I’ll share my trip here in the future.

So far, Japan is probably my favorite country.  It wasn’t…until I visited there.  We visited Japan immediately after visiting Western Australia.  We spent 16 days in Japan, first visiting by train the large central Honshu cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo.  Then we picked up a rental car and drove the northeast tsunami damaged coastline from 50 kilometers north of Tokyo to Sendai, then north to the very top, and on to Aomori.  We left that rental car in Aomori, took a train to Hakodate on the southern part of the north island of Hokkaido.  From Hakodate we picked up another rental car and drove clockwise along the coastline completely around Hokkaido to Chitose’s airport.  We flew back to Tokyo for one last day, then home.

I grew very attached to Japan the first hour there.  While on the train from our arrival airport in Osaka, I immediately knew that I had a special love for what I was seeing & experiencing, but I also thought that in the next 16 days I would surely temper that attraction with reality.  That was never the case.  Every single day was interesting.  Every day I loved the people of Japan and the way they thought and did things.  Our last day there, 31 days of tiring travel behind us, was the best for us.  When I should have been exhausted by it all, I was instead energized by Tokyo & what is Japan.  It’s the first time in many travels that we felt mostly sad to leave a destination.  Usually we are tired and ready to go home, but at home we mostly missed Japan…to this day.  Japan was the last trip we’ve taken & it’s the next trip on the list.