Moving on...

It's going to be a mindfuck keeping any sort of chronology with this blog after I started it so late, and I'm not trying to make a it a specific 'tour diary', but I should do some sort of location update.

I've now been in Japan for... five weeks and a three days, just a few days short of the longest I've ever been away from the UK. Can't say I've had any of the classic hankering for anything from home yet, but it'll come - no one in Japan seems to have a proper oven and I could murder something roasted.

Three and a half weeks in Iwanai flew by. It was a great crew and some good memories. I'll do a hitlist of things to see and do in the area another time, but I'd say it was the perfect intro to Japan, living in a small town but with a safety net of other foreigners to explore with. Long story short if you're looking to travel in Japan long-term, but hoping not to rinse your savings, then Workaway's an amazing way to do it. There are a few horror stories about bad hosts, crappy dormitories, but there are ways to avoid them with a bit of research. I'll be back in Iwanai for sure, I want to walk across the hand-laid concrete floor with a beer in my hand, marveling at the freshly painted ceiling.

Next up I'm exploring Izu, a small peninsula about two hours south west of Tokyo. I'm staying on the east coast in a small town called Izu Okawa on another Workaway, this time doing some projects to help raise awareness of local tourism. First impressions are that it couldn't be more different to Hokkaido, despite the journey only taking a short flight and a few train hops. Hokkaido was crisp, autumn weather when I left, and the scenery was mostly wide, grassy valleys. Izu is humid, borderline tropical. The scenery reminds me of Jurassic Park, with sharp sea cliffs shooting straight from the sea up to misty mountain tops, everything covered in thick forest with waterfalls filling the gaps. You half expect to see a pterodactyl fly overhead.

The whole east coast's connected by a scenic little train line that you can shuttle up and down on (damn me for not getting an International Driving permit though, the train's not cheap). Pretty much every inlet has a town, each with a slightly different personality. Shimoda in the south feels like a summer surf town waiting for the warm-weather beach crowd. Jogasaki-Kaigan is a land of empty holiday homes and cherry-tree lined streets leading to coastal walks. Izu Atagawa looks like something out of Middle Earth, with smoking towers where the volcanic spring water reaches the surface. Izu Okawa is "the quiet one" of the group. A supermarket, an onsen, an egg vending machine (why do we not have these in the UK?), that's about it. If I want to go out for a beer or some food it's going to take at least a train ride, so it might be time for an enforced detox.

#travel #japan #Workaway #iwanai #hokkaido #japanese #apps #izu