When you see images or videos online of over tourism in Japan. Gion is one of those places that gets packed with people throughout the day which is why I haven’t prioritized seeing it the last two visits I’ve made to Kyoto. I was determined to go today to get some photos of the small traditional streets and the pagoda. We managed to wake up early before sunrise and get there just as other people were also showing up with their cameras and selfie sticks.
We’ve been in Tokyo for 3 days and I think one more day would have been too much. There’s so much amazing food, places to go, and things to see but to try to cram in as much as you can in a limited amount of time is overwhelming. From Joanna’s point of view we needed to leave because she was starting to run out of luggage space from all the shopping.
We needed to mix things up today and not spend 4 hours in a clothing store. Considering it was a Saturday, I wanted to take the group to Asakusa to check out Sensoji Temple street before it got too crowded. I was a little worried as we arrived around 10am but I think due to the Chinese government cutting 45% of tourism to Japan due to politics, it wasn’t overwhelmed by tourists. I got some good photos, especially one of a pigeon that I was following.
There are several hotel chains that we’ve stayed at so far in our trips to Japan that have been reliable, affordable, located in good areas, and have nice amenities that I’ve enjoyed like free breakfast or a public bath. Toyoko Inn is one of those hotel chains that meets our needs and I regularly recommend to people as it’s a business hotel which includes a nice morning breakfast.
I didn’t have a natural place to cover life updates in my last post so I guess I’ll start with that here. In October 2023, we discovered a small dark spot on Speedy’s belly which we had removed and biopsied by the vet. The test results came back as hemangiosarcoma and he was given 3-6 months to live. Naturally, no one tells Speedy what to do so he chose to stick around way beyond that estimate.
Over the last few years, Joanna and I have been trying to recognize and appreciate the time we’re able to spend with our parents. We’re really fortunate that both sets of parents are healthy and that we moved to a house about 15 minutes from them so we see our families pretty regularly. The only times we seem to go on family trips are when a family member passes away and we have to travel for a funeral, so we decided to prioritize our families this year and take them on a vacation to create some cherished memories together.
Leading up to this trip, I knew that we’d be nearing the beginning of the Sakura cherry blossoms season in Japan. I’d check the peak blossom forecast every once in a while and it would look like they would be in full bloom at the end of our trip, then maybe not, then maybe yes again. It’s just really hard to nail down a date that’s weather dependent when you’re booking things 6 months out.
Joanna and I had a shopping list of things to get while in Japan for ourselves and our friends and family but didn’t want the hassle of carrying stuff from city to city. The plan was to use the final 2 days of the trip to stock up. The project manager in me tried to optimize our time by consolidating all the shops we needed to visit into groups so that we didn’t have to spend so much time moving from place to place.
Rice is planted around this time and harvested in October. Ryoko-san said that they like to plant their own rice later because it tastes better. They grow enough for themselves and their guests to eat. If there’s any extra, they’ll sell it locally. One rice stalk is the equivalent of one bowl of rice.
One of the must-do activities while in Miyazaki is to visit the Takachiho Gorge. I had mentioned this to Ryoko-san when we checked into our place where she mentioned that the boats needed to be reserved ahead of time. This totally saved our butts because Thursday was a local holiday so naturally all of the boat reservations were taken from 9am-5pm except ONE at 11am. SO LUCKY!
