No one ever said going to Japan was easy. It is an island nation approximately 5,355 miles from my home in California with a language, history and culture very different from everything most Americans know or understand. Even experts who have studied Japan for a lifetime are constantly surprised, find new things, or have their theories and experience turned upside down on a consistent basis.
Four years ago I visited Japan for the first time in person, and as daunting a task it was to go there, I found myself elated with the result. I gushed in my blog posts, took many pictures and rewrote much of what I knew in my head as a result of my time there. At the end of that trip, I knew I wanted to go back, not just once but many times. I had only just scratched the surface of an iceberg that runs very deep into the oceans of the Pacific and Japanese.
Just over a year ago today I began to plan for a return trip to Japan, and that process lasted until the time I got there just last week. The idea was to spend 15 days and have a bit of new and a bit of old mixed in so I could experience new things but also revisit favorite places with my parents once again.
Our destinations began in Tokyo, where we would venture out into that famous city that never sleeps, so I could see it in dawn and twilight as I didn't get to before. From there we would go out on a few daytrips before heading down to Osaka to stay. From Osaka our hope was to visit the cities of Himeji, Koyasan and Kyoto, to see the castle, a famous temple town and the shrine at Fushimi.
After this would be a train ride into the Japanese Alps to stay in the town of Takayama and visit the famous thatched roof houses of Shirakawago. Finally we would return through Tokyo to Nikko, nestled in the mountains of mist, to end our journey and enjoy some tranquility. It was my hope we'd see the beginning of cherry blossoms since we were going in early March as well, though I couldn't count on it.
The whole trip was a very bold idea, very adventurous and maybe a lot more than we could chew, though I reasoned we could add or subtract ideas as we went. In reality I had a great deal more in a personal itinerary that I wrote up for us that ended up being a hundred pages long by itself. We over-packed and over-planned but no one can predict anything when on a trip like this. We expected in-climate weather only to find glorious sunshine wherever we went. We were surprised by many things, but disappointed by only one.
So begins a recollection of my second Journey to Japan, a single step to 5,355 miles ... best start off. This is Japan, Revisited!
