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Welcome to this month’s roundup of my favorite Instagram posts from January 2015. I spent the first half of the month in Japan, so most of my photos are from that trip.

I ate ramen nearly every day while I was in Japan. While I promise you I will spare you every single ramen photo I posted, I have to share at least one. This ramen is from Ichiran, a Japanese chain. Don’t let the fact that it’s a chain fool you, it was one of my favorite ramen joints I visited.

On my 2nd full day in Japan, I visited Kawaguchiko, which is near Mount Fuji. It was a clear day, so the mountain was in full view from Lake Kawaguchiko.

Here is the Big Buddha in Kamakura.

I will have much more on the stories behind all of these photos when I get around to writing all of my trip reports, but suffice to say that my visit to the Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku, Tokyo was a unique experience I will never forget.

From Tokyo, I went to Kyoto, home of many amazing temples, none more magnificent than Kinkaku.

Kyoto also had some great street food. Here I had some takoyaki (octopus balls).

From Kyoto, I took a day trip to Miyajima Island & Hiroshima. The most famous sights in Miyajima are the Itsukushima Shrine & the deer that wander the streets.

Japan has one of the best transportation systems in the world. Here is a shinkansen bullet train.

I passed dozens of these vending machines before I realized that this particular coffee was endorsed by Tommy Lee Jones. A nice bonus: the vending machine serves the cans of BOSS warm!

On my last day in Tokyo, I was fortunate to be able to attend the January Grand Sumo Tournament at the Ryogoku Kokugikan.

Finally, we close with a couple of photos back in California. Here’s the sunset one night in San Francisco.

And this was some excellent mac & cheese with bacon that I had at T-Rex BBQ in Berkeley.

That’s it for this month, but you can follow my full Instagram account at: http://instagram.com/everybodyhatesatourist

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