Japan

Sunset at Hinomisaki, Izumo

Japan 2025

So I visited Japan again in the later half of October 2025. Unlike my previous trip in 2024, this trip was kind of booked without much plans in mind. Back when booking the flights, I only knew I wanted to explore Kansai region and maybe visit Tottori & Hokuei, the Detective Conan’s author’s hometown. But during the planning, things happened and I followed where the train lines took me and ended up exploring many parts of Chūgoku region. In a way, I loved going to places where it was less travelled by foreign travellers, since I was forced to use my Japanese language skills.

My travel plan started at the least populated region (Tottori) and slowly went to more and more dense areas and ended at Osaka. In the process, I found appreciation to many places that I had never even heard about before the trip, such as Matsue, Izumo, Kurashiki, and Okayama.

Japan 2024

I finally went to Japan! It was really nice. I found myself enjoying through both the ups and downs. Many things happened in the planning and execution of the trip. In this post I reflect on what happened, what I enjoyed and not, what I learned, and what I hope to do next.

Ideation

The initial idea was sparked many years ago (maybe it was 2019?), thrown around occassinally when chatting with Leo or with the Unyu group. But that idea stuck at being just an idea as there was no more concrete planning that happened since then. Also the Covid travel restrictions happened so I couldn’t really act on it int the past few years. Then last year around August, after more deliberations and encouragements, I took the risk and booked the flight tickets.

Once I booked the non-refundable tickets, the journey started becomnig real. I even thought of a quote from the anime A Place Further Than The Universe:

If you can still turn back, it’s not really a journey. When you hit the point of no return, that’s the moment it becomes a journey.

Hinata Miyake