Before we even flew to New Zealand, we were required to have an outbound flight due to visa rules. We ended up having to do this at 4:30am before our flight to Auckland, so made a quick decision that we’d come back to Australia after our time in NZÂ and explore Sydney since Shawn’s never been. We arrived midday and checked into our Airbnb with our lovely hosts, Jessica & Ben and their amazing dog, Zoey, in the super hip neighborhood…
We left Kyoto and headed for Osaka on Saturday, which, it turns out, is only an hour away by train. Also, why did we decide that five days in Osaka was a good idea? Oh yeah, that’s because EVERY RYOKAN IN NARA OR ELSEWHERE WAS BOOKED. So we said fuck it. We’ll take it easy for our last few days – eat all our favorite food, see some sites, take a day trip or two. So that’s what we did….
After a long journey, we arrived in Kyoto on Monday evening. Tuesday, we set out to explore the sites of the city. Our first stop was Higashi Honganji, a temple right near our hostel. Kyoto has a much more traditional feel to it, so we wandered around the streets exploring random temples and shrines, and just taking in the sights. We also had a delicious tsukemen lunch. The next day, we went to Arashiyama, which is west of Kyoto and…
Hokkaido was incredible and I want to call out a few highlights that weren’t really mentioned: We ate something called Jingisukan (named after Ghengis Khan), which is lamb meat that you cook on this grill on your table. It was delicious. And yes, we are eating mammal on this trip. It’s too hard to avoid in Asia. The fall colors. They were just starting to appear, but what we did get to see was worth it. Visiting an onsen. Even…