WINTER VACATION: 11 days in Japan

Citron Ramen, Osaka

This winter after finishing my Korean course at SNU I had to return to school for one week in February as the 3rd grade students (9th grade in the U.S.) graduated from middle school. After moving back into my apartment in Daegu and saying goodbye to my wonderful 3rd graders it was off again to meet my friend, C, in Cheonan (a city right below Seoul) before traveling to Japan together.

We had scheduled 11 days there during what is known in Korea as 'spring break' — a three week period after graduation and before the start of the new school year in March. We chose to purchase the Japan Rail Pass as we wanted to see as much as possible without worrying too much about transportation. It was absolutely worth it and easily paid for itself during our time there. We bought the 14 day pass and I highly recommend it to anyone traveling in Japan. The high speed trains were efficient, clean and comfortable and with the rail pass we could choose to reserve a seat on trains going almost anywhere in Japan or simply show up and find a seat in the unreserved car. This saved us a lot of time and we never had to worry about getting seats or missing our train. The only drawback was reserving tickets which had to be done at a Japan Rail train station, but even there the staff were very helpful. Finally, the pass also let us ride free on city subway lines owned by Japan Rail in Kyoto and in Tokyo — a huge time and money saver.

Our schedule was split into several sections:

• First, we arrived in Osaka (Kansai Airport) and took the train that night to Kyoto. We spent 3 nights and 2 full days in Kyoto, leaving on the 3rd day for the south.
• From Kyoto we took a variety of trains to reach Tadanoumi a tiny town above Hiroshima from which we could take a ferry to Okunoshima, also known as rabbit island.
• After visiting rabbit island, we continued on to Hiroshima where we spent 2 nights and 1 full day. 
• From Hiroshima we took the high speed train north to Yokohama (the second largest city of Japan, which sits just below Tokyo). There we met a friend of C's who was enrolled in a year-long intensive Japanese program at the language institute there. We spent 3 days in Yokohama and Tokyo.
• Next we took the train north-west to Nagano where we caught a further, local train followed by a bus to Shibu Onsen, a traditional onsen (hot spring bath) resort town. We stayed there just one night, making time to visit Jigokudani Yaenkoen, the only place in the world where monkeys relax in hot springs, and time to enjoy the hot spring-fed baths ourselves. 
• We returned to Yokohama and Tokyo for just one day before heading back to Osaka to complete our trip.

The trip was a lot of fun and a good balance between seeing the history, pop culture and natural features of Japan. I will focus in on a few of the highlights in further posts.