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

Amanohasidate is one of the three great scenic views of Japan (the other two are Itsukushima shrine in Miyajima and Matsushima Bay). I’d really love to go someday. I hadn’t realised it was an onsen town.

I’ve not been yet, so I don’t have a recommendation. We booked ours on booking.com and we found some really expensive 4* ryokan alongside cheap and cheerful and some pretty unique accommodation too. These caught our eye, a little away from the lake and I think at the base of Fuji, the domes look like a real treat for a couple of nights! We’ve gone for a house on the shore of the lake, because we haven’t got our own transport and want to do activities on the lake while we’re there. I’ll let you know what we thought when we come back!

We were in danger of spending our whole holiday in massive cities (Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Seoul) and we had to remind ourselves that we find big cities stressful, so we’ve now planned a couple of calmer days in nature (hopefully). We’re hopeful Amonhasidate and Lake Kawaguchi will offer that 🤞

This has given me the fear. We’re banking on travelling by Shinkansen quite a lot, and I hadn’t thought about the fact it might make me feel sick. I don’t know what I was imagining it would be like onboard, but it must be quite strange! I do get queasy easily. Im
going to stock up on travel sickness tablets!

Can anyone describe what it’s like on a bullet train?

Have you ever been on the Eurostar or any other high speed rail like in Europe like the TGV? It’s exactly the same but cleaner and with better legroom and overhead luggage racks. They don’t sell food or drink on the Shinkansen though, unlike the high speed rail I’ve been on in Europe.

it really doesn’t feel much different to any other train I’ve ever been on.

It’s also worth noting that the Kodama (slow) Shinkansen have pretty much the same top speed as the Nozomi (fast) ones. The trains go just as fast, they just stop more often so spend less time at top speed and more time stationary. We found that often the seating on the slower trains was a bit more old-school and comfortable, but in terms of speed they go just as fast but in shorter bursts.

@Actnaturally thank you for the Kawaguchi info.
I agree, the prices do seem to vary dramatically!
Please don’t worry about the Shinkansen - I’m sorry if I’ve alarmed you. I only felt queasy the first time; after that I was fine. We did numerous journeys by bullet train last year, and really enjoyed them. As @Takonekosaid, it’s similar to the Eurostar, except the leg room is fantastic, and it’s far more comfortable. We didn’t feel the need to upgrade to Green Car either. I think the Kodama was our most comfortable experience, and I was worried at first that we were sitting in the first class carriage by mistake.

@Actnaturally that hotel looks beautiful! We’re similar in that cities exhaust us all so we are trying to balance the itinerary and provide enough activity (that’s not solely sight-seeing) for our kids….

@Pusspot tonnes of lovely looking places around Kanazawa - I’d looked at lots of similar places to you - just need to drill down into train schedules/journey times to avoid spending all our time travelling and pick out our top priorities…

We have a little bit of space left on this thread but thread 3 is ready when this one gets full.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/holidays/5482261-japan-planning-thread-3?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

@SorrengailFables We’re spending 4 nights in Kanazawa in April and there’s so many great looking places nearby. We think we’ve settled on a day in Toyama city (I really want to visit the glass museum) and one in Fukui prefecture where we want to go to the dinosaur museum, echizen daibutsu and eiheiji. Not sure what else we’ll do there yet. There’s almost too many choices.

@Takoneko please feed back after April! I was reading that lots of nearby towns are known for a single craft - I’m sure one mentioned a kimono museum and silk dyeing….and the scenic railway over a gorge although I think the route is shortened due to earthquake repairs at one end (I think that might be too much train for our lot but looks beautiful)…
we’ve lucked out with our dates spanning a firework festival/display while we’re in Kanazawa too!

I’ll let you know how it goes and what we end up doing.
The fireworks festival sounds great.

Another to say the bullet trains were fine for us. They have oval 'airline' tyoe windows, don't go 'clackity clack, clackity clack' but other than than I am struggling to rememember more than a fast smooth train. I think we were more focused on our bento boxes 😋...

Anyone there now? Do you think there are fewer Chinese tourists?
Might make queuing at major sights much easier.

@MondayYogurt I am curious about that too. I don’t think we’ll feel the impact on our trip this April as we’re mostly going to be in places that get relatively few tourists like Fukui, Iwate and Aomori prefectures. I am wondering whether it might make Kyoto a bit more bearable if we went back this autumn.

All the flight cancellations must be having some impact.

Last Kyoto koyo we went to was beyond busy, it was impossible. Vast majority Chinese tourists.
A Kyoto without those coach loads of people would be more manageable and pleasant. If anyone can update that would be interesting, thank you.

I will update on Kyoto - we will be there in just over a week’s time 😃

I know that there's already a 3rd thread, but I was just curious what @paintedwolf though of the crowds in Kyoto? Have you been there before in the last few years? Was it any less crowded because of the fewer Chinese tourists?

Hi @CobraChickengot back on Friday night. It was our first time in Japan and so couldn’t compare crowd levels. We thought early feb would be low season but we were not alone at all. All the major sights and temples were busy and I would say mostly Japanese tourists. There were no Chinese tour groups. Smaller temples and shrines and museums were quiet to be fair and we could easily use the city bus in Kyoto to get around - I had read these were rammed in peak season. It was the busiest when we were in Hiroshima and Miyajima but it was over a weekend and again mostly Japanese and parties of school children. The peace museum was packed on Sunday morning but it was snowing! Hope this is useful- let me know if I can answer anything else.

@CobraChicken Thanks for sharing. Did you enjoy your trip? Any particular highlights?

@Takoneko , I think you meant to tag @paintedwolf ? I'm still at the planning stages of our first trip to Japan in May 🙂

@paintedwolf - Thanks for your reply. I'm sure I'll have some more questions for you once I get a bit further into planning our trip. We've got flights and accommodation sorted but still have to decide what we want to do/see in each place.

Hi all!

We’re thinking of going to Japan in the summer holidays (2 adults and 2 dc aged 16 & 13)

We’ve looked at a couple of tours, Japan unmasked (Inside Japan) and Simply Japan (Explore).

Japan Unmasked comes in at £10k plus flights (approx £6k) = £16k

Simply Japan comes in around £16k plus flights at £6k = £ 22k

Does anyone have experience of these companies?

Also could anyone give me a ballpark figure if we booked our own tours how much it would cost pls?

Really appreciate your advice as we’ve never traveled to Japan before and are very new to it all!

@Dangermouse100 What’s included in those tours and how long are you going for?

We book everything ourselves and for a two week trip we usually spend about £1500 each (two adults) for all accommodation, food, spending money and internal transport. Then whatever our flights cost on top of that.

Our accommodation for our Easter trip came to £1400 for 14 nights for two people. We’ll probably spend about the same again for food, transport, souvenirs and attractions.

On the face of it, the prices you have been quoted look really expensive to me. However, they might not be too bad depending on how long the trip is, the standard of hotels and what they include in terms of meals, attractions and transport costs.

Prices seem very high, is it 5 star hotels and top restaurants every day? Even then seems v high. Last Sakura we did 2.5 weeks 2 adults and 1 kid booked ourselves about a 3rd of the cost you quoted, staying in decent level hotels and eating at nice (not top tier) restaurants