お任せ (o·ma·ka·se) literally translates as “I’ll leave it up to you.” Usually, this is in reference to a meal, where dishes are selected by the chef.
As a trip, it means we’re leaving our destination, activities, and meals up to our Pacset travel guide. We’ll have no idea where we’re headed until we get there.
Day 1: Yokohama
The guided portion of our trip doesn’t start until tomorrow evening, so we spent today hanging out with friends in Yokohama, visiting the Cup Noodle museum, eating soba, riding a gondola, and playing crane games. Hoping we adjust to the time change before the real fun begins!
Day 2: Yokohama, cont.
The rest of our group arrived today! We spent most of the day with a slowly growing group, exploring Chinatown, parks, malls, and then met up with the whole group at the Ramen Museum (which is different from the Cup Noodle Museum we went to yesterday!). No idea where we’ll end up tomorrow, but excited to find out.
Day 3: Yokohama > Karuizawa
This has been an absolutely amazing start to the trip! We took the train to visit a cute resort town in the mountains to hike through a bird sanctuary and do some shopping, then headed to a bunch of cabins to explore a lakeside park, grill a bunch of food, and then play board games. 😁
Day 4: Karuizawa > Toyama
Off to a bigger city today! We took the Shinkansen to Toyama, where we visited a glass museum, took a boat tour that traveled through a lock, walked the beach and admired the mountains, drank a lot of sake, and had an amazing omakase dinner!
Day 5: Daytrip to Takaoka and Imizu
This was possibly my favorite day in Japan ever! We traveled to Takaoka to practice metal craft, participated in a tea ceremony, ate fresh sushi, then took a boat ride to the small town of Imizu, where we dressed up in fancy kimonos to enjoy a festival we helped sponsor and got A LOT of attention from the locals. 😆
Day 6: Toyama > Nagahama
Back on the move today to Nagahama! We visited the Kaiyodo Figure Museum, took a cheese class and made mozzarella, got mobbed by pigeons, explored a temple, and did some shopping before checking into a very pretty resort. 😍
Day 7: Daytrip to Hikone and Chikubushima
While I stayed behind to do laundry, Nick ventured out to Hikone castle. Later, we both took a boat to Chikubu Island to check out the shrines and temples. Then we topped it off with a fun dinner at a whisky distillery and hotel shenanigans.
Day 8: Nagahama > Kurashiki > Okayama
After a few trains, we started our daily adventure in Kurashiki, where we had teatime with lots of treats, went shopping for denim, then traveled onwards to Okayama to wander a huge park and eat a feast of delicious skewered foods for dinner.
Day 9: Daytrip to Takamatsu
We took a train down to Shikoku today, one of the other islands of Japan! There, we missed a boat, ate some amazing udon, explored a castle park, finally caught a boat, and spent the afternoon petting cats, walking through winding streets, and viewing art exhibits on a small island in the Seto Inland Sea.
Day 10: Okayama > Sera > Onomichi
It’s flower day! 🌼 We boarded a bus and toured three different flower gardens, then ended up in Onomichi: a city known for being the setting of a lot of books and movies, plus it’s the starting point of a famous bike ride across a bunch of islands. I’m a little tempted to try at least part of the bike ride tomorrow buuuuut we’ll see how ambitious I feel.
Day 11: Shimanami Kaido
I headed over to the bike rental place this morning at 7am and managed to grab the last pedal-assist e-bike. Guess it was meant to be! I managed to complete the entire 50-mile Shimanami Kaido bike ride over 6 major islands in the Seto Inland Sea. It’s technically not quite that long, but I took a couple wrong turns along the way. 😅 It was absolutely breathtaking and I’m so glad I finally got the chance to try it. Meanwhile, Nick and friends toured some shrines, explored a cat alley, and took a gondola. We finished the evening with an amazing meal and drinks with the whole group.
Day 12: Onomichi > Aizuwakamatsu
We traveled by bus, plane, train, and then another bus to Aizuwakamatsu today! Due to some delays, most of the day ended up being dedicated to travel, but we still got to check out some reconstructed samurai homes and ended the day at an amazing resort!
Day 13: Exploring Aizuwakamatsu
We’re getting close to the end of our trip! 😭 Today was a free day but most of us headed out into town to check out a cat who works at a train station, visit a castle, eat lunch, and create a grudge with both a bus and a taxi. Later, we had some craft time and painted akabeko cows, ate another amazing buffet, and hung out together to try to finish some of the plum wine, sake, and sochu bottles so we don’t have to keep carrying them around to our last mystery location tomorrow!
Day 14: Aizuwakamatsu > Utsonomiya
We’re on our way back to Tokyo but still had a ton of fun on our last full day of the guided trip with the whole group. We traveled via bus to Utsonomiya to visit a museum in a cave, view a 27-meter tall goddess, and finish the day with a super fancy French dinner.
Day 15: Utsonomiya > Tokyo
We said goodbye to around half of our wonderful tripmates today but are still having lots of fun with who’s left! We had a very fancy afternoon tea, visited Lost Bar (if you’re familiar with the Abroad in Japan YouTube channel), and ran around Shibuya for a few hours. Turns out it’s incredibly busy on a Sunday evening. 🤦♀️
Day 16: Daytrip to Kyoto
Nick got the two of us tickets to the Nintendo museum today, so we took the Shinkansen down to Kyoto with one of our friends to check it out (and get our fill of curry udon and wagyu beef).
Day 17-18: Shopping in Tokyo
We spent our last two days just chilling in Tokyo, doing a lot of shopping and eating before we had to head back home. So sad this trip is about to be over but probably our best trip yet and I already miss our friends.
