Joe Rodin Has A Blog

It is incredibly difficult to make a top 10 list in the heat of the moment. Almost every day on the trip I found something I loved, so by the end of my trip, there'd be many items from the early part of the journey that'd be missing from the list. Now that I've given myself a few weeks to decompress and look back on the trip as a whole, I've come up with a top 10: 10. Sapporo Is it fair to write down an entire city? This is my list, so I say yes! Sapporo was tied for the shortest stay with Nagoya, both of which lasting only 19 hours, so the way I see it, you can do what I did in Sapporo in a single day trip. The three main tourist attractions in the city are all grouped very close together, Odori Park was a beautiful snow covered stretch, plenty of shopping and food to go around as well. Sapporo is at the top of my list for cities I want to see again, mostly based on that I wasn't able to spend much time there. Sapporo TV Tower, Clocktower, and Government O...

January 18. Instagram My flight to Okinawa is at 9:55am, so that means heading out from the hotel around 7am. Fukuoka airport is a very quick train ride from the hotel, as the airport itself is basically in downtown. Once again the airport experience was a breeze and I made it through checkout in a heartbeat. I grabbed a little katsu sandwich from an airport kiosk and waited patiently for my flight. Fukuoka Airport Art, Fukuoka. Katsu Sandwich, Fukuoka. First view of Okinawa from the plane. Preparing for landing at Naha Airport. One thing I learned on arrival to Okinawa was that I don't have the option to drop my bag at the hotel, and I didn't learn this until I walked up to the hotel to find the door locked and a note that said the lobby is only open from 3pm-10pm. It would be a 15 minute walk to get back to the train station to drop my bag at a coin locker, or my next best option, make it up on the fly. Street Cat, Okinawa. Street Cat, Okinaw...

January 16. Instagram I need to preface this day by reminding everyone the only reason I wanted to go to Beppu in the first place was because of one specific ramen shop. No other reason, just Yume Wo Katare. The train today is going to be a little bit of a long ride, mostly because there's no train that cuts right through the water, so it's straight west, then looping back to the south and east. Two trains, 186 miles in only three hours, I love Japan's train system. Beppu is in Oita prefecture, and is the furthest south I've visited so far. It doesn't feel it as the temperature is in the middle 40's, but Beppu is on the same longitude as Northern Africa and Charleston, South Carolina. There is something really hot in Beppu, and it's what they're most well known for: hot springs. Mount Tsurumi erupted in the year 867, and since then, thermal vents and hot springs take up the entire mountainside, sliding all the way down to Beppu Bay. The hotel I...