We have now left Japan and are beginning the next chapter of our travels in China. Japan is a beautiful country and I would highly recommend visiting if you haven't already. It's steeped in natural beauty, fantastic architecture (both old and new), phenomenal food and home to wonderful people. Nothing was ever too much trouble for anyone to help us with, even when they couldn't speak English they were still willing to help us if we were stuck. It really struck us just how kind Japanese people are, especially to tourists.

Highlights for me included Kyoto, seeing snow monkeys and visiting Hiroshima. But of course the piece de resistance has to be Tokyo!! We ended our 3 weeks in Japan in the capital city, spending 9 incredible days soaking up the hustle and bustle.

Below are a few of my favourite snaps from this wonderful city including Shibuya Crossing (the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world), our first experience of sumo, Sega and the many other Japanese arcades, Uobei (the most fun sushi dining experience we've had), feeding birds, eating ramen (LOTS OF RAMEN), fresh wasabi and colourful seafood at the Tsukiji fish market, the view from the Tokyo Skytree and finally the first blossom of the year.

I plan to do a food diary of our time in Japan as there were just too many great places that we ate at to blog about individually.

If you have any questions about Japan, are planning to travel here and what some info, I'd love to hear from you and try to help as best I can :) Feel free to email me on kim.parslow@gmail.com

You may also be interested in my post about Osaka and Kyoto.