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

@Specialnameforanoutingthreada tour would be out of budget, but thank you for the suggestion. @Takonekothat’s so helpful thank you, I’m worried it might be a bit overwhelming to be there that long? Could you suggest an area to base ourselves in that might not be too busy but has good transport links? Is that even a thing??

I've booked Teamlab planets for our 2nd day so all starting to feel real now. I had hoped to fit in a couple of days in Hakone or similar but the Itinerary is getting a bit squashed with the excessively long wishlist!! Do you think it would be possible to do this or somewhere similar in a day whilst we are on route from Tokyo to Osaka? Would we still take the Shinkansen to each but get 2 seperate tickets for each leg of the journey? Next step is to refine the wishlist down and establish all of our must sees rather than have the giant overwhelming list we currently have.

Teamlab planets is amazing!

If I remember Hakone is 3 hours train from Osaka and just over an hour from Tokyo - so think it’s more of a day trip from Tokyo

I think a good idea to whittle your list or your must sees and organise as best you can

@Fuckingfuckssake For me, if you’re looking for somewhere fairly calm and quiet with good transport links, then the area around Tokyo station and Ginza is great. It has a reputation for being upscale, but the hotels are generally pretty well priced as it’s a less touristed area and more of a business district.

We stayed at the Daiwa Roynet Kyobashi Premier on our last trip. We could walk to a number of different train and metro stations from there, which makes transport easier as you can minimise having to do transfers in big, complex stations. Theres an entrance to Tokyo station about 3 mins walk from thew hotel, which is good for day trips.

We could walk into Ginza easily and find places to eat, but the area immediately around the hotel is pretty quiet. There’s a few hotels there and they tend to be pretty good value.

This is such incredible information, thank you so much. You’re right, I spent ages googling but mostly got scant and contradictory information from Reddit!

I’d been thinking of getting 2 x 2 berth private rooms, but in your photo the rooms looks great!

We had been thinking ferry from Fukuoka to Busan, but we do want to get straight to Seoul and the ferry timings don’t really work for that. They ‘land’ at 6.30pm ish, and I don’t think we’d get to our hotel in Seoul till well after midnight. As we’re just tagging a couple of days in Seoul before heading home, we don’t really want a really late arrival. The catamaran would have been good, but we did see that it was cancelled last year. So we started to look at the Osaka ferry, and it looks like an incredible way of seeing some of the country. We like that we can watch Japan as we sail by, get a nights sleep and arrive in Busan in the morning.

Thank you for the advice on sims and T money cards. We hadn’t thought about that at all yet. We’re going at the end of March, so we are leaving it a bit later than I’d like to get all the details planned! We’ve so far got flights to Tokyo and then out of Seoul. Hoping to also have ferry tickets this week, so we can start looking at accomodation needs!

@Specialnameforanoutingthread - I realise this is a Japan planning thread, but given your DS lives there, I was hoping I could ask you a Seoul question!

We’re arriving in Busan by ferry, as I said, the. Hoping to book bullet train to Seoul the same day and arrive for dinner 🤞 . We’re going to have 2 full days in Seoul, flying home on the morning of the 3rd day. Do you happen to know an area in Seoul that has good links to the airport that would be good for a hotel? Or even better, hotel recommendations? We’ve never been to this part of the world at all, and this is the trip of a lifetime for us, but we’ve been paralysed with decisions!

Thanks again @Takonekothats just the kind of info we needed. I’ve just found return flights for 2 adults and 1 teen for £2050, that’s pretty good yes?

@Actnaturally I have had a quick look for you re hotels in Seoul but I will need to take a bit more time and come back to you - week days seems too short to get much done...

We now find an airport bus is super easy as there is a route that stops outside 'our' hotel near Gangnam (where DS lives). You literally wait at a bus stop, put the bags on the bus, sit back in a big and comfy chair and get dropped at the front door of the terminal. The subway is OK but not as easy as the bus, we are now converts as the subway always seems to need a change, and as in Japan the stations are big and a change is often a reasonable walk.

Top tip for both countries - check which subway exit you need to save yourself an unnecessary backtracking walk.

So in general, the area to the NE of Seoul station should be good, I'll look to see the exact routes but airport buses 6001 and 6015 seems to go to that area. On our first visit DS advised us to stay in the area as its a good location and he was right, as it offers easy access to Meyongdong, Cheonggycheon stream and Gwangjang market, Gyeongbukgong palace, Insadong and Jogyesa Temple and Bukchon Hanok Village. You also have the subways handy for the National War Memorial of Korea (an impressive indoor and outdoor collection and a War museum really rather than 'just' a memorial), and the beautifully curated National Museum of Korea (both free), Hongdae (where i feel old!) Gangnam and Jamsil and also trendy Seongsu.

I've added a map with the general area marked but I'll come back to you later with a more refined idea if you don't make choices in the meanwhile.

Do you have an idea of what do sort of thing do you want to see and do? Do you want food recommendations for dinner (love the food 😋)?

Ah that’s amazing. Thanks for all this info. We’re really keen to get Korean food. It’s part of the reason we’re having a few days there (we were originally looking at flight back out of Tokyo and spotted lots had layovers in Seoul, so we tried looking at longer layovers just to get dinner there, and then it turned into 3 nights as we got more and more interested and realised how exciting it would be to travel there by boat/train).

Food is probably our main pull, so any restaurant recommendations would be greatly appreciated. The teens also want to do some skincare shopping while we’re there. Other than that, we’re just hoping to soak it up!

That sounds very reasonable to me. Flights can be very expensive.

For anyone who might be interested in the Ōsaka/Busan ferry - I emailed customer services and got an answer from them about the cabins.

“Greetings from PanStar Cruise, where we strive to deliver your dreams with the utmost speed and elegance. Thank you for your interest in PanStar Cruise. For a 4-person cabin, if your group consists of three or more passengers, you can stay together in the same cabin regardless of gender. Only when there are two or fewer passengers will the cabin be assigned based on gender separation. So please don’t worry. Wishing you a wonderful day filled with the excitement and joy of planning your trip. Thank you.”

So I’ve now got that booked! Can’t wait to sit on the deck watching Japan sail past.

Massive thanks to @Specialnameforanoutingthread for the advice 💐

My flights by China Eastern Airlines for March have just been cancelled (email sent this morning). Hope nobody else has been impacted.

Oh no! That sounds incredibly stressful. Is that linked to the diplomatic trouble between China and Japan?

I hope you’re able to get an alternative.

Not sure of the reason. The email just said “It has been cancelled due to the reason of airlines”?? I am sure we will be able to get an alternate (maybe not via China). Refund takes 12-15 days…

@LittleLlama After a bit of googling apparently 40% of China-Japan flight have been cancelled, with more cancellations possible. This seems to be a knock on impact of the Chinese government telling their citizens not to travel to Japan for tourism.

Based on that, it’s probably safer to avoid flights through China.

Sorry to hear about your flights being cancelled @LittleLlama We have just bought direct flights with virgin to seoul - new route starting in March so the prices seem pretty good. We will likely take the ferry to Japan having been last year and loved it, so thanks for the info shared here about both Japan and South Korea!

Hi, joining in! I've never been to Japan and just booked tickets at 6am this morning on a presale for a gig by one of my favourite bands for Tokyo in May! Plan is for about an 8 night trip all in (plus travel from/to the UK either side) just DH and me. Very excited. Now to book flights and hotel. Gig is in the Shibuya area midweek. There's another band we might like to see the weekend before. Any recommendations for first time visitors welcome!

having thought we had nailed down an itinerary we have now changed it up but pretty certain we are sticking to this one 😂
Tokyo 3 nights
Kyoto 4 nighhts
Kanazawa 3 nights
Hakuba 3 nights
Tokyo 1 night for early morning flight out…

Has anyone been to Hakuba in the summer? I think we are going to stop off there for some hiking if anyone can recommend a nice place to stay with a family onsen…? And any hike suggestions???

@SorrengailFables That looks like a great itinerary. Hakuba looks lovely in summer. We haven’t been yet, but Nagano prefecture looks like it has so much breathtaking scenery.

Make sure to carry bear bells if you’re going to be hiking in that area (or tbh most rural areas) in the summer. You’re highly unlikely to have trouble with bears but bear attacks have been on the rise and the best way to avoid trouble is to make sure they hear you coming so you don’t startle one.

@Takoneko yes I’ve been reading about the bears! 3 noisy children should also help…we’ve hiked back-country in Canada so will dig the bells out….
I’m finding it a little bit trickier to find detailed information on hiking in the area and wish I had another week! We debated cutting Kyoto to have more time in the alps but realised we will be in Kyoto for the Gion Matsuri festival so going to brave the crowds!

Anyone who has done the ferry Osaka to Busan (or I guess any ferry Japan to Busan) - can you remember what time is involved in going through customs? We’re planning our onward train to Seoul and don’t know how much time to leave between arrival at the ferry (10am) and train departure.

@Specialnameforanoutingthread i know you’ve done the journey but I think you said you’d only done it Korea to Japan? (And we’d also be really happy to have any Seoul food recommendations - fancy or street! 🙏)

Going to Tokyo, Hiroshima and Kyoto next week (eek) and very grateful for these 2 threads. We are pinning down the itineraries and have a question for those that stayed in Kyoto. We have 4 nights there and there seems loads to see, so do we NEED to go to Nara as well - not fussed about feeding deer (I believe there are some on Miyajima where we are planning on going)and seeing a big park in February or have I missed something? Thanks.

@paintedwolf I don’t believe that there’s any such thing as a must see. What’s unmissable varies so much from person to person.

Nobody needs to do Nara if it doesn’t appeal. Todaiji temple is pretty spectacular but if there’s something that appeals to you more then you should do that instead. I loved Nara, but I’m a sucker for an animal encounter.

I have no doubt at all that you will find plenty of things to fill 4 days in and around Kyoto. If you aren’t bothered about the deer, but fancy a really spectacular temple away from the crowding of the central Kyoto ones then Byodo-in is a good shout. Uji is closer than Nara (15 mins on the kintetsu line) and far less busy. Byodo-in is the temple that features on the ¥10 coin.

Thanks as ever @Takoneko

@Actnaturally sorr for radio silence - its been a really busy couple of weeks.

I did intend to look into the bus routes more for you but haven't found the time. I still think route 6001 and 6015 are good for the Myeongdong area if you are interested. Here's a link to the company. It gives you a idea of the stops but doesnt really show you the route on a map 🙄.

I looked back at my photos of arriving into Busan port. I have a photo of us with the catamaran in the background at 1.03pm and another of inside the terminal building having done customs and immigration at 1.45pm. I don't remember what time the catamaran docked as we were slow to get off so you might have to allow some disembarkation time. I remember the walk being about 15mins on the overhead walkway. I hope this give you a reasonable idea of when to book the train.

I have photos of the sim card shop in the terminal building at Busan if you need them - let me know.

I didn't speak to DS last weekend but I'll get him to make some suggestions for BBQ and fried chicken, dakgalbi and pancake places north of the river. Gwangjang market is interesting for 'street food' but has had a bad rap recently for ripping of tourists. I still think it's fun perching on the benches and eating with the locals. My favourite hoettock place is in Namdaemun market. I'll gather a set of pins together or something an dsend them over to you. I think you dont go until March though?