29 April 2014

Japan honeymoon highlights

Getting married is seriously fun. Massive party with all of your favourite people and ever-lasting memories? Yes please!

And the best bit is the little gem which almost gets forgotten in all the wedding planning. The honeymoon. 

Feeling kind of greedy, my husband and I opted for two. A week lounging around Switzerland, drinking champagne and riding bikes through the sun-kissed Alps, was utter bliss after the wedding madness. 

But we also wanted to go further afield, so we planned a second honeymoon for six months after our wedding. HELLO, JAPAN!

We're just back, having opted for March / April because we wanted to see this guy... cherry blossom. 

Even the birds in Japan are obsessed with the cherry blossom. 



We went to a little cherry blossom festival in Tokyo. That's how much the Japanese love it, they hold festivals to celebrate it's beauty.

No wonder... 

Super beaut. 


Wanting to see as much as possible, we moved from Tokyo to the Japan Alps (can you tell we like alps?) to Kyoto and the Kiso Valley. 

We ate some pretty weird shiz. Raw prawns, you say? Go on then. Fermented soy beans covered in goo? Yum.

Octopus with an egg in = Japanese version of a lollypop































Slighty nervous pre-raw prawn


























In the countryside we stayed in Japanese inns called ryokan, where we were fed plate after plate of traditional Japanese food.

Having eaten my body weight in rice for breakfast, we moved on to Japan's old capital, Kyoto, and I fell in love with ramen.


Ramen = tasty bowl of noodles and pork. 








This beef. Mouth-wateringly good. 















As well as eating a LOT of food, we got our culture hats on and visited shrines, temples, castles and the majestic Mount Fuji.

One of my favourite sights was the red gates at Fushimi Inari Taishi shrine in Kyoto. Regard...

Red GREATS.

New bezzie: a snow monkey. 









Matsumoto Castle.

















Red wine and a dip in our own hot spring bath. 
Perfectly manicured garden. 

We rounded things off back at the start, in the insanely busy but strangely serene Tokyo.

A passion fruit bellini while looking out on Tokyo Bay was our Japan swan song. (Well, my husband went for a whiskey because he's a gent.)

Husband + bright lights. 

Bay view + bellini. 






Bye bye Japan!


























Japan, you absolute beauty. Take me back!















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