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

@Plan2025 safe travels! Looking forward to hearing about your trip.

@Plan2025 @hattie43 have a great trip!
We stayed in Ginza at the Daiwa Roynet at the start of our trip, and liked it. It’s a great location for getting around and connecting to Tokyo Station.
Thanks @Takoneko for recommending the area.
We mostly used the small local underground stations in Ginza, even if it meant changing lines. We found it quicker overall, as Tokyo Station is vast.

We are currently in Hiroshima and had a brilliant day in Miyajima (early start) followed by the wooden Kintaikyo bridge in Iwakuni. Thanks for the tip @Takoneko- it was a perfect excursion for us. We loved the gardens behind the bridge and stayed for a couple of hours. Miyajima was also lovely, and glad we got there early (8.45). We did the rope way first, and didn’t queue, but the line was an hour long when we came down.

Thanks! We might change it to 4 days at the start and 2 at the end, then 🙂

@Pusspot I’m so glad you’re having a wonderful time. We just loved Hiroshima and the surrounding region. How much longer do you have left on your trip?

Best of luck those of you flying off today - have a wonderful time.

I’m heading off on Tuesday morning - eek! Getting very excited now, only 3 more sleeps.

And thanks so much for all the brilliant recommendations from these threads, they have been invaluable - I’m now staying in Ginza for the last 2 nights of my trip back in Tokyo before I fly home.

@Takoneko we fly home on Wednesday evening from KIX. We really liked Hiroshima too, only stayed for two nights at the Randor, but enough time to visit the peace museum, memorials and our day trip yesterday.

I did wonder if moving onto Okayama was a silly idea, as it’s only 35 minutes away on the
Shinkansen, but it’s so different from the other cities we have stayed in. Very few foreign tourists here, and it has a lovely atmosphere. The station is much smaller so easy to navigate, and it has great train options. We arrived early, dropped off our luggage, and had a long walk around Koruken Gardens. It’s one of the top three in Japan. Our bags were waiting in the room when we returned, and we had a quick turnaround to get back on a train to Kurashiki. It was a good time to arrive, as the day trippers seemed to have gone, and it was very nice wandering around. We were too late for a busy trip, but we did a gondala ride at Disney Sea (!) so I’m okay about missing it! We decided to eat in the historical area, and it was our best meal yet.
Tomorrow we are heading to Ominichi and will see how the day plays out.

Btw we are using our 7 day JR Sanyo rail pass extensively - it’s brilliant value.

@Pusspot sounds like a wonderful trip!

We loved Onomichi. Loved the views, the ramshackle alleyways, temples and shrines.
We didn’t stay in Okayama but passed through for a few hours and really liked the feel of the place. I plan to stay in more of the smaller cities in future trips.

@Takoneko the hotel in Okayama is a bit tired, with a tiny bathroom, decent sized bedroom with rock hard beds and pillows. But it’s the best experience we’ve had so far though - lovely staff, excellent Japanese breakfast and just an overall wonderful vibe. Okayama is like a smaller version of Hiroshima. I hope it stays off the tourist map!

@Takoneko we made it to Rabbit Island today - loved the journey as much as the bunnies!

Ginza is a great base to see Tokyo from, v well connected and a nice area in and of itself.

where else are you planning to visit?

We loved Okunoshima. I think that’s the most memorable day I’ve spent in Japan. So glad you’re having a wonderful time.

Thanks! 🙂

We've not actually settled on an itinerary as yet because DH and I have been slammed with work since I bought the flights, but so far it's looking like we'll be staying 4 nights in Ginza and then heading from there straight to Hiroshima.

We'll stay there for either 1 or 2 nights, depending on how much I can find that we want to do, and then start heading back towards Tokyo, via Osaka, Kyoto and their surrounding areas.

We'll have either 7 or 8 days to explore that area and haven't decided how we'll split our time, yet, but we'll probably only stay in Osaka and Kyoto and do day-trips from each base.

Like I said, we haven't had any time to look into it, yet, and I know there are loads of must see places, but so far we have "ferry to Kobe" (for my steak fix) and "Universal Studios" 😂

After that we'll head back to stay on the other side of Tokyo for a couple of nights before flying home.

@CobraChicken I think Hiroshima is definitely worth a couple of nights. If there’s a baseball game while you are there, I really recommend it as an experience. I’m not into baseball but had enormous fun and the whole city is baseball mad.

You still have plenty of time to work out your itinerary. You might also want to look into the JR West rail passes. The Kansai-Hiroshima pass would cover the trip from Hiroshima to Osaka and a day trip to Kobe on the Shinkansen plus any other travel on JR lines for 5 days.

trip to Kobe worth it for the steak alone, but city is really nice, has a different vibe to the rest of Japan due to its internationalisation as a port city!

japan has so much to offer, only thing you can do is make a list of places and allocate whatever time you have

I am in Japan now and left Ginza a few days ago . I was near St Luke’s hospital and it was just a bit too far from the action . Many taxi’s were taken because the novelty of trains and walking wore thin quickly .

@hattie43 Yeah, St. Luke’s is probably a bit too far out. We stayed by shintomicho station once and that already felt just a touch too far out. The area around Ginza, Ginza Ichome and Kyobashi stations would be my preferred parts of that neighbourhood.

Where are you now? Hope you’re having fun.

@Pusspot Hope you’ve had a safe journey home. Please let us know about the highlights of your trip and any tips and tricks you picked up.

@Takoneko we got home yesterday. The trip was absolutely brilliant! Thank you and everyone else on this thread for the excellent tips and advice.
Highlights were our day trips to Kamakura/Enoshina,
Nara/Uji, Miyajima/Iwakuni, Ominichi and Rabbit Island (Onishima). We loved Himiji castle and the adjacent gardens. We did that as a half day trip from Okayama.
We weren’t keen on Kyoto - lots of lovely places to see but it’s saturated with tourists. The Gion area was particularly busy. Maruyama Park was lovely though, and we really liked Fushimi Inari - went at 5pm and walked up to the top. The sunset over Kyoto was a bonus on the way up.

Tips from me would include:

It gets dark early so plan your activities accordingly. If you’re energetic, it could be possible to visit Nara, Uji and finally Fushimi Inari in the same (long) day, as they’re all on the Nara train line. We were surprised how easy it was to combine two or more places in the same day. We were up early though.

Lots of places (shops, cafes, museums) don’t open until 10am. We had hotel breakfasts at most of our accommodation, but in Hiroshima we struggled to find somewhere decent to eat an early breakfast.

Our hotels provided lots of different skincare products, but only one of them had body lotion. The skincare was always in tiny sachets btw. We loved the foaming soap in all our hotels. Genius invention!

The hotel pillows are hard. They provide a pair - one hard, and the second one rock hard. I got used to them though.

We had a stinker of a trip home. We missed our connecting flight at Hong Kong because our flight from Osaka was delayed. Cathay put us on an alternative flight to Zurich, and from there we flew to Munich and finally to Heathrow. In the end we got home about 8 hours later than expected, but we coped well because we’d spent 2 weeks navigating public transport and were confident travellers by that point.
I’m still processing it all, but can go into more detail if anyone is interested. I definitely want to return next year!

I definitely want to return next year!

I think that sums it up nicely. Glad you enjoyed.

I’m having a fabulous time , just arrived in Kyoto today before moving on to Osaka on Monday . Everything has worked like clockwork for transport and booked trips . The train stations are overwhelming but once you know where your platform is they are great . I lived in London for 10yrs so thought after the tubes I’d be fine but my goodness are they big and busy . The biggest thing has been language and whilst google translate has been a help it’s not a substitute for longer needs eg when the lights in the hotel room went off . IME most Japanese I’ve encountered are uber helpful and kind but do not have more than a few words of English . I am absolutely loving the care and respect the Japanese have for their culture and society and each other . Everywhere is spotless , they are all happy and healthy as are the children . It’s obviously a very ordered society where everything works like clockwork , everyone contributes and people take care of their surroundings. I don’t know where we’ve gone so wrong at home really .

@Pusspot Sorry to hear that it was a bit of a stressful journey home. Glad you had such a wonderful time though. It sounds like we have similar tastes, because I loved all the places you loved and was also not a Kyoto fan.

That’s a good tip regarding breakfast. We’re not really massive breakfast eaters but if you want a substantial breakfast it can be challenging in the mornings.

@hattie43 I agree with all of your comments. We talked about the Japanese culture all the time during our trip. We saw lots of school trips and the children were so respectful and well behaved. I think they are taught responsibility from an early age, and it shows. We saw plenty of young children walking to school by themselves or in small groups - even near really busy places like Tokyo station.

We loved seeing so many older people still working and taking care of their communities. We saw at least three old men litter picking with long chopsticks. (Not that there was much litter to pick).

@Pusspot
There has been a lot of ‘ crocodile’ train lines of children all in brightly coloured hats around and we saw groups of school children and their teachers at the gardens in Kanazawa and they were all engaging with English speakers to improve the language . One teacher was fluent in English and he was 65 , I don’t know if that’s normal in Japan but our teachers are burnt out by then . Maybe the difference in behaviours . Seeing the difference in societal behaviours is stark . I’ve just flipped open a news app to see the east London marches , UKIP against Islam thinking we’ll never have harmony in UK and cannot imagine such a thing in Japan. It’s not a multicultural society though so none of the issues we face . I’d love to import the serenity here back home .

@hattie43 How’s the trip going? What else have you been up to?