Earlier this month, we stretched the meaning of island hopping a little bit and hopped from Hawaii over to Japan!  My Instagram (@yaeantho) has been a sneak peak of our travel diaries, but below is Part 2 – Tourists’ Dream…don’t forget to check out my other 2 posts Aloha Japan Part 1 – Offset Kings Japan 2014 and Part 3 (coming soon!).

WARNING…100+ photos, but but split into 4 chapters…so don’t forget to slow down for some sporadic words and click the link at the bottom for the continued post! 😉

After some extensive research on Japan Guide and the rest of the interwebs, we finalized our 2 week itinerary to include 5 areas (Hakone, Fuji, Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo) and bought our Japan Rail Pass which gave us unlimited use of 80% of the rail system (the other 20% were metro/subway and required Pasmo/Suica cards).  Armed with this knowledge as well as a portable WiFi hotspot from the airport (which allowed us to use social media, Google Maps and Translate), we were ready!

We started off our adventure by taking the Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo to Hakone to see the shrine on Lake Ashi.

On our way to Fuji Speedway for Offset Kings Japan 2014, we were fortunate to catch a nice morning glimpse of Mount Fuji.

After the show, we said our goodbyes to the crew and continued our Shinkansen journey further westward to the metropolis of Osaka.

Osaka Station City

Umeda Sky Building

Minami (Namba)

Osaka Castle

Shinsekai

Chapter 1 > CHAPTER 2 HERE! > Chapter 3 > Chapter 4