
An amazing holiday, filled with great sightseeing trips and wonderful food. There was far too much to see in my whistle-stop tour, so I will definitely be returning. Travel was easy with the JR pass - just show it at the station gate and they let you through. There were also local trains and buses that accepted the pass, as well as the shinkansen. Language-wise, Tokyo and Kyoto were filled with English speakers, while out of the bigger cities I had to brush off my very rusty Japanese more often, but everywhere had incredibly useful tourist information centres that spoke a whole range of languages. I was away around the 2016 earthquake in Kyushu, although not travelling too close to the affect area, and the Japan Travel Centre were very helpful and willing to alter my itinerary if I'd needed to.