On November 16, 2013, Eric and I left Misawa to make our way to Tokyo for the first stop on our 13 day/12 night adventure around Japan. We traveled to Tokyo by overnight bus, which ended up being about a 12 hour trip. Bus drivers are required by law to stop 15 minutes for every two hours of driving so the trip was a bit tedious. Besides being tedious (we thought we could deal with tedium because it was half the cost of a train or plane ticket to Tokyo), it was comfortable with the exception of one MAJOR problem...the heat had to have been cranked up to about 80 degrees!! We were so uncomfortably hot for the first four or so hours. We did not want to complain because all of the other people on the bus appeared to be comfortable; even having blankets pulled up to their chins! But I had literally started to sweat through my shirt and could only be comfortable by pressing myself up against the glass window. Eric was trying to be a trooper (I think to help prevent me from having a heat-induced meltdown complicated by pregnancy). We left Misawa at 8pm and at around midnight someone else must have finally said something because it started to feel like it was cooling off. The remaining 8 hours were just fine and we arrived safely (and promptly) in Tokyo at 7am on Novermber 17th.
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| Waiting for our bus at Misawa Train Station |
The trip was absolutely incredible! To plan it we went through a tour company called
Backyard Travel and we couldn't have been happier with their services. When we arrived in Tokyo at 7am, a representative met us at the bus station and escorted us to our hotel. Once we arrived and checked in, she sat down with us and provided a packet of train tickets and hotel information, which had all been reserved in advance. She also provided maps and suggestions of how to spend our time in each city as well as alternative day trip options based on our locations. For some cities, the company provided public transportation passes ahead of time and for others they provided information about how the local transportation system operated. They also scheduled a personal tour guide for one of our days in Tokyo and for a half day in Kyoto. Aside from our set arrival and departure times to and from each city and our 1.5 days of tour guides, the rest of the time was ours to use as we pleased. For us, it was the perfect stress-free way to travel. Here is what our final itinerary looked like:
Tokyo: 3 days/3 nights
Kiso Valley considered the "
Japanese Alps": 2 days/1 night- arrived in Tsumago and hiked to Magome with an overnight stop at a traditional Japanese Ryokan in between.
Takayama: 2.5 days/2 nights
Kanazawa: 1.5 days/1 night
Kyoto: 2.5 days/3 nights
Hiroshima 1.5 days/2 nights
Backyard Travel even thought of the little things like making sure to reserve us seats in either the very front or very back of each train car so we would have extra room. They were amazing and their efforts resulted in the most amazing trip ever! I am going to blog about each stop separately because otherwise it would be the longest blog entry in the history of blogging (and I already have a track record for long entries...)!
Stay tuned!
