My 2024, trip to Japan was unlike any of my prior 6 trips to Japan but each trip is unique in its own way. During this 7th trip I covered more distance and visited more locations in one trip than ever before. Also, I took longer to plan it and planned it in more detail than in the past. The main reason for my extra planning was I went with 25 year old niece. I wanted to provide her with the most experiences possible and show her what I love about Japan. As with my cute food creations, I often put in more effort when it is for someone else.

I created experience and food bingo pages for my niece. It was difficult to keep them to only one page but I did. For the food, I am a vegetarian and she is not. I wanted her to try a variety of Japanese food. I think that we were successful with that.

• Japanese Food Experience Bingo
• Japan Experience Bingo

In the coming days / weeks (goal is to be done by August 12) I will share photos from each location and my inspiration food if applicable. Similar to what I have done with past travel. When the post is live, I will link to it in the list below.

• Niigata
• Fukuoka
• Kyoto
• Lake Biwa
• Osaka / Kobe
• Tamanoi Ichinomiya
• Shizuoka
• Tokyo

FLOWERS / NATURE

Usually I go to Japan in the winter. It had been awhile since I was in Japan during a green month (1992). I was impressed by the beauty of nature in the summer. I took more photos than usual of rice fields since they were full of living plants. Regrettably, we were unable to see Mt. Fuji (cloudy) but that is more typical in the summer. I have seen it many times in the winter.

In the winter, I visited gorgeous daffodils at a festival and viewed beautiful plum blossoms. I hoped to see hydrangea and lotus flowers during this trip. I was concerned that we would be too late for the hydrangeas and too early for the lotus. My concerns were unfounded. The hydrangeas and lotus were gorgeous!

HYDRANGEA

LOTUS

MANHOLE COVERS

While in Japan, I like to photograph manhole covers. This year I was in more different towns than ever before during one trip. I took a lot of photos of manhole covers.

STAMPS

Before our trip, I asked my niece if she wanted to collect stamps while in Japan. Rubber stamps and ink pads are at many train stations and other tourist locations around Japan. She said yes so we ordered Eki (station) stamp books from Amazon and had them in hand when we started our journey. I had noticed stamp tables during past trips but didn’t collect them. We easily filled up our books.

Our stamp books. Mine is on the left.

Niece testing a stamp at Niigata Station. Below I include photos of some of my favorite stamps.