I thought it might be nice to include a bulleted list of destinations and resources so that if you’re planning your own trip, you can just grab information from here without having to dig through all my journals. Of course, I still recommend looking through the rest of the blog posts to see detailed advice and thoughts plus pictures! Trip planning was heavily facilitated and tracked using an app called WanderLog.

The 15th was our last full day in Japan :( It’s a sucky feeling! But we were prepared to make the most of it. We got coffee and pastries for breakfast at a place called Yamazaki Café and Bakery. I thought the pastries were quite good! Then we took the train to Sunshine City! Sunshine City is a big mall with a bunch of cool stuff. I was most interested in the Pokemon Mega Tokyo but we saw some other cool stuff there too.

Today we had to check out of the ryokan and leave Kyoto :(. Before we left we had the ryokan breakfast which was just as intense as the day before’s. So much tofu for breakfast! It was tough because this was our friend’s favorite city and we had a really lovely stay. But on the plus side we got to ride the shinkansen for the first time this trip. I can say a lot of things about how Japan has public utilities figured out and transit is certainly one of them.

Monday my boyfriend and I woke up to get breakfast at the ryokan. This would be a similar experience to the night before but this time presumably breakfast food. It still required some adventurous eating so our friends went off to get their own breakfast. Afterwards we had time to just relax so we enjoyed the onsen on our balcony for a while. We were able to drink coffee and get ready leisurely for our day out.

We started our morning with the tea tasting at Ippodo. They were able to squeeze us in for a tasting at 10 AM. They give you a tasting of their four primary teas, but there are many alternatives in the store. My favorite tea in Japan has been hojicha which is a type of roasted tea. They were also really nice about letting our friend try making the matcha herself.

Today we tried out the hotel breakfast – it was pretty much indistinguishable from the breakfast in our hotel from Sapporo – in other words it was fine. The weirdest part was that the restaurant is in the basement, is themed visually as an Italian restaurant but is playing 50’s era American music and serving Japanese breakfast. We had to get an early start to head out to Nara which is about an hour on public transit between the bus and the train.

Today was a BIG temple day for us in Kyoto. We needed to have a big strong breakfast to give us energy. We went to a place called Shinshindo Sanjo Kawaramachi which is a bakery slash restaurant. The premium breakfast was hearty with scrambled eggs, sausage, salad and endless bread from a variety basket. So I got to get a croissant, garlic bread and cheesy bread. Also they offered endless coffee which I took advantage of.

The 8th was a day of travel. We had our breakfast at the Tokyu Stay hotel in Sapporo and then started the journey to the airport to fly to Kyoto. This involved a subway ride to the JR line. Airport security was slow but we got lucky (? haha) in that our flight was slightly delayed so we weren’t too stressed about missing boarding. The flight from Sapporo to Kyoto is also only a few hours.

Today we had breakfast at a really cool spot called Sapporo Pancake & Parfait Last Mint. The vibes were amazing and it was very quiet and empty there when we arrived. We ordered the apple caramel pancakes and the mixed berry with cream and they were both amazing! While they weren’t fluffy pancakes like on our first day, the texture and flavor was still really good and I didn’t feel sick from too much sugar either.

Today’s plan was to head to the Yoichi Whisky Distillery. From where we were staying it was probably an hour and a half to two hour train ride all said with walking and transferring. The terminus of the train is a very short walk to the distillery in Yoichi and it’s a really pretty ride that goes along the Sea of Japan. The distillery is this big compound with really cute architecture and it was extra pretty with all the fresh snow.