SlishaCrazy

Tokyo is a mishmash of a number of things. It's pretty with lovely gardens. It's busy at all its train stations. It's futuristic with its neon displays and technology. It's weird with its maid cafes and love hotels. It's cute with its pop and cosplay cult. It's warm with people willing to help you even if they have no idea what you are talking about. It's a bit hard to decide whether I like it or not. Most people I know find it very impressive and overwhelming. For some reason, I found it slightly underwhelming. Dare I say this to anyone because you are expected to fall in love with Tokyo almost immediately. May be my expectations were clouded by people who visited many years ago. Tokyo apparently hasn't changed much in the last decade or so. I can imagine visiting it 10 years ago when I would be blown out of my mind by the technology or the subculture. But now, the world is fast catching up. Or may be I just kept upping my expectations of the the ...

From Kyoto, we wanted to visit the Japanese Alps in Gifu prefecture. We had booked accommodation for one night in Takayama and the next in Matsumoto using them as connectors. Now, the fastest way to get to Takayama using JR pass was to take a Shinkansen half way and a JR rail for the rest, reaching in 2.5 hours (timed correctly). Instead we opted for the longer, more scenic bus route. After all, the fun is in the journey and not the destination. And another similar way of travelling to Matsumoto. Itinerary details: Kyoto -- (train) --> Kanazawa -- (bus) --> Shirakawago -- (bus) --> Takayama (night stay) -- (bus) --> Shinhotaka Ropeway -- (bus) -- Hirayu Onsen (change) -- (bus) --> Kamikochi -- (bus) --> Matsumoto (night stay) -- (train) --> Kofu (change) -- (bus) --> Kawaguchiko for Mt Fuji -- (bus) -- Ostuki (change) -- (train) --> Tokyo Having visited so many places in the 3 days, we only saw the highlights in...

Kyoto at first seems like a beautiful cute little town. It's actually a sprawling city. But for tourists that cute little town is all that we need. It sits snugly in the valley between many hills. Kyoto is super easy for tourists to navigate as long as you can read and write English. Many restaurants would have menus in many other languages as well. Many tourists rent kimonos and samurai clothes and walk around the city dressed in the gear to make for some nice pictures. For the rest of us, these tourists provide an atmosphere of tradition. The city has an insane number of temples and some shrines and one really needs to decide which ones to visit, otherwise you'll just be lost. We were in Kyoto for three full days and were not very productive on our first day because of jetlag and continuous rain. Just a bit of background: Shrines are temples of the Shinto religion which is the traditional religion before Buddhism came into Japan. Japan saw phases of acceptance of B...

So many people have so many stories about Japan that we were so excited to go there! Especially, because we were going to a traditional Japanese reception of our dear friend's wedding. When we started to plan our itinerary, we had no idea what we wanted to see. It took us a while just to orient ourselves to the culture and geography of the country. Planning can be daunting so I thought I should begin with some basic information that could be useful to another traveller. Here I also have our itinerary as well as alternatives that some of our friends who were there for the reception planned. Generic pic to bright up the blog (and really, I took it on my phone): Travel essentials: Pocket WiFi: the concept is pretty good. It's a WiFi router you can take with you (like JioFi in India) and it doubles as a power bank. You can rent it at the airport when you arrive and return when you leave. We didn't take one because our Airbnbs had one we could use, apart from the...

Iceland reminds us that nature is magnificently fascinating! This blogpost, I shall be writing as I experience it rather than after the trip because I realise that sometimes we need to capture our immediate responses to nature. (After writing the entire blogpost, now I have a word to describe Iceland - otherworldly.) I always thought of chasing the sun westwards. For example, my London to Seattle flight would only seem 2 hours long due to timezones, or my Amsterdam to London flight may even travel a few mins back in time. But I never even considered that it is possible to chase the sun northwards. Our flight took off around 9.30pm. Ordinarily, my tropical childhood would suggest that 9.30pm is night. But in June, in London, the sun was nearing the horizon with a 30min journey left before darkness descends. It had taken me a few summers to adjust to that. Our flight continued to chase this setting sun, not allowing it to touch the horizon. We landed in Iceland at 11pm (midnight in...