Heading back to Japan…

It seems the wanderlust got the better of us sooner than expected! We’ve been back in Aus for just a few months and are already heading back out into the wide blue yonder to seek out some more adventure, wonder and excitement. The opportunity arose for us to take a couple of weeks off and we decided to head to Japan to explore some of the remoter reaches of Hokkaido – the Northern-most island within the Japanese archipelago. We absolutely LOVED Japan last time we were here and couldn’t wait to head back there for more! We have a rough itinerary planned out, with key stops along the way shown on the map below. It’s only a short trip (at least compared to our last 210-day soujourn!), but hopefully it’s enough to satisfy our need for adventure…. at least for a little while. Our goals for the next 17 days are simple:

1. Enjoy more of the wonderfully quirky experience that is modern Japanese culture.
2. Visit some of Japan’s tiniest towns and hike through some of the most remote wilderness left in Japan.
3. Eat some awesome, wonderful and vaguely terrifying Japanese cuisine.

Our plan for the next 15 days.

Meeting these goals started with a very long travel day (like all international adventures that begin in Aus): a 5:00am alarm, a taxi ride to the airport where at least the taxi driver was awake (coz we sure weren’t), 2 hours of mind-numbing boredom waiting around at Brisbane airport, 10 hours of butt-numbing boredom on a plane (interspersed with a couple of melas that were at least edible if not delicious), 1 hour of complete sensory overload at Seoul’s Incheon Airport (Korean Air is AWESOME to fly with by the way), another 3 hours on a plane, and, FINALLY, touch-down at Chitose Airport. Back on foreign soil at last – YAY! It’s now close to midnight and we’ve happily ensconced in our tiny hotel room in Sapporo, refamiliarising ourselves with the joys of Japanese “business hotels” and “semi-double” beds (i.e. something that’s almost a double bed and, therefore, almost big enough for 2 people). Tomorrow the reall fun begins… for now though we wish you all oyasumi nasai.

Heading for Japan to go hiking in Hokkaido.