, getting off the beaten track in Northern Honshu, eating our way through the vast Japanese culinary landscape, experiencing Japanese art and culture, cycling through the islands, enjoying the cherry blossom as it rains down upon us, and much, much more.

Wish us luck as we embark on what is a very new adventure for us with our two small suitcases, a ridiculously sparse Japanese vocabulary, and heaps of anticipation.  I will try to keep you updated through this blog, and I am sure that Beth will keep busy with texting.  See you all soon.

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