Last year I visited Tohoku – the north of the main island of Japan – with my big old camera, and took a lot of pictures. This week, Helen's off on a trip, so I went to empty the biggest memory card I own for her – and found the 975 photos I took still sitting there in sequence.

Flicking through, I noticed that they form a sort of flippad-like video – I tend to take photos in bursts of three or four – so here's a little experiment. All 975 unprocessed images were stitched together in Premiere to make this composite. showing, roughly: Tokyo, Sendai, Yama-dera, Matsushima, Morioka, Tazawa, Hirosaki, Aomori, Aizu-Wakamatsu and back to Tokyo.

I thought the result was quite nice, so I'm sharing it here. If you fancy visiting Tohoku – and please do, it's lovely, and in need of tourism after the earthquake – I've written a guide, here.

Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima-ken

Three years ago, most people probably hadn't heard of Fukushima. Today everybody has heard of it, but very few people are visiting. This is a great shame, for many reasons.

The name itself is something of a problem. Fukushima is the prefecture, a city within it, and also the namesake of the nuclear power station that suffered a level-7 disaster after the earthquake. Both the city and the majority of the prefecture (pretty much everything west of the city, in fact) are located outside the exclusion zone, and considered safe for travel by the FCO. So off I went.

Getting into Fukushima-ken isn't hard, but you can't rely on the quickest trains: Hayate services on the Tohoku shinkansen bypass both Fukushima and Kouriyama. Instead you'll need a stopping service; these have some unreserved cars making them easy to catch.

I jumped off the main line at Kouriyama (tip: exit station, straight across main road, tiny katsu restaurant, fantastic food) and changed onto the Ban'etsu West line, which is a tiny one-track service into the countryside. After a long, dozey ride, I arrived in Aizuwakamatsu.

Aizuwakamatsu

Aizuwakamatsu is an old city nestled in the mountains. It's obviously put some real effort into tourism: there are tourist offices not just at the station, but also in other locations around town, with a bike rental scheme and a decent map of the town in English. There are, however, not many tourists. If you can, grab a bike: the city plan looks small, but it's actually a good day's walk to get around.

There are several interesting things to see. At one end of the town, a huge seven-tiered castle keep: this is a fake, rebuilt in the 60s, but it's still impressive to see and there's a good view from the top. There's also a site commemorating the Byakkotai (a group of very young soldiers who committed ritual suicide) – strangely this includes a huge and hideous memorial sent by Mussolini.

Nearby, there's the Sazaedo, a curious wooden temple that conceals two spiraling staircases, each hidden from the other – it dates to around 1790, and you can walk up and down it. The whole temple area is really rather pretty.

Finally, there's a small cluster of onsen ryokan just outside the town – you'll need a bus or bike to get there, I think, and sadly I didn't have the time.

Staying and Eating

Aizu has several hotels; I stopped at the Toyoko Inn next to the station which cost next to nothing. There are some cheap restaurants near the station, plus a few convenience stores and izekaya.

Unfortunately, Fukushima marked the end of the line for me on this trip. Out of time, out of money and out of clean clothes, I headed back to Tokyo the next morning, from Tokyo to Narita and Narita to home. Given a few more days, I'd like to have explored a bit further into the backwoods around Aizuwakamatsu: the local train line runs on, through dozens of smaller towns, for anyone with the time to travel it.

Next time, then.

This post is a part of my 'Japan on a Budget' collection – you can browse the rest here.

Tazawa is a beautiful, almost circular, lake in Akita-ken. Getting near the lake is easy: use the Akita mini-shinkansen, which if you're coming from the south runs together with the main Tohoku line and forks off at Morioka (from the north, change there). Getting to the lake itself is harder.

Having failed to find a free room at Nyuto onsen (more later), I found one by phoning the Rose Park Hotel, which is on the opposite side of the rather large lake. But not to worry: the internet said that there are Orix and JR car rental places by the station. I tried to book a car, but without a Japanese address the online system failed. So I just showed up.

Do not just show up at Tazawako shinkansen station and hope to rent a car.

Car Hire

The JR rental office at Tazawako station is a small shed-like building, and the Orix branch is a nearby shop. Neither had any cars, and this was on a weekday in October, so I doubt there had been a sudden rush – they're obviously there for people collecting pre-arranged rentals. And, as I mentioned, you can't pre-book either without a Japanese address. So I'm stuck at the Shinkansen station, which is nowhere near the lake, with no transport. Buses run, in October, a couple of times a day at best.

I was contemplating a good few hours of hiking with an 80 litre backpack, but the Orix lady saved me: she had the number of another rental shop. Toyota rental isn't by the station, but is a proper car rental lot: call them on (0187) 43 2100. The guy there had one car left; renting it required my 1949 international driving permit, my license, 7000Y, and a lot of fairly broken Japanese and hand gestures.

My vehicle was a Toyota Vitz (a Yaris in the UK). From it I learned the following:

1) Japanese auto-boxes have lots of settings. You need only P(ark), D(rive) and R(everse).
2) This particular one is all too easy to drop into S(creaming noise).
3) The car will beep. This could be because you're reversing, or because you've failed to drop the handbrake completely, or for any other number of reasons. Beep. Beep.
4) Japanese car computers are amazing. The one in this tiny, cheap car had maps, spoke English (well, mostly), and knew where everything is.
5) A one litre automatic Yaris-thing is not at all suitable for driving up a 10 degree incline on a dirt track into the mountains. But it managed, somehow.

Nyuto Onsen

This is not a road. It's not much worse than the road was, though.

About that hill. I wanted to visit Tsuru-no-Yu onsen, which is one of the most famous, and up in the hills behind Tawaza-ko. It's not easily accessible without a car. To get to it you go up a main road, down a small road, which becomes a narrow road with blind U-bends, which becomes a gravel track with huge rocks and potholes. All of the time, you're climbing up the mountain. And at the end: half of Japan's cars are in the car park. Amazing.

The onsen, though, is worth it. It's incredibly old, and has several baths. Unusually, the largest one – an outdoor bath under the mountain, with white water – is not gender segregated. Nor is it in any way private: the changing rooms have glass, and people walk right past the bath edge. Nonetheless, if you can get past that, it's wonderful: huge, comfortable, with a range of temperatures from bubbling out of the earth scorching hot to cool at the other end. I spent a good hour or more floating like a sedated hippo.

If you're male and don't fancy the rather open bath, though, I'm not sure Tsuru-no-Yu is worth the trip: the two indoor male baths are fine, but rather small. For women there's a separate outdoor bath around the back – no idea if it's any good, obviously, but at least there's another option.

Staying and Eating

Noodles just out of shot

From Tsuru-no-Yu I headed for the Rose Park hotel. This is on the west shore, near the golden statue, and seems to have at least three names: it's also the El Mirador and Prince hotel. Whatever it's called, though, it's nice: rather old-fashioned rooms, but large, clean and cheap (7500Y or so including breakfast). Rooms do not have internet access or water heaters but do have a vacuum flask of hot water for tea and, amazingly, a 'background music' knob. For, you know, lift music.

It's worth noting that there is nowhere around to eat in the evening – and the nearest store that opens even vaguely normal hours is a 30min drive on the other side of the lake – so it might be worth booking food at the hotel. During the day, there's a fantastic noodle stall next to the Goza no Ishi temple on the lake shore a 15 or so minute drive away. Or if you head away from the lake via the road that leaves from its eastern side (near the shops), you'll see a pizza restaurant and a small shop selling coffee and honey roll cake. I didn't try the pizza (closes early), but the coffee and cake were nice. You can't miss it – look for the London Bus.

Lake Tazawa might sound like a bit more trouble than it's worth, but it's hard to explain quite how beautiful the place is – tough by public transport, but well worth the effort if you can rent a car. The next day I drove back around the lake to the station, and headed north towards Hirosaki.

Matsushima, near Sendai, Miyagi-ken

I came back from last year's trip around southern Honshu determined to work on my kanji and head back the next year. One year, one hundred and twenty kanji and three more terms of general  study later, I was on a plane to Narita again. And this time, with something approaching a plan.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North

My intention for this year was originally to visit Kyushu, but on reflection decided on Tohoku: it's a huge chunk of the country that I'd never seen, and is suffering from a lack of tourism in the aftermath of last year's earthquake. Tohoku hasn't ever been a huge tourist hotspot compared to, say, Tokyo or Kyoto, but it's a beautiful place well worth visiting, and needs visitors more than ever. And so, armed with a notepad full of tips – thanks in particular to Clay Harris and Bethan Hutton – I headed north for Sendai.

As before, I'll run through all the key places I visited in separate posts, noting any information that might be handy to future visitors. But first, general travel stuff.

Trains and Car rental

Last year I used a seven day JR Japan Rail Pass, which is fantastic but expensive: the 14 day version would have blown my £100-ish-per-day budget. This time I could stick to JR East, which is even easier: you can buy a 10 day JR East Pass online for Y32,000 (around £250). This covers you on every train journey from Narita, around Tokyo on the Yamanote line, up to the north, and back to Narita again. Versions that cover five days and four-non-sequential days are also available.

I also tried something new: renting a car in Japan. To do this requires a bit of preparation, as you'll need a  International Driving Permit based on the 1949 Treaty – a truly comical bit of paperwork available either from the AA or major branches of the Post Office. Renting also requires a pretty decent grasp of Japanese, but more of that later. The cost was around £70 for a day, with reductions on subsequent days, for a tiny Toyota.

Shimbashi, Tokyo

Cheap Hotels

For accommodation, I mostly stuck to the same plan as last time: cheap business hotels that run to £50-60 per night. This time I tried as many chains as possible, and found the following:

Sunroute – I used a load of these in 2011 and 2009, too. Classic business hotel service, with prices between £45 in the sticks and £110 in Tokyo. The price is always representative of what you get: the Plaza Shinjuku, for example, is expensive but flashy, while Higashi-Shinkuki is older and less smart but cheaper, and Nara costs almost nothing but is a bit knackered. You can reserve online via the website without putting any payment down in advance – in English, if you wish.

JAL City – These aren't quite normal business hotels – you pay on checkout and there are minibars in the rooms, although in practice that just means you pay more for a beer or bottle of water. They are, however, really nice for the money – usually £50 or so if you book in advance. The website is a disaster that's pretty hard to understand (a million and one options), so reserve on the phone or through a third party site.

Toyoko Inn – You cannot miss the Toyoko inn in any town: it'll be right by the JR train station, or have a giant blue light on the top, or usually both. And it'll be cheap: £35-50. I've only stayed in one, which was a little worn, but fine for the money. I'd recommend if you can't find a JAL or inexpensive Sunroute.

Super Hotel – Ah, the Super Hotel. I've stayed in only one, which was pretty new, but not super. On the plus side, these are ultra cheap: £30-40 or so, and you get a small room with a capsule bathroom. On the downside, my experience was a tiny room that stank of smoke (not the only smoking room I stayed in, but the only one I regretted), and about four hours of sleep. You get what you pay for.

I tried to reserve as many as possible on the phone – I need to work on my speaking – but JAL, Toyoko Inn and Super Hotel are all listed on the English-language reservation service Japanican.com. Sunroute's own website is better.

Internet Access

Travel guides can be pretty useless when it comes to Tohoku. In the latest Lonely Planet, published just after the quake, it's a black hole – presumably ninety percent of the chapter was pulled at the eleventh hour. This makes internet access particularly handy for checking trains, sizing up hotels and so on.

Every business hotel I stayed in had free, fast, working internet access – but only the Toyoko Inn had WiFi. This makes having a cheap netbook computer invaluable. This will just plug in, and you can use the free tool Connectify to create a local hotspot for your mobile phone.

I also used 3G on my iPhone. To do this, buy a B-Mobile temporary visitor SIM card online – a 14 day one costs around £35 if purchased from outside Japan, and you can simply request delivery to your first location in Japan. It connects to 3G only – no voice or SMS services, but iMessage works – on the NTT DoCoMo network, which has good coverage. The service speed is limited, but good enough for email, web and occasional Google Maps when utterly lost.

A warning, though: on switching SIM cards my iPhone 4S reset and required re-registration via WiFi. Fortunately I could hook it up through my laptop (see above), but if that option isn't available you could be left with a useless, bricked phone. Thanks, Apple.

Anyhow, I paused one night in Tokyo to collect the SIM card, eat some noodles and indulge in a jetlag-busting onsen. With that done, on to Sendai.

I've now been learning Japanese for about three years – long enough to get a decent grip on everyday verbs, adjectives and nouns, and to start wrestling with kanji (80ish, so far). But there's only so far you can get by speaking for 90 minutes per week in classes. So, I hatched a plan: to get to Japan as cheaply as possible and spend a few days practicing.

In the end, I managed to tour pretty much the entire lower half of Honshu quite inexpensively, and it was a great experience. In case it's handy to anyone planning something similar, this handful of blog posts – you can see the whole series here – will outline where I went, what I did, and how I kept the budget down.

Old Japan in Nara

Planes and Trains

My original idea was to fly in on the cheapest, crappest route possible, take the train to Kyoto and spend some time there. This went completely awry, but in a good way. First, air fares plummeted: I was able to get a direct flight from Heathrow to Narita for around £650, which is far less than we paid the other year, and even then the plane was half empty.

Cranes, Hiroshima

Booking on Virgin Atlantic gets you a choice between Virgin and ANA flights – in my experience Virgin's Tokyo planes are similar to others in the fleet – a bit knackered, with not enough legroom to sleep and mediocre food – while ANA's plane was immaculate, with more legroom and better (Japanese) meals. Given the choice, pick the latter – ANA were better than JAL, too.

A rainy Tokyo on the day I landed

Secondly, I found that getting a Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto costs around £200, so you might as well pay £250 or so for the 7-day Japan Rail Pass, which gets you unlimited travel on all JR lines, with a few minor restrictions.  I planned for eight days, but after my original flight was cancelled ended up with nine, during seven of which I could travel pretty much anywhere. In the end my route took me from Tokyo, through Kyoto, Fukuchiyama, Kinosaki, Hiroshima, Nara and Yokohama, then back  to Tokyo for one day before leaving.

Shinkansen – the best train service in the world

I really cannot recommend the Rail Pass enough. I must have used well over £1,000 worth of train travel, all for one fixed price, and on many trains you don't even need to pick up any other ticket. For those that do, you can use it to make reservations on Limited Express and Shinkansen services – the fastest Nozomi ones are exempt, but that doesn't matter much as you can use the almost-as-fast Hikari and Sakura services. The Rail Pass must be purchased before you travel to Japan – it is not sold there at all – and must be started within three months of purchase. In London, visit the Japan Travel shop under Mitsukoshi Department Store (which also sells tickets to the Ghibli Museum, if you haven't been!).

New Japan in Ginza, Tokyo

Armed with a pass I spent 15 minutes in the JR Kyoto Eki ticket office booking ten or so journeys, which got me a guaranteed seat on even busy trains – reassuring when you're lugging a large rucksack. And the trains, of course, are fantastic. Even the oldest, crappiest (not very crappy) local ones run on time, while the Shinkansen are more comfortable than most aeroplanes I've been on (especially the reserved seating on Sakura services). It's a great way to travel.

The local train from Kyoto to Inari

Hotels and Hiking

With travel sorted, I aimed to travel not on the cheap, but relatively cheaply – no more than £120 a day, including accommodation. This is, fortunately, pretty easy – most cities have cheapish business hotels that have many single rooms that run from £50 (out in Kansai) to £90ish (Shinjuku, Tokyo). The Sunroute chain, in particular, is handy: you can reserve rooms online in advance with no deposit, and they're all good, no-frills places (think Travelodge, but often a bit nicer). Outside Tokyo and Kyoto I also found some cheap ryokan accommodation, which makes a nice change.

Add on one cheap restaurant meal a day, breakfast in a coffee shop and some onigiri for lunch, and you don't have to spend a fortune, even with the horrendously high Yen – but bear in mind that sightseeing and transport can be expensive. A day visiting temples in Kyoto, for example, must have set me back £50 at least just on entrance fees. Similarly, non-JR travel (Tokyo's subway lines, for example), quickly become costly if you're moving around a lot.

Okonomiyaki in Hiroshima – cheap and delicious

To cover my route you'll need luggage you can carry (a decent rucksack) and to be happy to walk 5km or so at a time carrying it. My route also required a couple of eyeball-hurtingly-early starts, and judicious use of train station lockers to hold  baggage when passing through towns. All big stations have these, although they fill up in the mornings, and they can be hard to find – ask 'すみません、コインロッカーはどこですか' (sumimasen, coin-ro-kah wa doko des ka?). Backpack sized ones normally cost 600Y for storage until 1am the next day.

Oh, and one other recommendation: just before leaving I grabbed a copy of the new Lonely Planet guide to Japan, as I've had good experiences finding cheap places to stay using their guides in the past. Although it has a few odd omissions, and a few sections were already out of date (just goes to show how long editing, proofing and printing can take, I guess), it proved really handy and I'd recommend it.

So, that's that. I flew in and out of Tokyo – more on that city here.