Musings

Continuing on for Day 05: Osaka Castle Park next. Unlike Himeji Castle that we’d just visited yesterday on Day 04, Osaka Castle is a reconstruction: building of it first started in 1583, then when completed, it was attacked and partially

Our initial plans for Day 05 of this trip included an early morning visit to Arashiyama to see the bamboo forest before the inevitable crowds come in, followed by a return back to Kyoto Station to move onto Osaka for

While Himeji Castle was very pretty on the outside and offering varied perspectives there but not nearly as interesting on the inside for us, Koko-en was a different thing altogether: the garden was drop-dead gorgeous through and through! Just look

Himeji Castle is a historical site that shows up in all manner of travel brochures, and also probably the singularly most popular attraction in the city of Himeji. In fact, it’s not uncommon to read of travel advisories encouraging tourists

Of the several cities we’re visiting using Kyoto as a base and over Days 01 to Day 06, the furthest we’re traveling to in this first segment is Himeji, which is a good 130 kilometers away from Kyoto. The 4

The kids had their morning harassing cute animals. So, for the afternoon itinerary in Kobe, it was the wife’s turn to go nuts. Kobe is home to one of Japan’s largest herb gardens – Kobe Herb Garden – and comprises

As long as we’re taking family vacations with young kids, the itinerary still needs to be filled with activities that will appeal and engage them. As lovely as the scenery was at the Philosopher’s Walk or Ubi Prefecture Park, our

There were two further-on spots in Uji that we listed in the itinerary: Byodo-in Temple, and also Uji Prefecture Park. The former requires an admission fee just to enter the grounds and not just the temple – unlike Todaji Temple

Uji is a small city that sits between Kyoto and Nara. We didn’t visit this city in our 2010 trip, and thus included it in for this year. And we’re glad we did! Uji is particularly famous for its Green

There are two small Japanese gardens that visitors walking towards Todaji Temple will go past: Isuien, Yoshikien Garden. Both are literally beside each other, separated by fences. We visited both in 2010, and liked the latter more – so that

We didn’t have a heavy itinerary on Day 1 yesterday. But likely because we all didn’t manage much sleep on the flight to Nagoya, were all completely knocked out as soon as it was lights out at the end of

A scan of our Facebook friends’ feeds quickly shows how popular Japan is as a travel destination this time round – no doubt again on account that a lot of Singaporeans really want to have their vacations in Japan before