After an exciting two weeks in Canada for Vedran’s bachelor party, I returned back to Japan, but this time with my Mom. She had come to visit and do some sightseeing with me for a couple weeks, and hopefully see some cherry blossoms along the way. We got to go to a lot of places, some I had been to before, and some new ones as well.

After a long plane ride, we arrived on the 2nd of April. Usually this would be around the earlier/middle part of the 2 week Sakura season, but this year it was a little bit early, so we were only able to catch the tail end of it. For that reason, on our first day, we went to Osaka castle for Hanami. It was surprisingly hot and the cherry blossoms were just past full bloom. There was lots of beautiful sights to be seen around the castle area. We had planned to see a few more places, but we decided to call it quits early, due to the combination of jet-lag tiredness and the heat. We went to an AEON mall after briefly for a quick walk-around, and then my bar Beppinsan later for a quick drink.

The next day was another day for cherry-blossoms. The following day was forecast for rain, which spells the end for most of the current blossoms, so we had to make the most of the time. We went to Yoshino, which is in Nara Prefecture, an area famous for mountains covered in Cherry-blossom trees. It was another hot day, and Mom had a bit of difficulty climbing the mountain trails, but we made it to the top in time for some lunch. On the trail and from the town up top, you can see thousands of cherry blossom trees. We walked around and checked out some shops, and made it to a famous temple before deciding to turn around. It was very crowded and we were lucky to get seats on the train on the way back. After these first two busy days, we decided to take a break the next day, and mostly stayed around the neighborhood and had dinner with my acquaintance, Hada. It would be 3 more days before Mom was finally over the jet lag, so it was nice to have a recovery day.

The next day, we went to the huge aquarium in Osaka, Kaiyukan. Of the half-dozen or so tourist attractions in Osaka, this is one of my favorite. It’s a lot of fun to see people react to the whale sharks for the first time. Afterwards we went on the Tempozan ‘Giant ferris wheel’, which is right beside the aquarium. This was the first time I had been up, and you get a great view of the city. Closer to the top, Mom found the wind/shaking to be a bit scary, so if you might have difficulty with that, go on a calm day!

Next day was Nara, to see Nara Park and Great Buddha Statue in Todaiji temple. We had a long look at some of the shops in the area before heading on over to the park. It had cooled off again, so the deer were not at their most friendly/energetic, but it’s always crazy seeing huge fields of them laying around. We headed from there to the temple, and then to the temple museum, which I had never been to. We had the audio guide, which had a lot of interesting information about the history of the area.

On Sunday, we had a lunch in the nearby park with the folks from Beppinsan, and then took a look a the nearby shrine, before taking it easy for the rest of the day.

Monday was an exciting day, as we went to Universal Studios Japan (USJ). It was a great time, and much better than the last time I went on a weekend, as the lines were significantly shorter. We started off on the Harry Potter ride, which shut down mid-ride and we were offered a fast-pass to get back in, but Mom had hurt her neck and wanted to take it easier from then on. We spend most of the rest of the time on some lighter attractions, like Jaws and Jurrasic Park: The Ride, and I even got to try some of the rollercoasters for the first time. The one in Hollywood was fun, but the Jurassic Park roller coaster was amazing, where you are basically going head first through a ton of twists and loops. I really want to try that one again. We ended the day with a rock musical show by a bunch of monsters like Frankenstein and Wolf-man, with banter in Japanese but music all in English. It was pretty fun!

Tuesday was another easy day, but then Friday was another big trip: to Kyoto. We started out at Kiyomizu-dera, which was another uphill struggle for mom. Might have been a mistake to go there first, but I wanted to show Mom the crazy shops that line the path there. After seeing the temple, I showed here to the store where I always got the souvenirs she loved. From there, we continued to Kinkakuji, the golden temple, after getting lost on the Kyoto bus system for a little bit. After that, we continued to the Bamboo forest in Arashiyama just in time for dusk to fall.

Wednesday, Hiromi was kind enough to show us around Kobe for a little bit. We started off at the Nunobiki herb garden, which was a beautiful place to go if you are ever in the area. Even the ride up the ropeway was exciting and had an amazing view. We continued to see some of the historic houses in the Ijinkan area, and ended the evening with some conveyor belt sushi where we were joined by Issei. Everyone had a lot of laughs, especially when mom pressed a button early which almost sent our food back before we could take it. It was a great time.

The next day, we took a trip to Himeji castle, which was again a little heavy on the climbing, but was otherwise a beautiful day. Following that, We went to visit Issei and Hiromi, and we all went down to Wakayama city to have some BBQ fresh fish and other foods. And then finally the trip was at an end. It was a busy couple of weeks, but I’m glad I had the chance to show Mom around a bit.

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