From Sept 7, Japan will become a little bit easier to enter. Negative Covid test 72 hours prior to boarding the flight to Japan will no longer be necessary and the daily cap of entry quota will be increased (more information on this article). This has been much anticipated as many transit visitors were "passing" … Continue reading One step closer for Japan to reopen
We have recently returned from 3 nights 4 days Chubu region road trip where we visited: Toyama city and Iwase area in Toyama prefecture and Shirakawa, Gifu prefectureAwara onsen , Fukui prefectureYamashiro onsen town, Ishikawa prefecture In this post, I’ll share the second half of our trip.(For the first half of the trip where we … Continue reading Japan Sea and onsen road trip Part 2 : Ishikawa, Fukui and Toyama
A public holiday on April 29th 2022 started the “Golden Week” in Japan where taking Monday May 1 and Friday May 6 creates a 10 days off extra long weekend. (Please read my previous blog to learn more about the Golden Week). This year was the first in 3 years without any restrictions set due … Continue reading Japan Sea and onsen road trip Part 1 : Toyama and Shirakawa
Baseball is the most watched sports both on TV and live in Japan.So much so, even high school baseball tournament is aired on TV. Baseball tournament continued with no spectators followed by limited spectators during the pandemic. Now that there are no restrictions and the baseball season started at the end of March, we headed … Continue reading Play ball! Watching baseball game at Tokyo Dome
Last weekend, we visited the Kinki region to view the cherry blossoms. To start, we caught the shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto and caught 2 Kintetsu railway trains to 吉野山 (Yoshino mountain). Note: For Kintetsu railway, additional charge applies to reserve seats. About Yoshino Mountain in Nara Yoshino Mountain's cherry trees have been protected for … Continue reading Cherry blossom season in Kyoto, Nara and Shiga
We took last Friday off to celebrate our wedding anniversary💒 and decided to visit Nagano/Gunma prefectures for what we love: good food🍴, nature🌳 and onsen♨️. Start with good food at a rare cured ham maker in Japan On Friday, we visited 高山村 (Takayama Village) 45 minutes drive east from Nagano train station. A population of … Continue reading Anniversary trip to Nagano and Gunma
My friend wanted to go skiing so we decided to revisit Nozawa Onsen in Nagano from Friday night to Sunday for 2 days ski trip just before the snow starts to melt. Out of the many ski resorts that are easily accessible from Tokyo, we decided to visit Nozawa Onsen again as we enjoyed our … Continue reading February skiing weekend at Nozawa Onsen
February 11 is 建国記念日 (Kenkoku kinenbi) or Japan's National Foundation Day (more on that from my previous blog where I explained the history about this day). The long weekend made it a perfect opportunity for us to venture afield to explore Japan. As I searched for (relatively) affordable last minute ski trip, I came across … Continue reading Flying off to Furano for skiing
Last weekend, instead of snoozing through most of the morning, my husband and I hopped on our bikes to the Imperial Palace for a jog. A loop around the Imperial Palace is an iconic 5km run popular from beginners to experienced runners (I saw a guy running wearing a "100km finisher" Tshirt during my run!). … Continue reading Iconic Imperial Palace Run’s Interesting Inception
2022 has started with new experiences from making dashi or Japanese broth from scratch (if you missed it, please read the previous week's blog about how to make dashi). Within a week, I turned 180 degrees and revisited the past; where I visited 鹿児島 (Kagoshima) where my dad is from. My sister and I often … Continue reading Coming home to Kagoshima
Native Expat 