A Travel Blog
And so we arrived at departure day, a day full of warnings about Super Typhoons and the subsequent cancellation of World Cup rugby matches. We were a little anxious, but our research suggested that the typhoon would not hit Tokyo until Saturday, many hours after our Friday 8:05pm scheduled departure. Still, we were relieved to … Read more
I’ll start today’s post with the important stuff – a report on my ankle! It’s a little sore, has a nice bruise developing, but is functional. I thank everyone for their concern. I was pretty lucky, really, and put some of it down to Japanese hotel facilities. Japanese hotels, like American ones, tend to have … Read more
Today starts the last hop of our trip. The last hotel stay! The last period of living out of suitcases. We’ll miss Japan, of course, but it is always good to be home too, isn’t it? And, there’s always, with any luck, another time. Last hurrah in Niigata First though, there’s a bit more of … Read more
We woke up this morning to rain on the ground, though fortunately the rain itself had stopped, so we had a dry walk to the station. However, we also had an email from our Niigata friend, changing our pick-up point from outside the railway station to inside because a typhoon was heading right for Niigata! … Read more
Tomioka Silk Factory Our main reason for coming to Takasaki was to visit the Tomioka Silk Factory. It was Japan’s first modern silk factory, established in 1872; it operated until 1987; and in 2014 it was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the first Japanese factory, we believe, to be so designated. Getting to Tomioka … Read more