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

@Chocaholics Arashiyama sounds really lovely.

I am also a fan of the vending machines. You really can go anywhere and not worry about being able to find something to drink. They really are absolutely everywhere.

We've been in Ginza today. Ginza 6 is something else - Tsutaya Books is amazing, there was a manga artist drawing in the shop today. And the Kenji Yanobe Ship's Cats. And the roof garden with the views and the shady trees. The Okuno building is worth a look too.

Planning on going to Ginza after Teamlabs Planets but half a day might not be enough. Is anything affordable i.e. not designer, more high street prices, as I read it is high end @Reetpetitenot

And where exactly is the Ship's Cat as a quick Google tells me it's in Osaka???

Teamlabs and Universal tickets for July have been released if any of you interested @notdonna@QueenMabby

Ginza's main drag is definitely high end - think Kurfurstendamm or Bond Street, Manolo Blahnik, Balenciaga, Dior etc., although Uniqlo is there, and Itoya Stationery but it is incredible for people watching - so many wonderfully dressed individuals. The cats are in Ginza 6.

Ooh thanks @Reetpetitenot, we’re staying in Ginza so will be keeping an eye!
Thanks for TeamLabs info @TheyNotLikeUs, we loved Planets. Has anyone been to both or would recommend Borderless, trying to decide whether to book that for us

Does anyone want to critique our itinerary- first time as a family with 2 near adult teens ( dh been to Tokyo with work a few times)? It's early July - I know it will be hot!

The end of our trip we are having some beach time in Ishikagi for 4 nights then on to Hong Kong for 4 nights.

We can fly to Ishigaki from Osaka or Fukuoka and im not 100% sure what is best - we've been going round in circles. Going to Ishikigi rules out the Alps so I'm conscious we might be a bit city focused (one dc really isn't a city fan hence Kyoto rather than Osaka). We think we have two options using Tokyo for day trips.

Option 1- Tokyo (6) - Hiroshima (2) - Kyoto (4) - Osaka (1) flight at noon or

Option 2 - Tokyo (6) - Kyoto (4) - Hiroshima(2) - Fukuoka (1) - flight at noon

I think option 1 but are there pros to option 2 or dare I say an better option!

@Riverswimmers I think I’d be inclined towards option 2. Fukuoka airport is a city-centre airport and should be an airport that you just breeze through if our experience in a similar sort of regional airport is anything to go by.

You say one of your DC isn’t really into cities. I’d consider giving an extra night to Hiroshima so that you can do some day trips from there. There’s some wonderful, less city-based day trips from Hiroshima. Okunoshima, Onomichi, Iwakuni and Miyajima (the last two work well on the same day). We stayed in Hiroshima for five nights and did day trips on 4 days out of 6. It’s a really good base for exploring and it’s pretty quiet in the evenings when the day trippers leave and people go back to their cruise ships.

@SomethingFun

Have fun!

I'm interested that you're going to both Japan (on a cruise) and Korea. I've started looking at cruises for simplicity on my first trip and there are some that combine Japan and S. Korea. Is that what you're doing?

Even if it isn't, which is your cruise line, and can you please report back on any/all of it, especially the differences between your Japanese and S. Korean experiences? 😀

@TheyNotLikeUs - thank you for the reminder. It was on my list to do today but not done it yet. Must get to it!

Hiya
Has anybody here been to Okinawa? We are possibly having to rethink part of our Japan itinerary as our friends son had ACL and MCL surgery 5 weeks ago, he’s still in a brace and while he’ll be fine to fly when we go we’re not sure how far he’ll be able to walk comfortably etc. last time we went to Japan we did a LOT of walking so considering changing the Japanese alps part of our itinerary and flying to Okinawa for 4-5 days . We’re doing the first 6 days separately so they can see Osaka, Hiroshima and Kyoto and the plan would be to fly from Osaka( probably) and then depending on whether we get the Sumo grand tournament tickets, flying back to Osaka and training up to Nagoya or flying straight back to Tokyo. We’re there early- mid July so weather looks good, and swimming would help massively with his rehab. If anyone has any tips I’d really appreciate them! Thanks

We are thinking the sane thing but going to Ishigaki rather than the main island.

Tsutaya is a stockist of J-Scent perfumes which are absolutely lovely and really evoke Japan. They’re over £100 in UK but far less in Japan.

www.fragrantica.com/designers/J-Scent.html

Yes we’re looking at flights to Ishigaki too, it looks beautiful!

Hi! I’m on it now! It is Norwegian cruise lines and the cruise goes from Tokyo to Incheon in South Korea. We had two nights in Tokyo before in a hotel and then we have four nights in Seoul at the end.

We only had one full day in Tokyo so we did Tokyo Skytree and TeamLab Planets. Both were amazing and good value for money imho. We got around using the metro which is easy and cheap. The stations are massive though so it takes longer to get where you’re planning than Google says 😁

We got on the cruise ship last night and we are in Shimizu. We went on a trip to see Mount Fuji - I’m current sat on looking at it over a balcony 😁 I think we’ve been very lucky to see it. I’ve never been on a cruise before so can’t rate it as a cruise but so far all the food has been lovely and the staff are great 😊

@SomethingFun

Thanks so much! Great minds think alike, obviously. 😀

I'd love to hear more as your cruise progresses. For now I'd just ask how close to land the ship has been while at sea? I'd imagine you don't get to see much from far out, but I might be wrong. Do enjoy yourself.

I may be a bit nuts but we’re already onto planning our Easter 2026 trip in very rough outline. We had a few possible itineraries in mind but think we are settling on a Hokuriku and Tōhoku itinerary. As a rough outline we are thinking.

2 nights Tokyo- probably based in Ueno as it makes sense for the Shinkansen.
2 nights Nagano- for the snow monkeys and general sightseeing
4 nights Kanazwa- We plan to use it as a base to explore Ishikawa, Fukui and Toyama prefectures. We’re keen to spend a chunk of our tourist £ in Ishikawa prefecture, so are fairly set on using Kanazawa as the base for this bit of the trip.
1 night Omiya- (this is really just a pit stop so that we can link our two rail passes together) We think we’ll visit Takasaki in Gunma prefecture en route and forward our luggage from Kanazawa onto Morioka.
4 nights Morioka-Use this as a base to visit Aomori, Akita and Miyagi prefectures. Possibly visit Fukushima prefecture on the way back to Tokyo for the flight home if we end up on the late night JAL flight again.

We’d be using the 7 day Hokuriku Arch Pass and 5 day Tohoku pass.

I’d be really keen to hear from anyone with experience of these regions. Does this make sense as a route? We’ll be staying close to the Shinkansen stations and making good use of our rail passes to take lots of day trips. That worked really well for us in Hiroshima last month, so we know that style of travel suits us. Has anyone else used Morioka as a base city? We’re not set on that one, but it does seem to work well in terms of transport to the places we want to visit.

Thanks - we went with Fukuoka in the end. Something a bit pure about just travelling down in a line and I agree the airport in morning will be super simple I hope!

Grateful to hear any thoughts on this itinerary for DH and I with 16 year old DD in July. It'll be our first time and I couldn't have got to this stage without these threads @Takoneko

Afternoons of Day 6 and Day 13 seem a bit of a trek and would you substitute Osaka Castle with anything?

Day 1 Shinkjuku for 7 nights: 3D cat, Godzilla, Government Building Light Show
Day 2 Meiji Jingu, Shibuya, Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden
Day 3 Tokyo Skytree and Sensoji, Imperial Palace
Day 4 Private car to Mt Fuji 5th Station and Hakone Loop
Day 5 Teamlabs Planets, Ginza
Day 6 Snoopy museum then travel to Akhibara?
Day 7 Bullet train to Osaka for 7 nights, Umeda building
Day 8 Osaka Castle, Teamlabs Botanical
Day 9 Expo
Day 10 Kyoto, Bamboo Grove, Gion
Day 11 Universal Studios
Day 12 Nara & Mt Wakakusa
Day 13 Cup Noodle Museum then travel to Tempozan Ferris wheel/aquarium?
Day 14 Flight home

@TheyNotLikeUs

I think that’s a good itinerary overall.

You should consider swapping the Imperial Palace to Day 5. It’s very walkable from Ginza and makes more sense geographically there. On day 3, you would then have time to visit Akihabara alsongside Sensoji and Skytree.

Day 6- I wouldn’t trek all that way for the Snoopy museum, but if it’s something that’s important to you/your family then you should do it. I’ve not regretted treks to places that I was really excited about.

Day 13- The cup noodle museum is also quite a trek. If you got a taxi from there it’s only about 25-30 mins from Katsuoji temple though, which was one of our highlights. If you’re going to be out that way then I highly recommend it.

Day 10- Gion and the bamboo grove are at opposite ends of Kyoto, which is a big, sprawling city. Are there other things you want to do in the Arashiyama area? I wouldn’t go all that way just for the bamboo grove.

I also can’t imagine being in Osaka for that amount of time and not spending an evening out in Shinsekai. The Harukas 300 observatory is also in that neighbourhood.

Personally, I would prefer to stay some nights in Kyoto over a solid Osaka block. I just find Kyoto easier to navigate whereas Osaka is massive and complex (to me).
Staying in Kyoto also allows you to get up early and avoid the crowds.

@Takoneko not mad, love the fact you’re planning for next year, we are too although prob not Japan this time!
sorry, we’ve not been to any of the areas you are looking at. Potentially in Takayama, shirakawago and Kanazawa in July but that may change to Ishigaki! Might the Alpine route be open when you’re there? We looked at doing it, looks fab https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e7550.html

this looks fab near Nagano https://www.echigo-tsumari.jp/en/travelinformation/tunnel_of_light/

We considered Amori, Akita etc this summer and Sendai which is supposed to be a fab city. Sorry not much help but sounds like a fab trip!!! Oh and we also loved ueno when we stayed there!

@TheyNotLikeUs i agree with Mondayyoghurt, I think if I was doing a couple of days around Kyoto I’d maybe stay, even if just for one night, gives you the opportunity to make an early start. When we went to the bamboo forest we also did the golden temple and the little railway. Boats weren’t operating when we were there but they looked fun. Kyoto is quite sprawling and we found Ubers better than public transport.

@2025istheyeari Unfortunately, we’ll be too early for the Alpine route. It looks amazing though.

I’m definitely going to look into Kiyotsu Gorge. It looks quite out-of-the way but there might be other things along the way that we could combine it with. Thanks for sharing. Let us know what you think of Kanazawa if you end up there this summer.

@Riverswimmers I have mentioned it on the previous thread but we flew JAL domestic and it was super smooth, so don't worry too much about the internal flight. We had to double check when we checked in (to fly Osaka - New Chitose) and the lady said to us to be at the gate 15 mins before departure. We were stunned when the flight was fully boarded with bags away and everyone sitting down, within 5 mins of the first passengers getting on. I was messaging DS so I had the time stamps on my conversation....

I promise I don’t work for them and sorry if it’s already been mentioned but we found using a travel planning app incredibly useful for Japan. We used Wanderlog. It plots your itinerary on a map. You can organise everything so easily and even add hotel and flight details - the app autopopulates the info and automatically pulls up info from online so if you say you are going to a particular place it will provide a link to the website and things like entry costs and opening hours. It also suggests others things you might be interested in. There is a free version and a paid version. I actually pay but you don’t have to. You can share the app with your group so everyone can add things.

Hi! Been lurking on this thread for a while. We have a trip booked to Japan this summer! Excited! Planning to do Tokyo and Osaka too. Can someone advise if I should book shinkansen when the tickets are available 1 month in advance or will it suffice to book a few days before the trip?