Not really a review as such this time around, but I've just returned from a holiday in the Kansai region of Japan (Hence the lack of reviews recently), and I wanted to write a little bit about what I got up to. This was my third trip to the area, but my partner's first holiday anywhere outside of the UK, and it was also the longest I've stayed in the region. Since Golden Week meant that the prices for domestic flights had leapt up we had to pick one location and stick with it for the full nine days, and while Tokyo is certainly an amazing experience, I personally find the Kansai region to be a much more interesting and diverse area. First things first, I have to sing the praises of the Kansai Thru Pass, which makes travelling around the region so incredibly easy. Our plan of action is always to use Osaka as a hub and make a lot of day trips out of the city, and the Thru Pass is absolutely perfect for that. 5000 Yen gets you three days of travel on practically all of Kansai's major private railway lines, including the Osaka subway, as well as a wide array of bus services and even the odd cablecar. 5000 Yen can seem like a lot of money at first, but even just using the subway around Osaka the value of the pass becomes apparent, and once you start making excursions out of the city it becomes a no-brainer. I really cannot recommend it enough if you're travelling to the region. Having one ticket to cover all of your travel needs for 3 days is extremely useful anyway, and removes a lot of stress from the experience. That it's such good value for money is the icing the cake. Now that that's out of the way, I guess I'll start at the start.
