Japan Trip 2026: The Highlights

In 1992 I first visited Japan. I actually lived in Japan in the early 2000s. Then in 2016 I was invited to Japan again. So my trip in March of 2026 marks the fourth decade I have travelled to Japan. This posts summarizes where I went and what I did and links to more detailed accounts I’ve already written.

This trip I took over 1000 photos. Bandwidth used to be more expensive and I used to have less money so considerably less photos have appeared online from the 90s or early 2000s but I did dig up some new ones to finally share online. In 2016 when I visited Hokkaido for the second time I apparently took over two hundred photos in just a few days, but most have not appeared online and I’m a Flickr Pro.

The fact I pay for both webhosting for this domain and for a Flickr Pro account implies I should upload more photos to the Internet so this trip I did. The best photos will also appear in this post as that is what people really care about, not the written word.

Planning

Planning, we’re still talking about planning? Actually very little time will be spent talking about planning as I did not do as much as I did for my trip to Scotland, however I did do some research online and I bought and read two books. This includes probably the third copy of the Lonely Planet Japan I’ve purchased. I think I had one in 1992 and probably in 2004, but perhaps not whatever edition was available in 2016. Once again I left my Lonely Planet behind in Japan where it may help a future traveller.

Touring Twelve Distilleries

This was the second to last post I wrote, so it will either be the most popular or the least. It will appeal to discerning individuals with impeccable taste and a willingness to leave the tourist hotspots of Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka behind to travel the less trodden path; from the Westernmost part of Saitama to the deep South of rural Kyushu. If you’re feeling brave, bold, and thirsty, this is the blog post for you.

I assure you it took some planning to tour twelve distilleries in Japan, luckily I outsourced the planning to Rascal + Thorn. You would have already known that if you’d read the blog post about planning.

K is for Kyushu, Kagoshima and Kumamoto

Kyushu is the Southernmost of Japan’s four major islands and the only one I had not visited. I had already visited Hokkaido twice and even made it to Shinjuku, but never further South than that. Kagoshima literally has a volcano, you’ll see it in a lot of my pictures. Kumamoto has the most famous mascot in Japan and Fukuoka supposedly has the largest entertainment district in Japan.

However as Kyushu isn’t Tokyo, Kyoto, or Osaka you probably don’t care. Also for the record Fukuoka has two k’s in it.

Chillaxing In Nara Japan

Japan’s first permanent capital was not Tokyo, nor was it Kyoto, it was in fact Nara. Nara was the capital of Japan during its namesake period from 710 to 794. So although Tokyo and Kyoto are bigger and were the capital of Japan longer, Nara still has a lot of history, temples, and shrines. It is also a lot smaller than Tokyo or even Kyoto so it is much easier to see on foot.

For the record you can indeed feed the deer they are easy to find in Nara Park. Nara is definitely worth a visit even if you do it as a day trip from Kyoto or Osaka.

Returning to Toyohashi

When I lived in Japan it was not in a world famous city like Tokyo, Kyoto or Osaka. I took the first teaching job I was offered and I lived in Toyohashi which even the Japanese don’t seem to know a lot about. It is in Aichi prefecture near Nara. What Toyohashi is famous for is being basically the port where Toyota exported a lot of cars to the rest of the world.

Toyohashi is also on the shinkansen route so anyone travelling from Tokyo to Kyoto or Osaka passes right through it. The most famous thing to do is visit during one of the major festivals but as an actual stop on the shinkansen line and a more industrial part of Japan there are lots of little bars and restaurants near the train station a few of them including one ramen shop I still rave about may have become famous as the Internet has gotten bigger.

Did you visit Tokyo?

Of course I visited Tokyo. I’ve been to Tokyo at least a half dozen times. However this may be the first time I’ve written an entire blog post about Tokyo and I’ve been using WordPress for over twenty years. What I used to do in Tokyo was shop, mainly for books and CDs but also for items not easy to find in Toyohashi. I even once travelled to Tokyo to write an exam.

No exams were written on this trip, but I did submit my final project for my Python for Finance class just before leaving. I didn’t get the results until I was midway through the penultimate blog post of this series, but for the record I did pass, however you probably don’t want to read about that. I even already registered for my next professional development course while drinking in Nara, because I’m a professional.

Tokyo gets a third paragraph because it still may be the world’s largest city. There is probably a bigger one in Asia, but it isn’t as nice. Tokyo is indeed too big, so it is better to think of each major neighbourhood as its own smaller city. This trip I didn’t do much shopping, but we did a lot of drinking and eating. Tokyo is one of the great cities in the world for drinking, shopping, and eating, however it does have historical sites as well as art and culture. I really need to visit Tokyo and Japan again, maybe next decade.

Traveling in Japan Advice

I was going to write more about the optimal usage of rail passes in Japan or the best way to get your mobile phone working while you’re a tourist in Japan. However, I never had time to research those topics exhaustively before I left, others have of course done this, but did they visit twelve distilleries? I took a lot of trains while on this trip to Japan, most of the time I paid the premium to use the shinkansen, this premium can come on top of your JR Rail pass if you opt to buy one. Another oddity is you basically need two tickets to take the shinkansen.

In Japan you can get basically a mobile wireless device that runs on a battery, someone else in my tour group may have had one of those. You can also get e-sims. It probably pays to shop around, but I’m not going to recommend any service. You may need to do either of these things in the airport when you arrive. At the hotel in Tokyo I stayed at before leaving Japan, they advertised the former service. You can also just turn on roaming from your mobile provider back home and see how much the bill comes to, that is what I ended up doing. There is also free WiFi all over Japan, even on the shinkansen, but the quality of the connection varies.

One thing I will recommend is the airport limousine, basically an express bus to the airport. The problem being when your plane lands it may not be running. There are of course trains and the subway but if you have a lot of luggage, which a lot of people in my tour group did, the airport limousine is nice as porters help you load and unload your bags. Researching this and factoring it into your hotel choice in Tokyo or another major city would be a wise thing to do. Japan also has luggage forwarding services.

Where to next?

It will be a while before I take another trip to Japan or anywhere. This one was not cheap, then I paid my taxes and then I paid tuition to Fitch Learning. We’ll see if I can complete the CQF in a timely manner, I probably will not take another trip this long until that is finished. If you really want to read more about my travels I suggest starting with the summary of my trip to Scotland or the summary of one of my trips to China. If you still want more travelogs I’ve collected the best travelogs into one post. Of course you can leave a comment about my trip or your trip to Japan.

This entry was originaly posted on April 18th, 2026, it was last edited on April 18th, 2026 and is filed under: Travel and tagged: Japan, Tour, Whisky.