Japan

Awesome! What are your dates? :)

Not booked anything just yet but I will be going for 2/3 weeks at the tail end of July. Will be booking this week.
Cannot wait!

I hope you love humidity!

Not to put you off - it will be amazing. But you won't need anything more than a few T-shirts and a pair of shorts. And I'd recommend bringing moisture-wicking underwear, actually. For EVERY SINGLE DAY.

if you're into art and/or architecture you really should visit the benesse art site islands http://www.benesse-artsite.jp/en/
they're in the inland sea so not that far from osaka and well worth the trouble of getting out there.

speaks the truth.. made it there twice while living in Kobe.... fastest way is Bullet train to Okayama then local train then ferry......... scenic route is Ferry from Kobe to Takamatsu then Ferry to the island.

I hope you love humidity!

Not to put you off - it will be amazing. But you won't need anything more than a few T-shirts and a pair of shorts. And I'd recommend bringing moisture-wicking underwear, actually. For EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Hah, yeh, the humidity will destroy you! Try and head up to Nagano or better yet, Hokkaido.

Humidity is brutal, but you'll get used to it. Considering almost everywhere has air con. You'll just need to chill inside a convenience store when you can't take it anymore, not to mention the endless vending machines for chilled drinks!

I've heard quite a few people say its more interesting going to the small islands around the honshu, but there's so many choices! Iriomote is the one that has the rare wild cats right?

I've got 10 days, the second half is likely to be reserved for the comiket and souvenir shopping around Tokyo and Akiba. Need to see the Skytree as well!

That's the one. Didn't see one of the cats while I was there - you're incredibly lucky if you do. There are less than 50 left I think, and they're really timid. If you do get to Iriomote, one of the mangrove river trips is well worth doing.

When does it get humid? All this talk and I'm tempted to go!

June is the rainy season (it rains A LOT) when it begins to get pretty damn warm, July and August are almost unbearably hot and humid, and it starts to wind down a bit maybe around mid-September.

Sounds great, I'll have a look once I'm over there. Thanks Jadias!

If you want to visit Okinawa, I'd look at Jetstar, Peach and Skymark for flights. They're Japan's low-cost airlines and I've had great success flying internally with them. If you book a couple of months ahead you can get REALLY low fares. Sites in English, too. ;)

Awesome! I'll do some research and see how things work out. Trying to plan out those 10 days to see how much we can squeeze in. Somehow we always end up adding more but at the consequence of sacrificing sleep in the process (which tends to take place in between journeys on trains!)

I'd plan of spending most of your Kyoto/Osaka days in Kyoto. In fact I'd recommending basing yourself in Kyoto and doing Osaka as a day trip (or two), really. There isn't that much there - it's mainly just a big, grey, uninspiring city.

Nara is worth a day trip (can do this easily from Kyoto too) and Himeji possibly if you dig castles (the one there is original and really very impressive - again, can be done in a day from Kyoto, especially with the railcard).

I found Osaka to be so boring. Nara is lovely. Is Himeji castle still being renovated?

if anyone is thinking of getting a japan rail pass, I'd recommend www.japan-rail-pass.com. Ordered mine late on Sunday night. Just got delivered for free from France. They're cheaper than a lot of other sites I looked at too.

I found Osaka to be so boring.

This, apart from THE AQUARIUM, which is AMAZING. Two words:

whale sharks.

and the takoyaki / okonomiyaki of course! Oh, and the neon is fantastic too.

hells bells, someone send me their takoyaki recipe pls...
those things are like CRACK
#kewpielover

I have had them in the UK. Not the same. :-(

agreed. the camden ones are crap. the ones that were at southbank were too. (maybe same people!?)
i have a cast iron mould and a non-stick one.... i repurposed my usual okonomiyaki recipe which worked ok but needs moar tako flavour! is there a tako-dashi type thing?

where did you get the moulds? London?

cast iron - japan centre london, a few yrs ago.
oh i found it. http://www.japancentre.com/items/iwatani-takoyaki-pan-takoyaki-plate--2

non-stick - home appliance store in japan

Those are the pancakes? I had one in Hiroshima and could eat for a day - I think we ordered one each ,there were 3 of us, and we perhaps should have shared two

There is a stall doing them on Chatsworth rd at the moment.

Not sure I 'd call Osaka boring, but I doubt I d want to spend more than a day there.

Kyoto I liked and would want to return . Get the tram if you can.

There was also more to Hiroshima than I could see in the two days I was there..

And I loved Mister Donut...

Flying out to Tokyo in a week.

Don't have a heap planned... anyone know of any websites listing (bigger) international bands?

Has anyone been to any keirin racing out in japan? I'd really like to see some racing when I'm there next month but this website http://keirin.jp/pc/dfw/dataplaza/guest/ is all in japanese so I can't work out when any races are on.

I saw some keirin training in 2009. It was quite strange, particulary being western and with my (blonde) wife. We managed to figure out how to get there (including catching a bus), and watched some training for a bit, but it was pretty boring.

The whole situation is strange, no one gves a shit about bikes, they just want to gamble and all stand around TV screens betting and smoking. I'm pretty sure my wife was the only female there.

When we left we went to catch the same bus back to the train station but they didn't allow tourists on there... so we had to walk back to the station.

So yeah, it was pretty average.