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.

There’s karaoke places everywhere. Big Echo in particular seemed ubiquitous. We didn’t go for karaoke in the end, but I’ve read that the big chains (like big echo) tend to have better selections of music, especially for English speakers.

In Japanese it’s usually written カラオケ (in katakana rather than hiragana) and you’ll see that on signs all over the place.

@Takoneko was just about to post about Japan when this popped up ! I will catch up on the many pages of answers when i'm not skiving from work ! But we are a family of me and my husband and my 2 x 21 year olds. We all really want to visit Japan - when would you suggest is a good time to visit - we are tied to uni holidays so I suppose January, April June - Sept !
Any must do's for us - we all love cultural exploring, music, eating, and love train travel. Feel a bit overwhelmed!

@Isthereeverenoughtineinaday

January- I’ve never been at that time of year but I’ve heard that (leaving aside the few days around New Year) it’s a good time to visit to avoid crowds.

April- wonderful time of year to visit. Especially late March to early April for the cherry blossom. However it’s very crowded in popular spots (Kyoto especially) and flights and accommodation are more expensive at that time of year. I’m a teacher, so it’s the best option I have available.

June to September- I’d only choose this if I had no other option. I went once many years ago in late May to early June and whilst I had a great time the weather wasn’t great. There was a typhoon and some days were very hot and humid. I’ve heard it’s far worse later in the summer.

I think must-dos are quite personal but I loved Kamakura and Nara. I also recommend leaving space in your itinerary to just wander and enjoy being in Japan. We’re planning for a lot of day trips on our next trip but to smaller, quieter cities where we can just soak up the atmosphere and visit less busy shrines, temples and museums rather than ticking off the usual big attractions. I don’t think you can go too far in wrong in Japan though. There’s just so many wonderful places to go and endless things to do.

@Suzuran I’ve just finished watching the Boyfriend. I loved it. I feel like it filled a Terrace House shaped hole. If you have any other tips for TV shows, please let me know. It makes a nice change from the rather dry NHK youtube stuff that I watch normally, which is also quite Keigo-heavy.

本当にありがとうございます！

Meiji Jingu Gaien has a Christmas Market from end of November. It is designed to bring a taste of Europe with a German theme so I’m not sure if that’s worth visiting in Japan but I probably will.

Peach air is often good prices for getting down to Ishigaki and Okinawa from Tokyo.Also you can fly from Naha in Okinawa to Taipei cheaply... cheaply as in below 100USD

Have you ever watched the 72 Hours NHK documentary series? They’re really good and interesting, sometimes quite bittersweet. The last one was about ferry ride passengers to Hokkaido.

I pretty much only watch J-Dramas (for language learning and because I love them and am obsessed) and since there isn’t a Japanese TV service I can pay for over here I watch them streamed online. Netflix have some but it’s pretty limited. I’m not sure if you are ok with streaming things online but if so I can recommend you some shows if you like.

Thanks for the recommendation for the 72 hours. I watched the Lake Biwa one but hadn’t realised it was a series. I’ll check those out.

Right, we're off in ten days and I'm a bit befuddled by what to pack. It's showing temps of 25 degrees currently in Tokyo, and concerned that if I pack for that the weather may play a mean trick and plunge into autumn as I arrive!
I'm thinking layers obvs. But just a raincoat rather than say a down jacket.
Any top sartorial tips welcome!

A raincoat is probably enough. It’s unlikely to stay in the 25-30 range for that much longer, but it’s probably not going to be dropping below much below a high of 15 any time soon either.

Packing layers is sensible but I wouldn’t stress too much. The thing about a trip to Japan is that you’re likely to be passing through plenty of cities and built up areas. If the weather suddenly changes, picking up an extra layer/jumper/jacket is not difficult and stuff is reasonably priced. It’s not like a resort holiday where buying new clothes would be a massive pain.

@faffadoodledo i would dress towards what counters your worst feeling. I would rather be cold than warm. There will be a lot of walking so at 15 degrees+ that’s a top no jumper weather for me if I’m moving. I would pack a pair of shorts just in case it is 20+

I like UNIQLO so wouldn’t be upset if I was forced to buy new clothes.

@faffadoodledo are you packing clothes for evenings out or keeping it casual?

I thought I'd pack one denim dress and hope that'll be good enough for evenings. Otherwise, based on your recent helpful answers, jeans, walking trousers, a couple
Or three t shirts, a shirt, a sweatshirt and maybe a tank top. And a raincoat!
I do hope to leave space in my suitcase for purchases!
Thanks all xx

Is anyone else travelling with BA? There has been a lot of groundings for long haul flights in news. So far I haven’t seen any UK to Japan flights affected but anyone who hasn’t got insurance already in place it’s better to buy it now.

I hadn’t seen the news about this until you mentioned it. That’s a bit nuts.

We paid the extra to fly JAL, mostly because I think their 2-4-2 layout in economy is worth paying more for over the 3-3-3 other airlines use. Hopefully they don’t end up with similar issues with parts.

Ooooer we're flying to Seoul first (for 3 nights) with BA. I will check our insurance

I didn’t think BA flew to Seoul?

Oooh - BA hadn't resumed the flights after Covid last time I looked, im interested for our next trip. @faffadoodledo when do you head off? We've just got back.

Don't forget an umbrella, @faffadoodledo! Plenty of places to buy them in Japan though, including convenience stores.

Is anyone reading books by Japanese authors or set in Japan as a run up to their trip?

I’m re-reading Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood and I’ve just finished Convenience Store Woman, a 2016 novel by Japanese author Sayaka Murata, which I recommend.

Has anyone got any suggestions please?

I haven't RTFT but am after some advice on car hire in Japan. Last year we did a pre-booked tour arranged for us by a Travel Counsellor. Next year we'd like to do it more under our own steam. Our plan is to fly into Tokyo, spend a few nights there, train to Sendai and then hire a car exploring Fukushima and Northern Honshu provinces, then drop the car back in Sendai before flying to Seoul and home from there. I suppose my questions are (a) is it feasible for westerners to hire cars (b) how easy is the driving (same side of the road as us so that's a good start!) and (c) how expensive is it compared to public transport.

You need your International drivers permit, this is available on DVLA for £6

Obviously Murakami has a lot of books so you can explore his catalogue. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, What You Are Looking For Is In The Library, The Bookshop Woman and Sweet Bean Paste are more in the vein of Convenience Store Woman. Short, easy to read, (relatively) light, and also sparse in the Japanese style. Tons more on my list to read but these are some solid ones!

@squashyhat we hired a car in Hokkaido not Honshu but I am sure there are parallels. We opted for a car as it was much easier to do what we wanted in Hokkaido in a car rather than trying to work with public transport in such an 'empty' region.

We found the driving and parking was easy, with fairly empty roads except in Sapporo (where traffic was well behaved and did predictable things), no aggressive driving from the locals and generally pleasurable. I think Hokkaido was DH's favourite part of our trip. Honshu might be different with more traffic but when i had a quick look at Google streetview at half a dozen random roads in Honshu the are not many vehicles on the road so you should be fine. It was one of the easiest places we have driven around the world.

Public transport wasn't really feasible for what we wanted to do but i do not remember the hire charges being horrific. Same for petrol, and we were given a petrol hybrid car for our 'basic/cheapest option' car hire so only filled up before wwe gave the car back. We did opt to take a toll 'tag' with us which meant we whizzed through the toll booths and just had one toll payment when we gave the car back at the end. I recommend this if its applicable to your hire.

We had a 2 stage pick up the first bit in the airport where we met the usual attempt of a sale of insurance despite us assuring the guy we already had an excess insurance policy. The second bit where we collected the car, and our return a week later were excellent. They were super friendly and helped with bags, gave us a run throught of the lights/wipers/fuel fill etc and on return showed us a list of things like phone/brolly/keys we may have left in the car.

We would definitely hire a car again in Japan as it certainly give us a different glimpse into Japanese life.