Japan Planning Thread 3

[Takoneko]

Hi!

This is a new Japan Planning Thread for when our last one is full.

Feel free to ask any questions here related to travel in Japan, regardless of budget or style of trip.

Hi! Hoping you all can help me make a final decision?

Booked a very last minute trip to Japan. In TWO weeks 😬🫣. Just myself and my partner, we are in our 30s and love food, coffee/matcha and wandering.. I actually don’t enjoy the planning stage at all as I get really overwhelmed with choice and procrastinate making decisions.

I’ve got a rough list of stuff we want to fit in (eg Ghibli, the big elevator etc which I really need to get a move on and book!) and I think I’ve settled on :

9th April- 12th April- flying into Osaka so stay in Osaka (3 nights)

12th April- 15th or 16th April (3 OR 4 nights- this is what I need to decide) Kyoto

bullet train

15th or 16th - 22nd April (7 or 6 nights) - Tokyo then home from Tokyo airport.

I really need to make a decision and book our hotels and then activities. Do you use booking.com? I would love to stay in more traditional ryoken but finding them is getting me very overwhelmed!

Thank you so much for any advice!!

@Friedbanana Unfortunately, you’re almost certainly too late for Ghibli museum tickets. April’s tickets were all released on 10th March and they sell out pretty much instantly.

I use booking.com mostly and have never had any issues using them to book reputable Japanese chain hotels.

I’d personally take the extra night in Osaka, which is pretty much perfectly positioned for day trips. Nara, Himeji and Minnoh (Katsuoji temple) are all really great day trips from Osaka.

Thank you @Takoneko ! That’s a good shout, Osaka looks great for food.

Am I being dumb or does there still seem to be loads of tickets left for April? Or is this not the correct website?

l-tike.com/search/?lcd=30004

@Friedbanana You might get lucky, but in my (somewhat bitter) experience, the Lawson ticket Japanese website will simply not accept overseas issued credit/debit cards. If you have someone in Japan with a Japanese phone number and bank account then you can buy via there. The link for the overseas ticket website is no longer active because they’ve sold out. Their system is designed deliberately to restrict the number of tickets purchased by overseas visitors and hold most of the tickets back for residents of Japan.

I’ve had an ordeal getting tickets for the sumo jungyo (which is not something that is especially competetive). Loads of tickets were available but they wouldn’t let me pay with a non-Japanese card. I’ve had to wait until today to book the last couple of tickets left in the least desirable category because I need to use the pay in store option and we will need to go collect the tickets in store on our first day in Japan this Sunday. I couldn’t do this any earlier as they only hold the tickets for three days.

That option isn’t available for Ghibli museum.

This is the link for the overseas tickets. All sold out.

https://l-tike.com/st1/ghibli-en/Tt/Ttg050selectdayseatcount/index?c_LCODE=38004&c_SCHEDULE_NO=1&c_ENTRY_MTHD=02&c_BASE_VENUE_CD=30033&c_PF_KEY=&c_PF_BASE_VENUE_NAME=Ｇｈｉｂｌｉ%E3%80%80Ｍｕｓｅｕｍ%28Ｔｏｋｙｏ%29&c_PF_NAME=ＧＨＩＢＬＩ%E3%80%80ＭＵＳＥＵＭ%EF%BC%8FＡｐｒｉｌ%E3%80%80２０２６

ive Used the Agoda app for hotels it’s narrower range than Booking.com but sometimes a bit cheaper

luckily my ds is in Japan so has booked things but it’s hard relying on him! He hasn’t got round to booking a sumo with dinner or geisha experience yet. He did get ghibli though

Safe travels to the people who were leaving today. I know you’re probably some way through a 14 hour plus journey. Hope you have an amazing time!

Are you going this weekend @Takoneko?

@Pusspot Yes! This time tomorrow we should be arriving at the airport.

@Takoneko hope you, and everyone else, have fabulous trips. Looking forward to hearing all about it! Safe travels 🇯🇵

@Takoneko We’re already in Tokyo. See you soon 😀.

Filling out the immigration/customs form online before we travelled was great advice. We sailed through with the QR code!

We did them on the plane on paper which wasn’t too bad either.
in Osaka has a great first evening, what a place! Long journey though

We’ve arrived in Tokyo. Stopped for a shower and to do some errands at Haneda and now we’re on our way to drop our bags at the hotel. After the ordeal that I had booking our sumo jungyo tickets through Lawson ticket, the pick up process for pay in store was a breeze. So that’s something at least.

@Takoneko Have a fantastic time. Looking forward to updates from you and everyone else currently in Japan. Glad the sumo jungyo tickets worked out!

Anyone in Tokyo at the moment - the Sakura festival at Ueno park is worth a visit. Lots of food stalls, music, picnic areas, cherry trees in bloom and lit up in the evening, great atmosphere and totally free!

Can anyone help so faf got a list of places but feel like my once in a lifetime trip is missing stuff (this is excluding food) for 11 days:

Tokyo:

• Harajuku - Look street, vintage stores, Yoyogi park, Meji Jingu, shopping (Daiso, cosme etc)
• Asakusa - Sensoji temple, nakamise shopping street, Sanrio + smiski
• Tsujki outer market
• Shibuya scramble
• Gotoku-ji temple
• Tokyo tower - outside only
• Team labs planet
• tokyo Disneyland

Osaka

• Osaka natural history museum
• Nara day trip
• Kuromon market
• Ring making
• Food samples
• donki

Kyoto

• Arishiyama monkey park
• Okazaki shrine
• Nishiki market
• Kodai-ji bamboo forest

I feel like this is not shaping up to be the once in a lifetime trip

The kids (and us) enjoyed a sushi restaurant chain called sushiro where you order on a screen and your food comes in little dishes as and when, then you can play a game on the screen. It all tasted really fresh.

the Kobe fashion museum looks really good. Unfortunately I just missed an exhibition but hope to get there still.

Sitting in Icheon airport after a packed but brilliant few days in Seoul, waiting to fly to Kagoshima for the Japan leg of our holiday

@ChristmasMad1 What do you feel it’s missing?

You can only see so much in eleven days, so the main thing is that you’re excited about the things you choose to do.

Are the things you’re planning things that you’re excited about?

@ChristmasMad1 I think many of us feel like that in the planning stage. My theory is you could base yourself in many parts of Japan and find great food, shopping, markets, temples and culture. It's deciding what is important to you and making sure your trip includes it. For our family a mix of endo architecture and scenery/nature plus castles food and an onsen works for us. If you step back and think "what sort of thing do I want to experience" may help. Your list would suggest shopping and city life and theme parks/attractions are important. The places you have chosen are popular for a reason and easy to add day trips if you wanted.

I read back my post @ChristmasMad1 and wanted to add you have a good variety of activities with some great temples, museums ETC. Most people do the golden triangle as it has good variety and gives a good flavour (parden the pun) of Japan.
Just check that you have included enough of what you really enjoy.
I do however note that we ended up enjoying shopping much more than usual and that our fondest moments were often unscheduled and stumbled upon.

We’ve had a lovely couple of days in Tokyo. It’s been full on, but we’ve really enjoyed it.

We’ve picked up our rail passes and will be off to Nagano in the morning. The weather looks a bit miserable for the next couple of days so we are thinking we might skip the snow monkeys and leave that for another trip.

Our back up plan for a rainy day was to head to Matsumoto for some more indoor stuff like galleries and museums. Anyone have any recommendations for Matsumoto?

No so it's me an and friend we're trying keep everything fair, like Tokyo Disney is mainly for me as I'm a big Disney fan, but she's excited. I just feel like when we booked flights it was all excited about what we would do, now we're planning it feels a bit underwhelming.

@Bonsaibaby we're planning to do kura sushi as well as we eat a lot and live sushi so good value

@Jellyslothbridge i'm just not sure what we actually want to do, I know we're doing a lot of temples which are looking forward to and search, but we just wanna get as much variety in as possible. We want something like old Japan style and maybe if we can catch a ceremony or something traditional

@Jellyslothbridge, shopping is not something I enjoy generally. But Tokyo is next level for shopping! Uniqlo less than half price of UK, plus lots of japan only items, the cosmetics and skincare is insane, convenience stores, all the kitch stuff, stationary. It’s incredible! Although I accidentally went into Don Quixote shinjuku on a Friday night and I nearly didn’t make it out alive. That was hellish.

@ChristmasMad1

If they aren’t things that you feel excited about anymore then perhaps it’s worth looking for other things that do make you feel excited.

For Tokyo tower, I recommend the sky lobby at the Azabudai Hills JP Mori building. Best view in Tokyo in my opinion. You have to buy something at the cafe/bar and pay a small cover charge but that is more than worth it.

I found Katsuoji in Osaka to be pretty special and worth the trip out of the centre.

Japan is a pretty special place and as a first-timer I’m sure it will feel pretty special whatever you do.