Welcome to my Japan blog!

My name is Lauren, I'm 21 and live in Southern California. I am an avid travel, but usually stick close to home. I write about those experiences at my other blog here: In July of 2007, however, I took my first overseas trip. My boyfriend/photographer and I took a two week trip to Japan.

We chose to document our trip in a day-by-day way, with as much information and photos as we could bear to post after a long day of sight seeing. Within the posts you will hopefully find a lot of useful information and inspiration for your own travels to this wonderful country. I've also included a Fact and Fiction/Tips and Insights to help even more.

Since the blog is filled with so many photos, it may be difficult to navigate. These links will take you right to the location we went that day, hopefully helping you find the information you need. Please enjoy!

Arriving in Tokyo

Tokyo

Tokyo2

Tokyo 3

Kyoto

Kyoto 2

Kyoto 3

Osaka Matsuri Festival

Himeji Castle and Kobe

Nara

Yokohama

Yokohama 2

Yokohama 3

Fact and Fiction, Tips and Insight

Konichiwa!

We arrived at the Narita airport at about 5pm last night.... that's 1 am our time. Getting through customs, baggage claim, and onto the right train was surprisingly easy. However, our good luck wore out after we got off the train in Shinjuku. We had to get to the Shinjuku New City Hotel, and had trouble finding information on how to get there. We gave up and tried to get a taxi, we had the address, but the first cabbie we tried to communicate with gave up. On the second try, an English speaking passerby was nice enough to help. He called the hotel from his cell phone, and the hotel told the cab driver how to get there. 660 yen later, we were "home".

Luckily, because of our flight time, we were able to acclimate to the time change (16+ hours) very easily. We woke up at about 5:30 this morning and were ready to face our first day in Japan. Since we had so much trouble getting to the hotel, we decided to walk around and try to get a grasp of things. We had an aim of a "Shinjuku walking tour" from our Japan book, but ended up walking past the right street three times.... maybe we will finally find it this afternoon. We ended up wandering Shinjuku for 3 hours, just seeing what was around.

Our view from our hotel room:



hotel room:


TINY bathroom:


Our first experience with English (toilet seat cover)


Photos from walking around:

there are a lot of bikes here, most of them aren't even locked, people just respect each other and don't steal their bikes (cue Mike Tyson punch out theme)




Second Engrish found






You have no idea how many times I thought I was about to see an accident because they drive on the right side of the road here




There are a ton of just awesome cars here. There is a whole group of cars that are in the same class as the Scion Xb, like this Nissan


The best way to get around Shinjuku is by landmark. We can see this building from our hotel room, here is another view


The Japanese are known for their strange toilets




















Pillows


Engrish hats










Little sanctuary in the middle of the big city




This is a French restaurant that my sister used to work at, slightly different menu here


Underground mall


even more bikes




There must be an election coming up or something, we saw this guy standing on top of a truck talking, and two women going around in their own trucks




Another funky little car




We found this traditional style ally surrounded by big, hip stores


yeah, another cool car


looking down at a park




This is one of two American vehicles we saw, the other was a Chevy Astro van








happy, naked people


and we're back!