Japan Planning Thread Part 2

[Takoneko]

This is a thread for anyone planning a trip to Japan. All budgets and styles of trip are welcome.

I got so much out of the first thread and would love to be able to continue the conversation with everyone who has been so helpful.

I fly tomorrow morning!

First Thread

Although I'm very excited by the robot room delivery at our Shinjuku hotel.

Hi
we stayed in a ryokan in Ueno last time and loved it, lovely local restaurants at night. We’ve also stayed near the Tokyo Tower, on the monorail to Haneda but didn’t like that area at all. This time we’re staying in Ginza at a hotel which has robots to check you in. We’re also with teens.
When we went to Kyoto we stayed not far from Nishiki market. We found Kyoto a lot less easy to get around on public transport so used grabs. I don’t really know what would be the best area but we found where we stayed ok.

@Orangesandlemons82 We stayed at several places around Tokyo and really loved moving around, seeing different parts of the city without travelling a lot daily. We had our luggage delivered from one hotel to the other, on the same day, so we could just turn up to a new hotel at night with all our stuff in our rooms - and the first night in a hotel is always cleaner 😀 For children and a general feel of relaxation, I preferred staying on the water/river edge or overlooking a park. We had a lovely Ryokan at the river overlooking Skytree in Asakusa, there was a little park along the riverbank, and the riverbreeze took a couple of degrees off on a hot day, but it was only 4 minutes walk to Senso-ji and 10 min across the river to Skytree city. We then moved to Tokyo Bay to be close to Disney, which was my personal favourite. Huge rooms with balconies, amazing breakfast buffets, swimming pool, spa, lovely sea breeze. The bay is also only 15min via Maihama station to Tokyo Station, so really easy to stay at the bay and do Ginza, Imperial Palace etc.. We then moved to a hotel right opposite the Government Building at Chuo Park in Shinjuku, which was a really great area. It was great to sit out in the park for breakfast and at night, there was a playground, basketball court and skatepark for kids, you could sit out and have a drink and relax after a hot day walking around. The lightshow is also fun. That side of Shinjuku is very polished, safe and quiet, very different from kabukicho. Only 15 min walk away, or 5min in a taxi, but feels like a different world.

@Orangesandlemons82 Oh, and on the last day we stayed at the airport hotel at Haneda, which was very convenient. Hotel Villa Fontain Haneda is a massive part of terminal 3, with shops, spa, restaurants etc., so for an airport hotel, it was pretty good and you can just walk up to security check in the morning in 5 min.

I've just booked flights to Japan for 13 days in December. We've been to Japan before for 3 weeks in Sep into Oct 23, and Korea a few times in various springs and autumns. DS lives in Seoul so we will chat with him about his availibilty and desire to travel to Japan but we're not sure how to divide our time between Japan and Korea. We're happy to fly or take a ferry (we've done the quick Fukuoka-Busan and the overnight Busan-Osaka) or stay in Japan, but will probably want to go to Seoul to spend more time eating samgyeopsal, fried chicken and hoettock with DS.

Does anyone have any advice or tips for things to do in either Japan or Korea in December? We travel independently so don't need a tour, more just things to do and see (eg I've found the Lantern Festival in Seoul).

Do you ski?

We do, but wouldn't want to major on it.....

Can I join please? We have just booked to go to Japan at the end of May/ early June 2026. 3 adults and 1 teenager, staying for 16 days. Our first time.
We are flying London-Tokyo direct with Japan Air using Avios points. I have heard amazing things about JA and we have chosen an evening flight to be on the new Airbus aircraft.
Itinerary is 6 nights in Tokyo Shinjuku, 3 nights at Grand Nikko Tokyo Bay and doing the two Disney parks, then Kyoto for 4 nights, Hakone 2 nights with traditional ryokan stay and finally back to Tokyo for a night at airport hotel before a morning flight back to London.

My biggest focus at the moment is to book the 2 nights in Hakone. We would like a nice ryokan with traditional Japanese style rooms, kaiseki dinner and breakfast plus a private onsen or ability to book private for the family to be together. I have tattoos so might not be allowed in public baths.
Can anyone recommend a nice place that meets the criteria? Or if not Hakone, perhaps another countryside/ mountains place with traditional ryokan stay within 2 hours from Tokyo?

@Booksaresick welcome! How exciting!!
we are heading for our 2nd trip in 11 days! And are staying for 2 nights at a ( larger) ryokan style place which sounds exactly what you’re after. If you can wait a few weeks I’ll report back but you could always book as cancellable. It gets amazing reviews and I’ve had loads of questions which they’ve been super helpful with https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g298171-d1132777-Reviews-Mount_View_Hakone-Hakone_machi_Ashigarashimo_gun_Kanagawa_Prefecture_Kanto.html

It’s not super luxurious, so depends on what you’re looking for.
Happy planning!

@Booksaresick Welcome to the thread!

We’ve had very good experiences with JAL. We travel as a couple, so have always chosen their older Boeing flights for the benefit of the 2-4-2 seating arrangement in economy. I like that neither of us end up with a middle seat on their Boeing configuration. I am curious to hear what the new Airbus is like though. I think eventually the Boeings will be phased out.

I find JAL cabin temperatures warmer than I’d like. If, like me, you don’t sleep well if you’re too warm, I strongly recommend taking a small USB clip fan that you can clip to the seat in front and plug in. I bought one for a few quid in daiso and had it on for the whole flight home and it made such a difference. I don’t think any of their wide body aircraft have personal air vents anymore, so from now on taking a fan will be a must for me.

I think someone on this thread has stayed at the Randor Prestige in Hiroshima. Possibly @Takoneko? It looks like a good choice for us, and it has a washing machine!
I’m confused about the various room grades, as they seem to be described differently between booking.com and hotels.com. Can anyone remember which room type they stayed in? I like the idea of a balcony, but not the one with a bath.
Thanks!

@Pusspot Yes, we stayed there based on a recommendation from someone on here. We really liked it. Just checked my booking and it was a “Standard double room with two double beds”. The room was huge for Japan and had a kitchenette and washing machine. They also had a drying rack for clothes that could be set up in the very large bathroom with the clothes drying function on. We didn’t have a balcony, so can’t advise there.

They don’t do daily cleaning without an extra fee, just in case that bothers you, but we found it really convenient and the staff were lovely.

Thank you @Takoneko it gets great reviews so we will book it for two nights. I’m not worried about housekeeping for two nights. The room will look like a laundry anyway! This will be day 9 of our trip, so that washing machine will be used to the max.
Can I ask - did you travel to Miyajima from there?
Our plan is to look around Hiroshima itself on day 1 and then get up early for a full day in Miyajima on day 2. We could possibly have an extra half day of local sightseeing on the last morning (if we can leave our bags at reception).
We will be travelling to Okayama for three nights afterwards.

@Pusspot We travelled to Shin-Iwakuni by Shinkansen and then got the bus to see the Kintaikyo bridge and the white snake museum there. Then we took the local line back towards Hiroshima and stopped at Miyajima for the afternoon. That worked well for us and I really liked Iwakuni and was really glad we took the time to go see it.

@Takoneko thank you - I hadn’t heard about this bridge and it looks wonderful.

We have nailed our itinerary - 5 nights Tokyo, Kyoto 3, Hiroshima 2, Okayama 3, and finally 1 night in Osaka, before flying home from KIX. We originally had 6 nights booked in Tokyo, but really wanted to squeeze in Hiroshima.
When did you buy your JR rail west pass? I think we can do that online beforehand. We’re not going until early October.

Hi @Pusspot it was me who originally recommended the Randor, agree with all of takoneko’s comments, it’s great and super friendly! We loved Miyajima, it was one of our favourite places.

Thank you @2025istheyeari !

@Pusspot According to my emails, I booked the rail passes a couple of weeks before we left. I seem to recall that they can only be booked a month or so ahead.

Iwakuni doesn’t seem to have made it into the influencer mainstream yet, so it’s still very quiet. It is touristy without being at all crowded. The Shinkansen to Iwakuni only takes about 15 minutes so it wasn’t a big trek out of our way and we found the place really charming. We particularly liked the tiny little snake museum. You could even do it on your final half day before heading out to Okayama. The beauty of the rail pass is being able to take what might otherwise be very expensive Shinkansen to cover fairly long distances in very little time at all.

For local sightseeing in Hiroshima, I loved the prefectural art museum and garden. The garden is especially wonderful.

The peace museum was excellent but I found the overcrowding a bit frustrating. It felt like they had way too many people in there and needed to limit numbers more. We really were just shuffling along in a sea of people and it was hard to actually read the information. I think maybe we made a mistake by going at midday. Perhaps earlier or later would have been quieter.

@Pusspot One last thing.., If you’re in Hiroshima and near the peace park then the breads from this bakery have lived rent free in my head since we got back.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/LAr1EBXUxCtgsemt7?g_st=ic

Thanks for the insight @Takoneko I read about Iwakuni this afternoon. It looks charming and the sort of place that we would appreciate.
I agree about the rail pass - I’m looking forward to getting the full value from it! The area around Okayama and Hiroshima are the ones that really interest me. We’ve got five days in total so hope to see a lot of those regions.
The bakery looks impressive- and great reviews too. I have made a note!

@Pusspot The 7 days of our JR West Pass are the best we’ve had in Japan. That region is awesome and you’ll have the best time. I really can’t overstate how much we loved that part of our trip.

We did:
Day 1- Day trip to Himeji from Osaka
Day 2- Day trip to Okayama and Kurashiki from Osaka. (This was a weekend and we wished we’d done Kurashiki on a weekday).
Day 3- Travelled from Osaka to Hiroshima and spent the day in Hiroshima.
Day 4- Iwakuni and Miyajima from Hiroshima
Day 5- Day trip to Onomichi.
Day 6- Day trip to Fukuoka and Nanzoin temple.
Day 7- Day trip to Okunoshima (bunny island).

We then had one final day in Hiroshima after our pass was finished.

I thought we’d planned far too much for that that week and we’re expecting to have to cut down but we found the Shinkansen journeys very relaxing. For our next trip we plan on doing even more Shinkansen travel.

@Takoneko that’s a great itinerary. I’m keen to visit Okunoshima too. I think you mentioned your visit up thread, and that connections were tight. Where did you get the ferry from?

@Pusspot We got the ferry from Tadanoumi. We were getting the train from Hiroshima so you might have better connections if you’re going from Okayama. Just triple check the timetables in advance because the trains are really infrequent out there. It also seems to be quite normal for trains to be timed so that you get off one train, cross to the opposite platform and the next one leaves a minute later. It works very smoothly but doesn’t leave you time to spare figuring out if it’s the right train, so check the platforms on google maps.

@Takoneko thank you. I might have a look on you tube and find a video!
Walking to the other side of the platform sounds easy, if you know where you’re going!

This time next week we’ll be on our way, I’m so excited!
I’m pulling a shopping list together, currently lots of stuff from Muji and Uniqlo plus some
Rice face masks and matcha! I’d also love some jinbei, if anyone can recommend good places to buy probably in Tokyo? What else have people bought that they’d recommend? Last time I remember buying some beautiful biscuits as presents as well. Thanks!