Kolbe Adventures

We have been anticipating this for a long time now but nothing could prepare us for the rollercoaster of emotions during this international move. Everyday you have to show so much (not only physical) strength to get the many tasks done. But the powerful emotions that you will experience are even more demanding. We have been going through some very intense moments and in this post I will try to describe to you how it was for us to say goodbye to our home in Kanazawa.

How to spend the time in Japan as best as possible while also getting ready for an international move? That’s a question that we were faced with as September started and the moving date was approaching fast. As this month was unusually sunny and warm, we were able to go on many small day trips and spend lots of time outdoors. At the same time, we started to sell our furniture and to pack our things that we wanted to ship, turning our home from a comfortable apartment to a place that slowly started to say goodbye to our Japanese life.

The first days of our Tohoku trip were spent at the Pacific side of the country. The second part of our road trip however led us back into the inner parts of the country, to the prefecture of Yamagata. This prefecture is known for its agricultural products, especially cherries, great hot springs, an overall rural flair and scenic beauty. It offers a totally different atmosphere and it felt quite remote, compared to the vibrant areas of Miyagi that we visited.

Tohoku, the northern part of Japan’s main island Honshu is an area that is not visited by too many tourists but has a lot to offer: stunning views, beautiful nature, lively cities and lots of historical sites. I always wanted to travel to this area and finally, we found the time to do it. In this and the following post, I’ll tell you all about our six day road trip into the North of Japan!

It’s our third summer in Japan and we are still overwhelmed by the heat, the humidity and the sweat! I am not sure if you can ever get used to the brutal summers in Japan, no matter how long you live in this country. However, this time, I managed to control my heat exhaustion far better than last year. I was even able to do some rope skipping workouts - at 9 pm (still 32 degrees outside) and only short, but that was a lot better than last year where I barely left my house.

The summer heat has arrived and life in Kanazawa has become extremely tough. Therefore we decided to make a plan to escape this heat, even though it was only for a short while. A four day holiday period end of July offered a good opportunity to bring this plan into action. With a very short planning time (only several hours) we enjoyed our two day road trip, covering Gifu and Nagano prefecture with lots of scenic viewing spots and good food!

Japan is famous for its breathtaking beaches among the Pacific or Japan Sea shore. But, not many people know that you can also find one of the oldest lakes in the world in Japan! In this post, I’ll tell you all about our one day trip to Lake Biwa. About Lake Biwa Lake Biwa or Biwako, as it’s called in Japanese, is a 4 million years old lake, located in the central part of Japan’s main island Honshu, north of Kyoto, in Shiga Prefecture.

Experiencing rainy season in Japan is always challenging. Last year, it was raining so much for weeks that we weren’t sure if it would ever stop again. This year however, the weather was very different. Therefore, we were constantly wondering what’s going on with rainy season. May was unusually rainy, prompting us to fear that rainy season had already started - 20 days earlier than expected. However, June turned out to be really sunny and unusually warm, right until the last week, when the rain came back.

I recently discovered a hidden and very breathtaking scenery - five lakes and the sea, all in different shades of blue - that is only a two hour drive away from Kanazawa. Read more about our day trip to the five lake area of Mikata Go Ko in this post. About Mitaka Goko Mikata Goko (which means “five Lakes of Mikata”) in Mikatakaminaka County is the category name for the following five lakes: Lake Mikata, Lake Suigetsu, Lake Suga, Lake Kugushi, and Lake Hiruga.

Life has been passing fast during the past weeks: we went from beautiful spring to rainy season and back to pre summer weather in a very short time span. As experienced in the past year, the weather during May and early June is really nice in Ishikawa. Not much rain, lots of sunny and not too hot days, lots of flowers and an early summer feeling. This year, we experienced a nice and sunny weather period except during Golden Week - it was raining during the whole holiday period!