:TIMELINE
🗼❤️🇯🇵
2024-03-01 | Tokyo. Landed at Narita at midnight. Narita Express to Shinjuku. First combini dinner standing at the counter.
2024-03-03 | Nikko. Tosho-gu in cold morning light, cedar forest, almost no other visitors.
2024-03-05 | Hakone. Mount Fuji appeared in the ryokan window for exactly 40 minutes before the cloud closed again.
2024-03-08 | Kyoto. Fushimi Inari at 5am. Had the upper torii gates to myself. Two hours of silence.
2024-03-11 | Arashiyama. Bamboo grove in light rain. Better than the photographs promised.
2024-03-14 | Hiroshima. Peace Memorial Museum. Did not take a single photograph all day.
2024-03-17 | Nara. Deer park at dusk. A doe took the last of my crackers and looked at me like I owed her more.
2024-03-21 | Osaka. Last night in Dotonbori. Ate standing up at four different stalls. Flight home from Kansai. Left something behind that I cannot name.

:PROFILE [image:https://slatesource-media.s3.amazonaws.com/1/6/e/16e5ba47-6ed7-445b-be89-bb04e37b57da.webp?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20260614T202304Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA6PWPI77XKVCG2MNW%2F20260614%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Signature=94fa0485819e6ed6c20f849411a6c119783d0e61c1a0fac09620177e0c844958]
Léa Dupont
Paris, France
Travel writer and photographer. Documenting slow trips to places worth going slowly. Japan was the t

:MAP
35.6762,139.6503,Tokyo [PLANE]
36.7482,139.4917,Nikko [FOOT]
35.2323,139.1069,Hakone [FOOT]
35.0116,135.7681,Kyoto [FOOT]
34.6901,135.8048,Nara [FOOT]
34.3853,132.4553,Hiroshima [FOOT]
34.6937,135.5023,Osaka [PLANE]

:STATS

:IMAGE

:INFO
How to use a slate for your trip
Every chip on this page is something you can fill in yourself. The timeline above captures the real moments, not the itinerary. The map shows where you actually went. The stats are the numbers that meant something when you looked back. The moment below is the one photograph that had no plan behind it. A slate is not a travel blog. It is closer to a dispatch. Short, specific, and made to be read in the three minutes someone gives you before deciding whether your trip was worth their attention.


:MOMENT
Hakone
Mount Fuji from room 204

:QUOTE [quotetype:personal, subtitle:Léa Dupont]
Japan does not reward the person who planned it perfectly. It rewards the one who looked up at the right moment.


:NOTE.half
The IC card (Suica or Icoca) handles almost every train, bus and convenience store payment. Load 5,000 yen at the airport and top up as needed. No ticket queues.
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:NOTE.half
Book the Hiroshima night at least six weeks out. It fills differently from other cities. People come for a day and then stay longer than they planned.


:LINK
https://www.google.com/search?q=Japan+rail+pass+2024+worth+it
Plan your own Japan rail trip