Japan planning thread

[Takoneko]

I’ve just booked the hotels for my third trip to Japan next year and about to start planning the itinerary in earnest.

Japan threads pop up here quite a bit and I think people spend a lot of time on planning for Japan trips. I thought it might be nice to have a shared thread where we can pool questions, tips and share research for anyone who has a trip coming up.

All budgets and styles of trip are welcome, whether you’re going hiking, temple-hopping, skiing or visiting theme parks, maid cafes and arcades and whether you’re going to hostels or 5 star hotels. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to enjoy Japan. It has something for everyone.

We’re a couple in our late 30s and our trip will be mid-budget, probably up to about £3.4k per person with food and spends. We’ve splashed out a bit on direct JAL flights and have upgraded all our hotel rooms to at least king size beds in hotels that are in really well connected locations. They are all mid-range Japanese business hotel chains rather than luxury hotels though. (Candeo, Daiwa Roynet and Sotetsu Fresa). We like Japanese food but we’re definitely more likely to be eating eat in mom and pop restaurants and mid-range Japanese chains than in fancy kaiseki places. Any recommendations for mid range restaurants with relaxed atmospheres would be very welcome.

We plan to use the Sanyo-San’in rail pass in the second half of our trip and would be really interested to share ideas for places to visit with anyone else who is planning on using that pass (or who has used it in the past). At the moment we are thinking Iwakuni, Miyajima, Kurashiki and Onomichi from Hiroshima and Himeji and Uji from Osaka, but we are open to other ideas. I speak passable tourist Japanese and we are ok with going to places that don’t cater to English speakers and muddling through with broken Japanese and Google translate.

OP we flew into Tokyo stayed there for 4 night i think (and 1 halfway up Mt Fuji), then we caught the train to Hiroshima, train to Nagasaki, train to Fukuoka, ferry to Busan, train to Seoul. We stayed 10ish days in Seoul (DS lives there), train back to Busan, ferry to Osaka for 5 days, the flew to New Chitose. Drove to Otaru, Daisetsuzan, Shiretoko, over to Noboribetsu. Then flew back to Tokyo for a day then home. It was a 5 week trip, we really enjoyed it but I'm very torn between going back or seeing more of the world! Perhaps we'll pop back on a future Korea trip....

@Specialnameforanoutingthread That sounds like an amazing itinerary. We can only go for two weeks at a time due to work commitments, so it will take us a few trips to see as much as you did. It looks like you packed in a huge range of places.
The national parks on Hokkaido look amazing. What time of year were you there? It looks so beautiful in all four seasons.

We started the trip in early September and came home in mid Oct so caught some autumn in Hokkaido.

We enjoy a 'travelling' holiday so like to get around but we find the travel is a good part of the fun and learning. Watching how different nationalities move around, interact, shop, drive, how they live etc is fascinating. Three days after this Japan and Korea trip I went to India for work and that was a bit of a contrast 😂!!

What does everyone like to bring home from Japan? I like to buy incense from shrines and/or temples (solid core so burns more cleanly), bath products (for putting in the bath I mean), and house slippers 🙂

This trip I’m definitely planning on picking up some PJs. Had so many nice ones last time that were provided in the hotels (loose boxy style cotton ones). We also brought back lots of tea last time we went, so will probably do that again. This time I want to go to some of the cosmetics stores and look for skincare products too 😊

Things that I bought and would definitely buy again are:

Cat treats. They had cat frubes that were more like real food than lick-e-lix and my cat went nuts for them when I got home.

Nail clippers. May sound odd but Japanese nail clippers are so much better than anything you can buy here.

Snacks and food items- Kit Kats, jelly sweets like Kororo (コロロ), pasta snacks from Disney, traditional sweets like daifuku, mochi etc, little biscuits and cookies, curry roux.

Stationery- Cute little postcards, nice notebooks, a little fridge magnet craft knife that sticks to the fridge and is perfect for opening packaging, little spring loaded slimline scissors that fit easily in my pencil case, nice pens.

From pharmacies: cooling gel things that you stick to the soles of your feet after a long day of walking, cooling/warming eye masks, blackhead nose strips, sunscreen, cream blush, sheet masks.

Other random things: we got some cool little nick nacks from gachapon, some cool trinkets and charms from temples, we collected eki stamps and we bought a few plush toys and figurines.

My favourite was actually the eki stamps.
we had so much fun collecting them and the books are a record of everywhere we went.

Anyone else on here getting twitchy about exchange rates?

Our hotels are booked and the price is set in yen. We don’t have to pay until early April but I’m wondering whether it’s more sensible to pay now and secure the exchange rate, or whether the money is better off in my savings account earning interest.

I decided to pay now and secure the exchange rate. It feels like the yen is strengthening quite a bit. I also saw some articles that suggested hedge funds expect it to continue to gain. I decided to play on the safe side.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hedge-funds-placing-option-bets-014542406.html

I know there’s a few on here with trips in the next couple of months. I think it was@faffadoodledo and @XelaM. Don’t know if you’ve bought any currency yet, but it might be worth keeping an eye on the rates.

We’re going mid-November. It’s hard to know what to do so I will probably just wait 😥

I'm struggling to find hotels to our trip next July. Do they really sell out that quickly or are they just now out yet? Was investigating the Hilton Tokyo bay for our last few nights (Disney) but it says sold out - even 10 months ahead!

Can anyone shed some light?

For Disneyland we stayed at Prince Shiomi, it was full of people doing the same. Lovely breakfast and near the station and a supermarket. Bed was a bit hard for my liking but I would stay there again. Could try them?

Forgot to quote you @QueenMabby

I think it’s likely that they’re not available to book yet. Often rooms are only released six months ahead. Or even three months. The same goes for other things - eg scenic sightseeing trains, the Ghibli museum etc only open booking a couple of months out.

If you look at the same hotels, are they showing availability in the next few months, and then nothing? That should show you how far in advance they open bookings.

I would look again in Jan and see what is available then. July is not peak travel season for Japan, so I don’t think you’ll find things sell out super quickly.

I think they mostly won’t be released yet. A lot of hotels don’t seem to allow you to book until about 9 months in advance. We booked in July for Apr (9 months in advance) when a lot more hotels popped up in the searches. Last time around we booked in October for April (so only about 6 months in advance).

If you go to a booking website or the hotel website and scroll ahead then you should be able to see how far ahead you can see availability/prices and work out from there when you’re likely to be able to book for your dates.

For Disney, now that there are no 2 day passes I’d also consider doing the two Disney parks on non-consecutive days. We did far fewer steps on theme park days but found standing in queues far harder on our feet than walking. We went to one park on a Tuesday and the other on the Thursday and were very glad to have the day in between.

We also didn’t stay out in Maihama/Urayasu. We stayed near Hatchobori station, which was just under 15 minutes by train from Maihama station. I like the Ginza area so that suited us well.

In case anyone is going to Japan anytime soon, myself and my partner got e-sims with Ubigi (20pc off discount code MEABDHYW when you use their app).

We'll be heading to Tokyo for 6 days (1 day trip to mount Fuji), Kyoto for 8 days (with day trips to Nara and Osaka), then Hiroshima / Miyajima for 3 days with a 15 month old. It'll mostly be airbnbs as they seemed more flexible than the available hotels / packages when we were booking!

@QueenMabby I had a quick look at the Hilton Tokyo Bay on booking.com and the dates go up to June so it looks like you should be able to book July dates next month.

Have a great time! When are you off?

@Takoneko in 3 weeks! We're pretty excited, it's our first time there.

Thank you everyone and especially @Takoneko for double checking!

I hadn't planned on booking the hotels until after Christmas (we need to nail down the itinerary first) but can never resist searching!

@Arthursayhey121 That will come around so quickly! It looks like the weather should be a bit milder and more pleasant then too. Please tell us how it goes.

We’re nailing down our itinerary now and I think we’re going to be in Kyoto when our DC turns 9. Can anyone recommend anything really special we can do on that day to celebrate them? They like animals and science- but open to almost any special ideas really.

What about the Osaka aquarium? I’ve heard great things about it.

Can anyone telll me if Kamakura do-able as a day trip from Tokyo? We happen to be staying at the Tokyo Station Hotel so i think it should make a day trip from that station very easy. Is it a good place to go to beyond seeing the giant Buddha?

Also Universal Studios if they happen to like Harry Potter or anything else there?

We went to Kamakura from Tokyo, yes it’s definitely very easy to do. When we were there we also saw Hachimangu Shrine, which is a beautiful place. Komachi-dori is nearby as well:

www.japan-guide.com/blog/matt/210319.html