Progress on the trip

So on July 30th, 2010, Eddie and I will embark on a (little under) three week trip to Japan! :D

I don't know how it started out; we were on the phone and Eddie mentioned he wanted to go to Japan with me, and I mentioned how I'd loooove to go there, and suddenly we were making real plans and eventually booking flights and hostels.

Like I said, we will leave from Schiphol Amsterdam on July 30th at around 5:30 pm, and we will arrive at Tokyo Narita at around 10:30 am on July 31st.

We will stay in Tokyo for the first few days, staying at the Sakura Jinbocho hostel on the 31st and the 1st and then moving on to the Sakura Ikebukuro hostel, where we will be staying until the 6th.

On August 6th, we will travel to Osaka, staying at Osaka J-Hoppers for three nights. While we're there, we will also visit Koyasan, a beautiful mountain nearby with Buddhist temples and a Buddhist cemetery at the top.

On August 9th, we will travel on to Nara, known for its beautiful old temples. We were going to stay at a ryokan there, but all those cute little ryokan were booked full, so we'll be staying at the Nakata B&B.

On August 11st, we're traveling to Kobe, where we will stay at the Kitagami Hotel for one night, before traveling on to Himeji Castle and Hiroshima the next day.

In Hiroshima, we will of course visit the A-bomb memorials, but also the beautiful toorii gate on Miyajima which is a picture on this blog.

On August 15th, we will be traveling to Kyoto, to watch the celebrations during the Obon festival. And on August 17th, we will travel back to Tokyo (making a trip to the Ghibli museum from there), from which we will depart for home on August 19th, hopefully feeling tired but satisfied!