JAPAN for 15 days to celebrate 60 years!

Next Saturday October 8th, Chad and I set out on another big adventure, this time in celebration of our 60th birthdays!   JAPAN!   We have plenty of yen (since it's a cash society, especially in smaller towns), our 14 day Japan Rail Pass ready to be activated on the 11th and all our hotel reservations...and the rest we plan to figure out as we go along.

Our first night will actually be spent in the Dallas Airport Marriott so we will be closer to DFW airport for our Sunday morning 10:30 am direct flight into Tokyo's Narita Airport.  We cashed in all our Aadvantage miles accumulated over years of flying and are traveling first class to Japan, which will be a huge thrill and huge relief to our aging joints LOL. We arrive at 2:30 pm Tokyo time on Monday October 10 after a 13-hour flight and by the time we get to the hotel after immigration/customs and the hour train ride into town, we'll probably be ready to crash.  Especially since we're considering getting in line the next morning at 4:00 am to get tickets to see the early morning fish auction at Tsukiji Market and then have our first (of hopefully many) sushi breakfasts.

Our entire 15 days will be spent on the biggest island of Honshu.  Get out your maps now and track our plan.  We will spend the first 4 nights in Tokyo, before hopping on the bullet train Friday the 14th for the hour ride to Mt. Fuji where we'll spend the night in our first traditional ryokan, hoping to bathe in some natural thermal springs....and attempt to do some hiking around Mt. Fuji, weather permitting.  On Saturday the 15th, we take the afternoon bullet train west to Kyoto where we'll spend 5 nights, taking side trips to Nara, Osaka and possibly Hiroshima.  The next two nights are in the northern coastal town of Kanazawa and then we go into the mountains for 2 nights to stay at another ryokan in Takayama.  Our final night, we travel back to Narita Airport to spend the night for our early morning flight back to Dallas and then back to Florida.

We will be traveling in autumn so we're hoping for perfect weather in the 60's and 70's and gorgeous trees in all shades of red, pink and purple in the gorgeous sculpted gardens and surrounding all the shrines.