Traveling Through Honshu
Our family trip for the end of 2024 has began and now coming to an end, so lets recap.
Our mother and her group of friends flew into Narita Airport on November 29, we took a shuttle from Narita to Haneda to transfer to Hokkaido. While not the most conventional way to get around it was what we had to do to make things work.
Like magic when our mother arrived the sky opened up and the snow started to fall. It was more then enough to cover the ground and give them a “white Christmas” type of feeling.
The primary goal of this trip was to shop. Mostly for Christmas presents and of course to sightsee a little.
We had a small get together with our cousins to celebrate Thanksgiving and went around the Otaru Canal a few times. When the time came we took a plane from Hokkaido to Osaka. Being that I haven’t flown far in a while, this was the longest plane ride I have taken in over three years. While it wasn’t scary or anything, it was most uncomfortable, so this posed the question how will I handle a visit home?
Arriving at Kansai Airport, we got the largest van I have ever driven in Japan. We started our one hour journey to Kyoto where we would call the Hotel M, home for the trip.
WE of course stopped at Nara to play with the Deer, buy some omiyage and then we headed to Kyoto to stop at Kiyo-mizu dera. Honestly it’s a beautiful area but so much people it’s hard to navigate.
Walking around Kyoto and Osaka was fun and being able to spend time with our cousin and mom was great.
At the end of our Kyoto leg of the trip we headed via Shinkansen to Hiroshima. Picked up our car and headed to Suo-Oshima, Yamaguchi, the homeland of our mother. This is where we met our cousins families for the first time, and our mom met her cousin for the first time. It was truly an amazing opportunity that I’m glad worked out the way it did.
In Hiroshima we visited the Peace Museum which was a very eye opening moment. It really highlighted the horrific nature that humans can be. But on a more positive note the Christmas displays throughout the city were amazing, to say the least.
At the end of our Hiroshima trip we headed to Tokyo to get ready for departure. The night in Tokyo was fun, lots of fun and some last minute shopping. We parted ways with the Aunties and our mom and us went to stay at our friends house.
We are here until Friday when we will part ways with our mom and await her return in March of 2025. But until then, that has been our trip thus far. Busy, busy busy.
Until the next one.
