Big in Japan

Our first week in Japan was spent taking in the bright lights of Tokyo. Our hostel was in Asaskusa, a quiet neighbourhood packed with places to overindulge in Japanese food and home to the Sensoji Temple. On the 3rd February Japan celebrated Setsubun, a festival which welcomes in Spring and frightens away demons and we joined in the festivities at Sensoji.

As well as exploring the temples, parks and streets of Tokyo we also made a trip to the Tsukuji fisho marketo where we got indulge our love of sushi with a 6.30am breakfast of fresh fish.

We also got our fill of culture at the Edo Museum and the Mori Art Museum which opened our eyes to the history of the old city of Edo (which is now Tokyo) and the wonderful Japanese artist, Odani.

After our week in the city, we made the long journey up north by train to the island of Hokkaido for a week of fun in the snow. We headed to Niseko and strapped on some snowboards to enjoy the lovely lovely power we'd heard so much about, and we weren't disappointed. While Kev was lapping up the slopes as much as he could I spent a day in Sapporo to check out the Sapporo Snow Festival. The snow and ice sculptures, some of which were as big as buildings, were just starting to melt but still really impressive and there was plenty of Japanese food stalls to help keep people warmed up.

After our week in the snow we headed back to the island of Honshu and caught a Shinakansen train to Kyoto.

Here we really got to indulge our love of Japanese food! We pretty much spent 8 days restaurant hopping and started off with a gourmet 9-course meal called Kaiseki which included lots of raw fish (including raw prawn), octopus, roe, scallops, beef hot pot, tempura, soy roasted salmon and plum wine.

The Kaiseki meal was followed by many trips to Nishiki food market, lots and lots of udon and soba soup, tempura and more katsu-don than we've ever eaten before. We went sushi mad at a really cheap kaiten (conveyor belt restaurant). At £1 a plate we're ashamed to admit that one trip saw us devouring 20 plates worth of sushi!

We also went a bit temple-mad. Despite visiting Nijo-jo (Kyoto's castle), Kiyomizu-dera, Jishu-jinja (temple dedicated to love), Ginkaku-ji, Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion), Ryoan-ji and Myoshin-ji it was impossible to get bored because they were all so beautiful and impressive. We couldn't be in Kyoto and not visit Gion, the geisha district. On our last morning in Kyoto I dragged Kev around the empty streets trying to catch a glimpse of a real geisha or maiko – I'd seen enough tourists made up as maiko wandering the streets – and managed to see a geisha hurrying away, perhaps on her way to a lunchtime tea ceremony.

We spent the last part of our month in Japan in Osaka. The real highlight was a trip to Osaka Aquarium, one of the largest aquariums in the world, where I got a little overexcited. I didn't think it could get much better after seeing dolphins, seals, a whale shark and all sorts of ray until I saw the big tank of turtles! We finished off our trip with a visit to the plum blossom garden around Osaka's castle.

We had high expectations for Japan and weren't disappointed. We loved Japan, the sights, the people and, of course, the food and were sad to leave. We've already said that we'll be back!

We had a 4-day stopover in Sydney catching up with friends and squeezing in as much as we could before flying to Auckland for 2 short weeks in New Zealand. We're currently making our way around the South Island in a rental car before we head back to the North Island.