Time to move on from Sapporo to our other Hokkaido destination, Hakodate. Naturally the weather decides to be spectacular - after a week of not seeing sun, it came out with lots of blue...

About a half-hour train ride from Sapporo, Otaru is a popular side trip for tourists (both Japanese and foreign). It is most famous for 3 things:

This will be a bit different post. Because of timing and weather, the wanderings in Sapporo itself were limited. We always planned to spend a good bit of time at the Sapporo Brewery, but the weather was a disincentive for some of the places we wanted to go; Sapporo is surrounded by a lot of nature which is nice in good weather, but.

Time to move on from Fukuoka where we could have spent more time to further explore Kyushu - more ideas for the future. Next stop on the schedule is Hiroshima, another city neither Nobue or I have visited. Exploring the memories that still linger there is top of mind going there.

Hiroshima is a short hour and 30 minute Shinkansen ride from Hakata station in Fukuoka.

After the Atomic Dome, probably the most visited site around Hiroshima is the ancient shrine, Itsukushima Jinja, with it's huge off-shore bright orange Torii (gate). It takes about 30 minutes by what is essentially a commuter train and a short ferry ride to the island.

Sitting in Narita with hours to kill, I thought I'd try to get one more post out. I'm way behind, but I decided it is time to give my audience what they really want, some FOOD PORN...

Travel to Osaka was a short Shinkansen hop from Hiroshima. The trip was made to feel longer by the accumulated exhaustion catching up to us after a week of ambitious tourism and lots of walking in not always gentle terrains. Our energy level results in not much tourism stuff and fewer pictures.

As I wrote before, Osaka is a good place for side trips. Since we've been to Kyoto and Nara many times, we decided to go to Kobe where we've never been.