So this is it, the time has come again for me to depart from the Gold Coast here in Australia and make headway towards Osaka.  Again.  It’s happening again.  I mean, i never doubted that it would, but there’s always something surreal about something this grand – in my experience anyway.

It’s actually kinda scary.  I don’t know what I’ll think of Japan when I get there.  I loved that place more than anything in the world, but i’m a different person to who I was when I was in Japan – i’ve come a long way.  Will i still love it? Will it still appeal to me?  Maybe.  But the scary part is what if it doesn’t? What then? I guess i’ll find out soon enough!

It’s also very exciting.  Just now, at the airport, I gave our hostel a quick ring to confirm our booking.  Now, i’m out of practice with my Japanese – slowly getting into the swing of things due to my studies this semester – but out of practice none the less.  But, i managed to check our booking with ease – all systems go.  This was actually the wake-up call (quite literally a wake-up call).  It really drove home that i’m going back to Japan, it also boosted my confidence.

22 Days! 22 Days till i’m back in Japan, ripping it up with my buddy Emma, only to be joined 3 days later by my cousin Ian.

In the past 2 years or so i’ve done quite a bit of travelling.  But i’ve never returned to a country i’ve travelled to (apart from Australia of course), and so this trip to Japan will be the first time i’ve done this.

My feelings leading up to this trip have recently become very mixed! The excitement of seeing all the things that I miss so dear is overwhelming, but then the possibility of Japan not being as I remember scares me.  This has resulted in me being left somewhat in a state of indifference towards my trip there.  It has made me re-think what it is about the place that I loved so much.  In fact, people have asked me that same question and my answer has been: “I just like it”.

It was 5am and still dark when our Highway Bus pulled up at Sendai.  The bus ride was comfortable.  We parked our asses at a nearby 24 hr internet/manga café and waited for the sun to rise before calling our Hostel so that we could maybe drop off our baggage.  We learned our lesson from our day in Hikone, we do NOT spend a day carrying our travel packs – that’s a recipe for a sore back and a terrible day.

Annie called the Hostel (which was actually a Ryokan – Japanese Style Inn) and got directions, they also said it was ok to drop our stuff off.  It was only a short bus ride and a 5 minute walk away so we did that.  The hostel was nice looking, I’m not actually sure it was a hostel.  Inside was really nice, and it reflected in the price we paid.  It was the most expensive stay on our entire trip, but luckily we were only there for 1 night so it wasn’t so bad.

We walked back to Sendai Station where all the action was, bit of a mistake as it was a bit tiring of a walk.  I might mention that by Sendai I still had not seen substantial snow. (I say substantial because it DID snow in Hirakata, but like a total of 18 flakes fell).  Sendai’s roads were icy, and slippery, so much so we actually saw a local fall off her bike – aww…  Sendai was also really spacious and open.

When I woke up I felt great, and like I said early, it was the start of my enjoyable travel. We had a quiet one up in the common room of the Hostel that night, Paul, Annie and Chris filling me in about their day out. They had a great time.

The following day Paul, Annie and I got up early to go to the Tsukiji Fish market. We were really tired from the early start, but we got up, took on the cold, and made it to our destination. We had a bit of trouble finding our way in, but soon enough someone pointed us in the right direction. There were all sorts of crazy fish and GIGANTIC tuna! I’ll let the photo’s speak for themselves:

The guys riding on their little cart things were vicious. Everyone was in a hurry and they were, in the end, at work. They needed to be quick and efficient, and so people like us were always in the way. We were constantly looking over our shoulders trying to make sure we didn’t get in their way, but it was tough.

When we got back, we went back to sleep to catch up on the lost rest we had that night. The fish market was awesome.

Tokyo was a riot.

On the first night, upon arrival we met up with Logan and his friend Nathan. Logan is a Kansai Gaidai friend of ours from South Carolina in America, greeeat guy! So much fun. We made our way to our hostel, checked in, dropped our 19837198371982kg’s of luggage and headed out for a bit of a night, some Japanese barbecue and a Wendy’s which didn’t have any meat left so we went to Maccas instead. Shunjuku was alive, lots of things to do and things to see, if we had the time and the energy.

Tokyo is an extremely and ridiculously large city, the likes of which I would claim that if you put every capital city in Australia together, it would STILL be smaller than Tokyo, my guess would be quite a bit smaller too. Tokyo is made up of various districts, districts such as Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku, Ginza, Roppongi…. And the thing I love about Tokyo and its districts is that every district is famous for something different, such as Shinjuku’s nightlife, Shibuya’s shopping, Roppongi’s Nigerian infested nightlife (neutral comment, make of it what you will), Ginza’s the business district, Harajuku’s crazy fashion….

After the shinkansen (I love Shinkansens) ride from Nagoya to Shizuoka (south-west of Fuji) we grabbed some food (tortilini – yummmmmmm) and hopped on some local trains on our way to fuji station. Fuji snuck up on me whilst I was gazing out the train window at the ocean, it literally snuck up on me. I turned around for a second and it was there! They call fuji a “shy” mountain and I can definitely see why. Even on the train it kept ducking out of view behind buildings and the train itself… and when we finally got off the train and rushed to get a good look at it, it was hiding behind clouds. We saw a bit of the snow covered peak through little holes in the clouds but there wasn’t that much we could see.

But what we COULD see was most definitely breath-taking. It just looked as though the earth rose into the clouds, it was most impressive. We asked around at Fuji station for bus information, they said the next bus would rock up in about… 4 hours…. Yeah, not gonna do that.

So we caught a different bus that was supposed to apparently maybe possibly should kind of drop us off somewhere in Japan. Sounds good. We jumped on and it headed up the foothills of Fuji – awesome.

After Tennoji we began our journey to Nagoya, but we decided to take a brief stopover at Hikone to see Hikone Castle. Hikone Castle was supposed to be a little less refurbished than other castles like Osaka Castle (which was a little disappointing to be honest). However, we did overlook one thing: the fact that this was an all day STOPOVER.

Stopover meaning we didn’t make accommodation reservations anywhere in the area, meaning we didn’t have anywhere to drop our 50kg backpacks. This made for an extremely painful and tiring day, however, it was most definitely worth it as we got to see a couple great things.

First thing was of course Hikone Castle which was absolutely amazing. It was a LOT smaller than Osaka castle, however, it was also a LOT more untouched than Osaka Castle.

Ok so first stop of the big trip around Japan was Tennoji in Osaka.  This didn’t feel like such a big deal because it was just Osaka, except – Paul arrived.  So it was a big deal.  It was fun introducing Paul to Japan and attempt to fill him in on what’s to be expected – even taught him a few words.

Now i actually hadn’t been around the Tennoji district in Osaka much before, so it was a little new to me.  I had heard that Tennoji was a bit of a rough area, and it was true.  I’d describe it as the ghetto of Osaka, but it still had its nice parts.  It had character.

So on the first night, Paul and I checked into our hostel, “Peace House Showa”