As we have been travelling questions sometimes arise from what we have seen and with the help of constant WiFi and ChatGPT we have some answers.


We saw that rice is grown in nearly all the valleys.


Not surprisingly Japan is virtually self sufficient in rice. When it acquires rice from elsewhere, maybe as part of a trade agreement, it tends to use this for processed foods, animal feed or as food aid.


There were many steep thick forests

 67% of Japan is forest but  it is not self sufficient in timber despite huge forested areas. This is for several reasons, an aging workforce and expense and difficulty in felling the timber. it’s cheaper to import.


Why aren’t there any old cars

Once a car is three years old the servicing and inspection costs are so high the Japanese prefer to buy a new car than incur that expense.

The used car exports are a multimillion yen business and a major contributor to the economy.In 2024 about 1.5 million cars were exported.

In some parts of Japan you need to prove you have a parking space before you can buy a car.


 Why so many old men working?


Retirement age is 60 but companies are required to let staff stay until they are 65 and some companies allow workers to stay until 70 - there is a shortage of labour.


The state pension is about €400 a month which is probably why we have seen folk working well beyond retirement, acting as  guides in car parks or at the ports controlling the line of traffic.


Provision for children in public areas.


At the toilet facilities at motorway services or the rest stations where we have been overnighting there are always baby seats, mini toilets and mini urinals for little ones. But there is no baby boom, there are over 125 million Japanese and the population is shrinking.
 The growth rate is negative at -0.44%.

There seem to be a lot of very old people


Over 23% of the population in Japan is over 70. In Uk that figure is 13%



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​Our motorhome is 5metres long, there’s a decent size fixed bed. ( relatively) ,dinette, a fridge, a sink but no toilet and no cooker.

Instead we have a camping stove so we can make a cup of tea and I can boil a couple of eggs and with the help of a camping toast maker I brought with us we can have toast with our boiled eggs. I brought the egg cups with us too as we have found that foreigners don’t eat boiled eggs, or if they do, they don’t use egg cups.

So we have eaten out each day, nearly always at one of the road stations where we can overnight. These offer inexpensive Japanese meals but you order via a machine which gives you a ticket and then you have to wait for staff to call out your number. This can be challenging but usually someone will come out from the kitchen to help. I’m ok on numbers under 100 but bigger numbers too difficult.
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These places don’t open for breakfast so breakfast is either a boiled egg or what we have found in the Lawson Station or Family Mart, so we have had yoghurts, sushi, croissants but no cereals.

​Not having a toilet means parking near the toilet facilities which are open 24hours and usually spotlessly clean. If you need a night time pee then you either nip out or make alternative arrangements which is what we have done over the years of doing this.

One problem in Japan is getting rid of your rubbish, you are meant to take your rubbish home with you which obviously doesn’t work for us so we’re constantly looking for somewhere that will take “combustibles”. Gettting rid of bottles cans and plastic bottles is easy as there are multiple containers for these but the rest can be a challenge. You may have to keep your rubbish in the van until an opportunity arises, but you have to create small parcels of rubbish because any designated receptacle will not be big.

Despite the difficulty in disposing of rubbish, everywhere is spotlessly clean and each morning at a road station someone comes out with a dustpan and brush searching for rubbish.

​As we have no bathroom we rely on public bathhouses or Onsen as they are called here. The prices vary but about £2.50 and you can stay as long as you like. Usually there are several pools of water with different temperatures, often there are a couple of pools in the open. Sometimes there’s a sauna and steam room.
There are certain customs to be observed, a thorough wash before you get into any pool -and I mean thorough, maybe 5 mins and then so the same when you get out.

​When we left Shikoku our plan was simply to get up to the coast of western  Honshu so that we could work our way slowly south towards Fukuoka where this trip will end. Quite fortuitously we found ourselves  on a piece of coast which is known as an area of outstanding beauty and has been labelled a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It’s the  Shi’in Kaigan Global  Geopark.This beautiful coastline is a result of volcanic activity that lead to the islands of Japan separating from the main asian continent and the creation of the Sea of Japan.


Seeing  such a wonderful coastline means we’ve gone slightly OTT with the photos.

This is an outdoor museum where traditional buildings from around the the island have been relocated with an emphasis on old industries. 

​We spent a fascinating few hours looking at buildings and equipment and videos of old folks talking about the work they used to do, English subtitles often being available.

However when we arrived we found another vine bridge used as an optional entrance for the brave. Couldn’t resist trying it and found it  more difficult than the previous ones. If only we had known this one was here as the drive down to the others had been long and hard.

There was an interesting section on sugar as sugar cane was grown here and the traditional  processes for creating white sugar from the molasses, the end result looked very like icing sugar.

Then we saw the equipment needed for making soy sauce, a long process but did you know it requires a   mould from 
aspergillus family?
We learned a lot more about soy sauce making later in our trip when we visited a soy sauce factory. Soy sauce ice cream anyone?
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​There was a short piece about paper making using  branches from the mulberry tree which were steamed so as to remove the bark before the process could continue.
This paper was used for traditional Japanese doors.

What baffles us is how some of these items were discovered. Does someone accidentally keep steamed soya beans sufficiently  near to roasted wheat for a form of sauce oozes out? Does someone cut a branch of mulberry and have an inspired moment and invent paper? Sugar from sugar cane I can understand but some of these other inventions are inspired  we must give all credit to our ancestors the world over.

We are now at the other end of Shikoku and immediately aware that we are back in the tourist zone. There were  at least 10 large tour coaches in the carpark at Ritsurin Gardens, and that was ½ hour after it opened.

These extensive gardens were once the private home of an important clan leader  but converted into gardens in 1745.

These are extensive and beautiful gardens with a nice restaurant and when we visited a display of beautiful but expensive enamelware. I settled for taking a photo instead.

There was a nice restaurant for our lunch, we got talking to some Australians who are touring by rail and who were on their seventh trip to Japan. This is only our fourth so we were impressed, as  they were when we explained that we were touring by motorhome and they wondered how we could still bear to speak to each other.

It was about £4 each to get in and another £4  for three hours parking. Very good value - I’m still traumatised by the price to get into Norwich Castle about 20 years ago.

This wasn’t on our itinerary, we hadn’t heard of this place until we checked Google maps and asked Google what was of interest in the locality. We are very glad we did as it’s a charming little place.

Walk down the preserved historic district called Yōkaichi & Gokoku, a winding road with 600 meters of traditional houses and gardens from the Edo, Meiji, and Taisho periods (roughly from 1600–1930). You can visit the museum of commerce with a number of tableaux from probably the1890s.

Our satnav was not particularly helpful in finding parking and we went down this historic street in our motorhome which isn’t long but is tall. All somewhat problematic,but we made it.

Despite it being such an interesting place the heat and the humidity got to us and I must confess that we didn’t see all that this delightful  little town had to offer and instead opted  to find a supermarket where we could cruise the aisles and cool down - it took a while.
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Coming into the street after a relaxing hour in an onsen we became aware of crowds gathering further down the road so decided we had to investigate. We were in a small port and the crowds were gathered on either side of a canal . It was clear that there had been activities earlier in the day as there were lots of fancy costumes on display so we decided they were waiting for something big.

And something big it was as a crowd of men carried what appeared to be a very heavy shrine, carried not on a frame of bamboo as one might expect but of thick cut pine.

What we were watching was part of the Autumn Festival and this particular event was called the Mikoshi Nagashi. It was clearly a very very heavy shrine so at first we thought there had been an accident as we heard the shrine fall into the canal.

As we watched them haul the shrine out of the water  and then carry the shrine further down the road only to see them chuck the thing in the water and retrieve it many times more. So the event is to thank the Shinto Gods for the harvest and then to purify the shrine by dropping it in the water multiple times.
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Apparently it’s the Hōjō Festival and only happens in this area.
​ ( between 10th - 13th October) so we feel very fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time. It was obviously a very big event as there were a number  of TV crews in attendance.

After visiting Hagi and Abu  we   headed to Iwakuni to see a few sights. Using Google maps on the iPad made the journey an easy one and we found free parking beside the river at Iwakani. For a combined ticket costing about £5 we could visit the bridge, take the rope way and visit the castle.

The  bridge is a very unusual, perhaps unique, design; while its normal to have arches to cater for the heavy rainstorms it’s more unusual  for the pedestrian route over the it to be arched too. It was constructed  to combat serious flooding which happens from time to time. The present bridge was rebuilt in 1953 and the locals saw no reason to change its original style.
The  river banks are full of cherry blossom trees so it must be very striking sight in the spring.

​We had been given a flyer for a restaurant but failed to find it but instead we came across a tiny restaurant that did curry - chicken or pork or half and half. It wasn’t a curry that we are accustomed to, not particularly hot but very tasty and the notice said that the owner/chef had home grown a number of the spices.about £6 for a regular plateful and it came with a spoon, no chopsticks.

​After lunch we headed back over the humped  bridge and took the rope way up the mountain.not sure why it’s called a ropeway, we would call it a cable car. The car going up counterbalances the one coming down. Great views.

​We then headed onward to the castle through a beautiful shaded 10 minute walk surrounded by very tall magnificently straight trees.

The original Iwakuni Castle dates from around 1602 but was dismantled during the Tokugawa shogunate which had decreed there would only be one castle per prefecture and was rebuilt in 1962. Very traditional style of course, sixty narrow steps up to the top and an extensive display of swords and samurai outfits which I think must be compulsory in any self respecting Japanese castle.
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​So while in UK it’s the seagulls following tractors and in Portugal that job is taken over by the cattle egrets but here in Japan we have black kites following the harvest. Now that’s what I call class.

We have seen more black kites than any other species of bird, they’re everywhere.

Following a tradition started in Paris with the Eiffel Tower (330 metres), the Fukuoka Tower was constructed for an Expo back in 1989, it’s 234 metres high but apart from 3 floors it’s merely a shell, just like the one in Paris. The lift takes you to the viewing platform, where, not surprisingly, you get great views and find great photo opportunities. The floor below has a small restaurant and that’s it. It was  ¥1000 to get in, about £5. You get a complimentary photo with that  which is a little bigger than a postage stamp but merely a ploy to persuade you to buy something bigger, we bought the fridge magnet, it was cheap -relatively.

TheSkytree is still the best