Experience Japan at home

There are nearly 8,000km between Sydney and Tokyo. You can fly direct from Melbourne, Sydney, Gold Coast and Cairns, with SYD-NRT (Tokyo) just under 10 hours flight time. As far as time zones go, Tokyo sits between Adelaide and Perth. At just an hour behind Sydney you can fly a fair way into a completely different culture without the pain of jetlag. That’s a big tick in my book!

Once you get there, it is just over 500km from Tokyo southwest to Kyoto, which translates to only 2 hours 18 min via Shinkansen (bullet) train. Osaka is just a touch further.

Try it at home –

The famous hanami (cherry blossom viewing) season is at the start of spring. But since Japan is in the northern hemisphere, this is in late March-early April. In Australia cherry blossom season is in late August-early September. There are indeed cherry trees blossoming in Sydney right now. The map below shows that we need to pass over the equator to get to Japan, thus travelling from the southern hemisphere to the north, where the seasons are reversed. This is a great resource to help talk to kids about what causes the seasons. This one is quite helpful too.

Some of Japan’s greatest natural attractions are –

Imperial Palace East Gardens, Tokyo – The palace itself is a ruin, but the gardens are a haven of greenery and tranquility in the middle of the noise and neon of Tokyo.
Arashiyama bamboo grove, Kyoto – You can hire bikes to explore this area or just take a walk through the towering green bamboo. Row boats are available for hire on the nearby river, there are temples, gardens and a monkey park to explore, just half an hour from central Kyoto.
Mt Fuji – one way to see this iconic sight is on a full day bus trip from Tokyo like this one. Or on a clear day you can get a beautiful view from the train between Tokyo and Kyoto.

Try it at home –

Many cities have wonderful authentic Japanese gardens, like Adelaide and Brisbane, which would make for a unique day out. If you would like to understand a bit about the fascinating philosophy behind Japanese garden design, then this site explains it well.

Spring and autumn are magnificent seasons in Japan with hanami parties in spring and exquisite autumn foliage later in the year. I imagine the blossoms are difficult to catch given they only last about a week, but can occur anytime over about a 3 week period. I think the autumn would be my choice of travel time to enjoy all those glorious colours.

Try it at home –

There are gardens that either have specific hanami celebrations or are particularly well-endowed with cherry trees, which make for spectacular viewing right about now. Auburn in Sydney, the Dandenong Ranges in Melbourne and Floriade in Canberra are magnificent examples.

Or make your own cherry blossom work of art with these 10 cherry blossom crafts.

These childrens books are wonderful introductions to this unique culture –

I Live In Tokyo

My Japan