Blogs from Nakano , Tokyo, Japan, Asia

Every time we head off to Japan we go with Jetstar as they offer some fantastic deals so this time was no different. Except we were offered the opportunity to update to Business Class from Cairns to Narita which we took up. Having, two weeks earlier arrived back home from Copenhagen via London and Singapore - which entailed about 24 hours on a plane - the thought of a Business Class flight, even though it was a journey of only just over seven hours, was too good to be true. Very enjoyable! Arriving at Narita - Tokyo's biggest Airport - around 7pm we were met by Ross and Natsumi and whisked off for the long walk to where a car Ross had hired from a company called Awayca awaited. Just like the Airbnb model, both users ... read more

Something about Japan makes me happy. We arrived tired, hungry and so thirsty (thanks AirAsia for making passengers pay for everything including water) but we were still happy. We landed too late to take the train to any reasonably priced accommodation so we slept in the airport, and still we were happy. Sleeping in airports isn't the best way to feel wide awake and ready for adventure in the morning, but something about Japan gets us excited enough to not care that we got a total of three hours of interrupted sleep. It’s not one specific aspect about Japan that makes us love it, it’s all of wrapped up in one neat, efficient, playful, kind and beautiful package. The instances that make me love Japan flooded back the moment we got off the plane. Japan takes ... read more

I’ve had some amazing summers in my 27 years. I remember summer days on break from elementary school spent at home with my sister and the neighborhood kids riding our bikes through everyone’s yard, looking for the biggest hill or drop-off, searching for what we could label as the “splash mountain” of the neighborhood. There was the summer we realized the huge tree kitty-corner to our house had limbs strong enough for us to slide down them, bending and shooting us into someone’s backyard. We spent hours waiting for the Popsicle man, ran home when we were called to dinner only to find the front doorknob was too hot to handle from heating up in direct sunlight - turning it one rotation to get into the house was always a challenge I think I made my ... read more