We were off to Osaka today. Originally I wanted to visit Osaka Castle early morning when there should be fewer people but my friend wanted to go off to a Virtual Reality conference back in Tokyo so we decided to skip it. It was going to be a pop culture day again because we were going to head straight to Den Den Town which was basically Osakas...

Well, after a day's break of wandering around shops, it was back to touring the land of the rising sun. While I'm a big fan of Japanese games and Anime, I was also interested in Japan's culture thanks to all the TV programmes I grew up watching such as documentaries and travel programmes so I decided we should go visit a rural village while...

Ghibli goods are never far away....

  Don't know how long we walked for but we walked at quite a quick pace and it was supposed to be a 30 min leisurely hike up....

Our destination today was Kyoto because we wanted to see the more traditional side of Japan. Tokyo wasn't always the capital. It's a tradition for wherever the emperor dwells to become the capital and before Tokyo, it was Kyoto. Kyoto was the second capital of Japan between 794 - 1868.   Early morning - well, not really early. Just...

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Update: 16th Oct 2024...

Youkai all over the house. Otoroshi stands guard, a Youkai that goes after trouble makers apparently and won't hesitate to drop its heavy weight on them....

Since our hotel was in Tokyo, I decided we would visit Senso-ji first which was in Asakusa. Always see the temple in travel programmes about Japan with its giant red lanterns. We went out the wrong exit at Shibuya Station on the night we arrived so, we didn't really get to see the famous crossing during the night. This time we did early in...

I grew up with a lot of things from Japan even though I was born in the UK because my relatives would always send VHS tapes full of dubbed Japanese TV programmes and other goodies. For that reason I've always had this amazing image of Japan - a beautiful country where the old and new live in harmony, technology and lots of weird and wonderful...