Well, alas. Golden Week has come and past.  While the majority of my time was spent basking in the sunshine coming from my window onto my bed (aka, I slept a lot), three days of my trip was spent in Yamanashi.

Yamanashi is a prefecture south/west of Tokyo (I think… Japan N/S/E/W directions are sort of hard to judge) and only a mere 3 hours by train, Yamanashi is the perfect little getaway spot.  That’s just not my thinking as other tourists flee there for their vacations as well.  The landscape makes for beautiful, mountainous backdrops (including Mount Fuji) and or excellent hiking destinations, wineries and temples are in abundance and a popular amusement park, Fuji-Q Highland, also calls it home.

If you are a devout reader of my blog posts (which I bet you are!) you’ll remember that I went there last year as well.  Although we passed by many of the same places as last time, it was a very different trip. Just boyfriend not family, hotel not cabin, train not car, two nights not one.  There was more time to just have a leisurely stroll around the “neighborhood” which ended up in some interesting finds!  An abandoned tennis court, all the old people planting rice, little mountain cafes and all the kuras (traditional Japanese storehouses – see picture) that so many of the houses have in their backyards.  I never would have noticed these things without walking through the town.  Walking is so lovely!