TravelBio

Hello again! I know it's been awhile since my latest series of Tokyo day-trip posts, but I still have a few more to fill you in on. After several months of working from home 4-5 days a week and avoiding late night entertainment, I'm starting to get my social life back. That means less time for the blog, but more sanity for me.  Right now it's a long weekend in Japan, or in other words a good opportunity for another post. Monday is Mountain Day; Japan's newest holiday is intended to provide "opportunities to get familiar with mountains and appreciate blessings from mountains" (read more here ). Do we really need a day off to appreciate mountains? I'm not complaining, I'll take the day off, but it's up there on my list of strange holidays (Turkmenistan's Melon Day is my top pick). If you are following the global COVID-19 picture, you may know that the number of cases in Japan has increased recently--actually there are more daily cases now than d

Back in early May I took a day trip to Atami, a town in Shizuoka prefecture along the northeastern shores of the Izu Peninsula. From my apartment in Yoyogiuehara it took me about two hours and twenty minutes by train, with one stop at Fujisawa Station. I could have transferred to the Shinkansen (bullet train) and cut the time down to an hour and twenty, but that would have turned a $15 train ride into over $40 one way. So in the interest of cost I stuck with the local lines. Atami lies along the bullet train line running from Tokyo to Shizuoka and on to Nagoya and Osaka, further west In late May some attractions reopened and people began to return to their offices, but when I went to Atami many businesses were still shut due to Covid-19. Japan never had a strict lockdown, so trains were still running, albeit with a fraction of the normal crowds. That was one unexpected benefit of the pandemic--spacious public transport and peaceful streets in the normally hectic center o

In late April I took another day trip on the weekend, this time to a town called Tsuchiura, in Ibaraki prefecture. Tsuchiura is about 60 kilometres northeast of Tokyo, along the shores of Lake Kasumigaura. From my apartment it took me two hours by rail, transferring once in Kita-Senju. Taking the JR part way would have cut down the time by 20-30 minutes but add an extra 1,000 yen each way, so I decided to go the (slightly) slower route. Not sure why this says 49 minutes from Tokyo but then around 60 minutes to Tokyo Station. Anyway, I took local trains After I transferred to the Joban Line, the train made its way out of the city itself, through the still densely populated suburbs and eventually past open fields with the occasional rice paddy. Even as we approached Tsuchiura, the areas around the train stations had shops and apartment complexes--this wasn't exactly the middle of nowhere countryside of Japan. After reaching Tsuchiura Station, I walked to Kawaguchiu

  In April a buddy and I rented a car and dove to the five lakes region, which is just north of Mt. Fuji. My friend also got his masters at UC San Diego, in the same program, and came to Japan on a one year contract. Luckily he has an international driver's permit, since it is required for foreigners to rent a car (unless they have a local license). I should have gotten one before I came here; it's an easy process in the US--the permit is essentially just verifying your US license and translated into a bunch of other languages--but I haven't found any way to get it here in Japan. I was happy to take the passenger seat and let my friend do the driving. He wanted to drive too, since he had a car back in San Diego and missed being behind the wheel. This was the second time we'd done a day trip rental (we also went to the Chiba peninsula), so he was more comfortable driving on the left side. He said one of the hardest things to get used to was the blinker--aka ind