Coming back from a long trip to Alaska and Japan 2023/Carlos Pueblo

 Coming back from a long trip to Alaska and Japan 2023/Carlos Pueblo

Yesterday, I came back from a 52 days trip to Alaska and Japan, both were repeated trips in 2023. I did exactly the same routes on a back to back cruises and a 21 days Japan Rail Pass to cover most parts of Japan. First, I landed in Vancouver, Canada and hopped on a cruise ship Jewel to Seward, Alaska and back to Vancouver that was 14 days. I took a bus across the Canadian boulder to Seattle, Washington to be back on Jewel again to sail across the Pacific Ocean to Japan. We did the same Alaskan route to Seward again and turned south to Tokyo straight that was 16 days. The cruise arranged a one day stay in Tokyo before the disembark.

There were a group of 5 of us at the first two days in Yokohama while we visited nearby Tokyo , then one left for his own itinerary while we continued our plan to finish our 4 days stay at Yokohama. We have visited the Emperor's Residence and the Yasukuni Shrine, the Asakusa Shine, The Shibuya Train Station, etc.

The second stop was in Sendai for two nights. We visited the morning market before marching to the ruined castle. We did cover the castle owners family cemetery park and the National Northeast University campus.

Our third stop was Akita. We visited also the ruined castle now converted to a lovely city park. We stayed over there for two nights and continued our train trip across the northeast coastal line called the Gono Line to Hirosaki, the old seat of Lord Tsugaru. We visited his castle and the lovely park for another two nights.

We continued our trip north to Sapporo, Hokkaido. We visited the red brick hall which was under the renovation yet we could feel the foliage. It's the most beautiful color change of leaves at the National Hokkaido University campus, Ginkgo, maple and others. It's also two nights.

We took the train again across Hokkaido to Kushiro, Hokkaido to visit the famous red head crane, It's the peak of this trip which I have fulfilled my dream.

We did come down back to the Honshu Island on two days trains ride to Kumamoto, Japan. One day at Shin Osaka due to the late arrival and another two nights at Kumamoto. I went alone to visit the Kumamoto Castle under renovation, and also Kagoshima City for one day.

I continued a four nights stay at Fukushima, Osaka for 4 nights to visit the Osaka Castle twice, Kyoto, the Himeji Castle, Okayama Castle before I headed back to the Narita Airport.