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.

@Takoneko I can’t recommend Izu highly enough. Beautiful and quieter than similar areas like Hakone. The west coast is especially nice.

Enjoy the next leg of your trip!

We are planning a 2 week trip in 2029! I went in my 30s but DH has never been. It will be his nearing 60 th birthday and looking forward to it and joining this thread and we will have a 15 year old in tow. Really looking forward to reading all your ideas we will try to chase the cherry blossom season south to north. We like animals, history and scenary and I would really like to see the solid ink being made and go back to lots of temples. I really want to go here https://toshogu.jp/

We're in the very early stages of planning our first trip, either next year or the year after. Have wanted to visit for nearly 40 years, so very excited!

I’ve done two weeks at Easter for the last three years and the cherry blossom are just too unpredictable to be able to chase them from south to north with a pre-planned itinerary IMO. If they end up being late again like they were in 2025 then you could end up being too early everywhere.

The good news is that we’ve never not seen cherry blossoms in April, including last year when Easter was super late and we didn’t arrive until mid-April. We’ve never planned our itinerary around them and didn’t necessarily see them everywhere that we were or in the most famous spots, but we’ve always seen them somewhere. I find them most beautiful a few days after the peak. If you’re there between the end of March and Mid-April the chances are you’ll see them somewhere without chasing them if you’re in that Kanto-Kansai-Chugoku corridor.

@PlanningMylife If you like animals, I advise being really careful about animal attractions in Japan. I really enjoyed Okunoshima and Nara but have found zoos here pretty grim.

I generally don’t go to zoos etc in other countries. It’s more wild wildlife or nice scenery.

Ok bad choice of words we are going end of March to mid April so it should be fine. When I went in my 30s I did first two weeks in April and it was gorgeous. Weather etc can be unpredictable but it gives us the best possible chance.

I think you’d have to be really unlucky not to see them at some point in that window. Good luck!

Do you have particular cities in mind for your trip yet?

Tokyo and then Harome.
Nara for the ink, The sacred island and then Hiroshima

But lots of planning and ideas to be flushed out !

I love Hiroshima. One of my favourite places in all of Japan. Happy planning!

Thought I’d just check in here. We’re now a bit over three weeks in and we’ve enjoyed our time so far even though the weather was a bit grim for the first couple of weeks.

We’re currently on a very full limited express train from Nagoya to Ise. With hindsight, I suspect that a holiday weekend may not have been the best choice for visiting Ise, but I’m sure we’ll still enjoy it.

We liked Nagoya and I think its reputation for being boring is a bit unfair. The palace and castle are really cool, we also enjoyed the food there and the maglev museum. We did day trips to Gifu city and to Inuyama and I’d highly recommend both. Gifu city had the most amazing view from the top of the ropeway. Inuyama castle was busy yesterday but not so much so that you couldn’t enjoy it. I think the fact that we’ve had such lovely weather here has also made everything prettier and more enjoyable.

I’ve also just realised that we’re now over the halfway point in our quest to visit all 47 prefectures of Japan. Mie is prefecture number 24 that we’ve visited.

What an adventure you’re having!! Hope you enjoy Ise, it’s on our list. We love a restaurant in Tokyo called Ise Sue Yoshi and the owner chef is from Ise.
Glad you enjoyed Gifu, we overnighted there last year and loved the rope way although we didn’t have the weather while we were there!!

Half way through the prefectures is quite something!!

Wow halfway is great!

@26inprogress The Ise great shrine absolutely blew me away. There’s a matsuri going on here and the place is absolutely heaving with people, but the shrine complexes are huge. There are easily tens of thousands of people visiting the shrines today and yet it didn’t ever feel shoulder to shoulder busy like in the big Kyoto temples or Sensoji. The scale of the place is breathtaking and the forest surroundings feel ancient. For me, this is by far the most impressive shrine or temple that I’ve ever visited in Japan. The buildings aren’t ornate but they are big and feel embedded into the surrounding forest.

I should probably add that the prefecture count is total across all of our trips to Japan. We visited 20 prefectures across our earlier trips and have been to four new ones so far on this trip (Mie, Gifu, Aichi, Shizuoka).

Glad the weather has got better. It’s very warm in Kanto today.

Inuyama is lovely isn’t it? I think it is one of the few remaining original castles in Japan. Most are fero concrete reconstructions.

Nagoya is underrated! It’s the sort of city that would be nice to live in. Not too big but big enough to have everything you need close by. Food is great. I like the red miso. Even national chain restaurants like Yoshinoya and Matsuya serve akadashi red miso soup.

We found Inuyama really charming. The castle doesn’t have the scale of Himeji but it’s really lovely. I believe it’s one of 12 remaining original castle keeps, and one of just five castles in Japan designated as “national treasures” alongside Himeji, Matsumoto, Matsue and Hikone.

We enjoyed the food in Nagoya. The miso katsu, ogura toast, chicken wings etc. We gave up on the Piyorin though. There was a queue around the corner half an hour before the shop opened this morning and we would have missed our train if we’d waited. You need to be really committed to get one apparently.

@Takoneko

I had to look up Piyorin! Never heard of it! I’d like to try one but I’m not sure I’d queue up for one!

You’ll pass Hikone on the way to Osaka. I went there a very long time ago during sakura season. Nice castle and nice little park surrounding it.

@Takoneko sounds like your trip is going well. I like the sound of the regional food in Nagoya. I also had to look up Piyorin … very kawaii!

@Remoter33 We aren’t taking the Shinkansen to Osaka, so won’t be going up near Hikone just yet. We’re using the kintetsu lines with a rail pass.

@Pusspot The trip is going really well. DP has got a bit of a nasty cold at the minute and so we’re taking it easy today, but we’re having a lovely time apart from that. I’ve never travelled for as long as this and was worried we might get a bit tired of it, but no danger of that yet. There’s just so many beautiful places to see and interesting things to do.

@Takoneko that’s a shame about the cold. You’d likely pick up colds here at this time of year, so at least you’re in Japan! We had lovely weather last October, so I hope you’re getting the same (especially after all that rain in Tokyo).
Our planning is going well, and we are now under three weeks from our trip. We bought our rail passes and have been busy reserving seats for various journeys. The JR pass website is the first straightforward one I have encountered! I was pleased to discover that JR Kyushu have several themed trains (included in pass), but they fill up quickly. I really didn’t appreciate train travel until we went to Japan, but it’s become a big part of our upcoming trip.
I think you’ll be in Kyushu for quite a while? We have 13 nights spread across four cities, before we go to Kanazawa. The foliage forecasts suggests we might see some Momiji at the end of our trip 🤞

I think it’s inevitable that we’ll get colds etc. We have long enough here that it’s not the end of the world if we slow down a bit for a few days. Like you say, it’s cold season at home too.

We’re in Kyushu for a little under a month. We get there around 10th November and fly back to Tokyo on 5th December. We are staying in Kitakyushu, Beppu, Fukuoka, Nagasaki and Kumamoto. Fingers crossed on the momiji.

I also love Japanese trains. We’ve actually only used the Shinkansen once so far but we did visit the maglev museum in Nagoya. That was cool, but not quite as good as the Saitama Railway Museum.

@Takoneko we’re staying in Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Kumamoto and Kagoshima. We’ve booked tickets on the Yufuin no Mori train to Beppu, just for a day trip.
We’re planning to hire a car in Kumamoto and visit Amakusa. I’m getting quite excited about it all now!

"...visit Amakusa"

That's where they have the dolphin watching trips. The trips don't last very long but are fun if you've never seen dolphins in the wild before.

https://www.amakusa-dolphin.jp/kiji003149/index.html

@Another2Cats thank you for the link! We do want to see dolphins if possible. The islands look lovely, and we’re interested in their history.