Travel To Japan
Interested in touring Japan? My wife and I took a two week trip with Samurai tours to japan from australia (located in Denver) the first two weeks of November 2011 and loved it. It generally hosts 8-12 people in the tour, but we go lucky and there were only 3 of us. The Japanese guides in each of the cities ( Tokyo , Takayama , Kyoto , Osaka , Miyajima Island) were great and so were all the travel arrangements (mostly by train, subway, cable car, funicular, and bus) as were the accommodations in small Japanese style hotels (ryokans).
For some 2,000 shines and temples that are a legacy of Japan’s imperial past, visit Kyoto Here you can dine with a geiko (geisha) and maiko (apprentice geisha) in the Gion district, marvel at thousands of orange torii gates at Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine, see cherry blossoms at Maruyama Park, and visit both the Golden Pavilion and the Shogun’s residence, Nijo Castle.
You’ll stay overnight at a mountaintop Buddhist temple where Buddhist monks will serve you meals of shojin ryori (the traditional Buddhist vegetarian cuisine) and attend prayer services at the temple early the next morning, climb to the top of a samurai castle, participate in a tea ceremony, stroll through farmer’s markets, meet a maiko” (geisha-in-training) face-to-face, see where the geisha live and work, stay overnight on beautiful and quiet Miyajima Island, soak in the thermally-heated mineral waters at some of Japan’s best onsens and admire sacred Mt. Fuji (weather permitting), the icon of Japan.
The itinerary for a Robert Day Travel Japan tour is a carefully considered and balanced combination of fascinating traditional and contemporary buildings, ancient temples, art and architecture exhibitions, serene gardens, famous pottery producers and traditional textile makers while all the time enjoying delicious regional food and the culture of Japan.
Although Japanese is generally the only language spoken in the country there are many regional dialects spoken throughout the country, including the Kanto dialect (so-called ‘Standard Japanese’, the variety spoken in Tokyo and on Japanese television), Kansai dialect (spoken in Osaka, Kyoto, and the rest of the Kansai region), Okinawan, Kyushu dialect, Tohoku dialect, and many more.