Japan
When I look back through my old passports, I realise I’ve been to Japan over 20 times over the years. Sometimes it’s just been transiting through on my way somewhere else but, in more recent years, it’s been for longer periods. No matter how often we go or for how long, it’s never enough and we can’t wait to return.
When my parents travelled, my mother usually kept a diary. Just a handwritten page each day, chronicling what they’d done and where they’d been. I’m working on transcribing some of her old diaries and some of them are included here in Travels With Bella. In our recent travels, I’ve tried to do the same and this site is a repository for those diaries, such as they are.
We’ve also learnt a lot in our visits to Japan and this site includes information that may be useful to others who are thinking of visiting Japan. It is by no means a “guide book” - there are plenty of those around and they do a far better job than I ever could in providing detailed information on a myriad of places and topics. Rather, the information included here is intended to be a distillation of what we’ve learnt during our visits — all the things I wish I’d known the first time I went. If you’re thinking of going to Japan, I hope you find the information useful.
Getting around