Travel with Pri

Japan

Highlights

The Making of Harry Potter, Warner Bros Studi Tour, Tokyo

This was so much fun and a highlight of my trip! I love a bit of magic, and this was so cool to experience. There were life size replicas of sets like the Ministry of Magic, and Hogwarts express, and interactive wand experiences. I saw myself on the wall of moving portraits at Hogwarts – that was pretty cool. I tried to recruit Adam to come do the moving portrait and Quidditch experience with me – but it was a no from him ;D

I have so many photos from this experience, but its better to go experience it with your own eyes : )

I would plan to be here for 4 to 6 hours, but it really depends on how quickly or slowly you progress, and whether you stop for lunch. There’s eating places about half way through the experience.

Tour to see Mt Fuji

On the day we went to see a view of Mt Fuji we found ourselves in the middle of a one-day snow storm in what was meant to be Cherry Blossom season.

Although it was a shame we couldn’t see Mt Fuji from where was meant to be an epic vantage point, we had a fun time playing in the snow! It ended up being such a beautiful snowy day, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

On the way back we stopped at a shopping centre (part of the tour). By this time, the sun had come back up, and we got to see Mt Fuji from there!

Matcha!

If you like matcha then make a trip to Uji in Kyoto – the home of matcha! You’ll find really good quality matcha, and matcha flavoured everything – even udon. There’s a ton of cute cafes here!

Team Labs, Tokyo

This exhibition was cool! – we spent half a day here and still don’t think we saw everything. There’s a few team labs exhibitions around in Japan.

My favourite room was the one featuring a sea of colourful sea creatures. Adam laughs as I write this because my favourite section was the one for kids ; D Here we could colour in our own sea creatures, which is then scanned and projected onto the walls alongside everyone else’s. I chose to do a rainbow seahorse as you can in the first picture below. The room was mostly filled with kids and their parents, as you’d expect, but hey it was fun!

Temples and parks

There are so many gorgeous temples and parks to explore. We visited Sanjusangen-do in Kyoto which was beautiful, and houses 1000 life size golden bodhisattva statues in one room! Pictured is also the Kennin-Ji Temple and the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, both in Kyoto.
I also loved Miyajima Island, in Hiroshima.

Niseko, Hokkaido

My favourite place to visit in Japan. I went here in 2018 with my family and it was beyond beautiful. We had the best food here (honestly, every place we ate at was incredible). My brother and I tried skiing for the first here too. That was memorable, to say the least! The snow in Japan is something else. It made falling on it pleasant : D I’ll be back Niseko, you beauty!

The view from Tokyo Skytree

An incredible 360 degree view of Tokyo!

Food!

Okay, so I didn’t note down a whole lot of recs, my bad. But it’s not hard to find really delicious food in Japan. In fact, I don’t think I had one bad meal here. We loved the bakery’s in Japan and the bento boxes at the train stations too.

One standout was the Gionmachi Minamigawa district in Kyoto. There were some really great eating spots and cute stores here too – I found the cutest hand-made matcha cup that I brought back with me!
Before we headed back from exploring, we stopped to have dinner here for a little date night. There were so many good food choices (but a bit on the pricey end).