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.

No

This is exactly what I’m hoping for. Thinking we can leave Tokyo and send our luggage on to kyoto by the sea, while we go to Kawaguchi with a backpack and meet our luggage a couple of days later. Thank you.

We had considered using Inside Japan for a bespoke tour, they were really helpful in kicking off itinerary planning but at the end of the day we had to weigh up the budget we had vs. the convenience of someone managing it all for us so we opted for seeing how far our budget could stretch with a bit of extra research and going it alone. These threads have been invaluable, plus Youtube channels (especially Sunny in Japan and Allan Su). Klook is also good for train planning and booking.

Hi everyone. I'm currently trying to plan my own trip to Japan. I wanted to ask, is there a recommended way to be able to see a performance from a Geisha? I've admired them and been fascinated by them for a long time, ever since I watched the film "Memoirs of a Geisha". I've heard of Geisha tea ceremonies in Kyoto that can be booked online. Has anyone here been to one of those and what was it like?

@Actnaturally so sorry for radio silence - I hope I'm not too late. I'm away with work and my schedule has been packed. I caught up with DS yesterday.

Food in Seoul - instead of trying to recommend eateries in all of your likely/possible locations, DS and I decided it would be easier for you if I shared the words you need for restaurants/dinner. As you may know, instead of the way UK does food ie one establishment will sell fish and chip, a curry, a thai dish, AND a pizza and desserts etc, in Korea a restaurant is a specialist in one food. So, for dinner our recommendation is you put the following seaches into Google Maps when you are out and about and find a restaurant near to whereever you are and pick one with good reviews. The English version should be sufficient. I think you are there for 3 nights so recommend BBQ pork one night, chicken another and pancakes and makgeoli on the other.

You MUST (😂) try - samgyeopsal 삼겹살 - pork belly (its our absolute favourite)
but also chicken either Dalkgalbi 닭갈비 - stir fried chicken (with cabbage and yummy)
or chicken 치킨 - korean friend chicken - it looks a bit like chicken nuggets but is far superior and actually delish, we go boneless)

The google reviews should have photos of outside to help you find each place, and remember it could be upstairs. People are generally helpful.

At risk of telling the whole world, I am going to recommend a pancake place in Gangnam - we think it's good fun, particularly if you are game for the upstairs cubicles as they pass the food up through the window, but it is Korean seating (on the floor) up there. We always have at least one kimchi pancake and have random others. We love having the magkeoli (mack-o-li) here as it comes in a battered old kettle and is served out of 'dog bowls'.
A street view
9 Bongeunsa-ro 1-gil, Gangnam District, Seoul,
Link I hope
Makgeoli - is a weird flavour but once we got over the intial shock we love it now. Its about the same strength as beer.

I think I've mentioned Ediya coffee for a good decaff selection. We often grab breakfast in one or get something weird and wonderful for 'research' from a corner shop.

We find a difference between Japan and Korea is that in Korea food is absolutely EVERYWHERE so you will not go hungry for lunches. Pop in to Gwangjang Market when you are over that way, it is touristy but sitting down on the benches with some locals is fun, look out for the filled 'fish' (pastries) and other random offering on roadside stalls, and hoettock too (but we don't see many of those the lady here generally has a queue and lots of locals seem to take away a bagful. I think you may be staying in the area). We eat whatever we fancy and have had no ill effects hygiene wise (although I am wary of excess spiciness).

There are lots of offerings on Instagram like Cafe Onion as, like the Japanese, the Koreans like aesthetics and 'cute'.

If you aren't on your way already please let me know of any final queries, I'm sorry ive left it so late.

We go in about 2 weeks! Got studio ghibli tickets this morning. Anyone else? My ds is over there so got online for us all.
The dreamlabs in Kyoto look good too and I’d quite like to try a train and boat trip through the blossom

@Bonsaibaby Congrats on the Ghibli museum tickets. Hope you have a great time!

What’s your itinerary like?

Not as detailed as everyone else but start in Osaka 5 days do universal then Kyoto 4 days I’d quite like to do a train and boat ride in blossom. Do a dreamlabs thing then go to a spa place on the way to Tokyo for 2 days the Tokyo 3 days inc the museum. I think we’re going to try and see the deer. Definitely temples in Kyoto but not sure if there’s anything more we need to try and book in advance

Thanks everyone for this great continous series of threads...i would like to know if anyone has done Hakodate and the southern coastal area of Hokkaido?As a counterpoint to my previous visits to mostly major cities i d like to camp at the free sites (or cheap) on the coastal straits between Oma ,Yagen (uninhabited but free onsen!) and Aomori in North Honshu and southern Hokkaido.I see there is a vast network of campsites all over so i m attempting to get close to those lighthouses and coastal regions as i can.Has anyone camped and enjoyed it there?

That sounds really good. I love Osaka!

I’ve never really booked much in advance. I don’t think there’s anything that you’d need to book beforehand that you haven’t already booked. The boat ride around the moat at Himeji castle is fun and probably really spectacular if you catch full bloom on the cherry blossom. We were a bit too late in the season and there wasn’t much left when we went but it was still really pretty. My Japanese wasn’t good enough to follow the everything the guide said, but I still enjoyed it. Himeji is half an hour from Osaka on the Shinkansen.

I understand that Japanese cuisine is extremely well-regarded and is one of the things that tourists enjoy most about the country. As someone who isn't especially fond of seafood, I wonder if I would appreciate it as much as others do however. I know that seafood is an essential component of many Japanese dishes.

What do others typically eat when visiting Japan, particularly if they aren't particularly keen on seafood? I am open to most things except seafood. I don't like crab, squid or shrimp, so I assume I also wouldn't like sashimi, octopus or fugu, for example. I've also tried sushi in the UK a couple of times but didn't like it.

The Okonomiaki (sp?) in Osaka was amazing. I had it with pork rather than seafood. Highly recommended ! There was always lots of chicken dishes too wherever we went

Tons of food that doesn’t involve seafood and restaurants tend to specialise in a particular dish or set of dishes

yakatori are grilled meats usually but lots of veggie options too
ramen of course
udon noodles in a variety of dishes
dumplings
places like the tofu house in Kyoto does crazy stuff with tofu, just amazing
shojin ryori is traditional vegan food of multiple small dishes usually served at temples
as PP said Okonomiyaki

you can def go to Japan and not eat sushi and still have plenty of choices, kind of like you can go to Italy and not have pizza and still eat very well

@FirmNavyCat There’s lots of non seafood options. I like seafood but DP doesn’t really.

Safe options if you don’t like seafood:

Gyukatsu is one of our favourites.
Yakitori
Tonkatsu
Gyudon
Oyakodon
Curry

Options that can be seafood free (but not always).

Okonomiyaki
Ramen is usually pretty safe, particularly Tonkotsu and miso ramen. Shio and Shoyu ramen can be fishy (although not always).
Udon and Soba restaurants can be a mixture.
Tempura
Teishoku (traditional set meal) restaurants like Ootoya.

This is incredible, thank you @Specialnameforanoutingthread. I’m not there yet, going to Japan in 2 weeks so we’ll be in Seoul in about 4 weeks time. I’m so grateful to you - I’m going to have a lovely time going through your links!

@Specialnameforanoutingthread we’ve got accomodation in Myeongdong. I understand it’s the touristy shopping bit? But we figured we’re only there 3 nights, so we need to be in the centre and myeongdong seems so well connected to other parts of the city and also on the airport bus route you sent me info on. So we’re arriving by train to Seoul station and I think we can walk from there to our accomodation (unless I’ve got the scale totally messed up) and the bus stop to airport is just a few minutes walk.

@Actnaturally yes Myeongdong IS the touristy shopping bit but like us on our first visit, you ARE tourists 😂 - also it's allowed! As you've realised that area is good for the station, the airport bus and the various tube lines as well as all the things in walking distance.

Can we try to keep this thread to discussion about Japan? There's been a lot about South Korea on the last couple of pages. Korea is a very different country to Japan despite their geographic proximity.

Public Service Announcement!!

For anyone travelling in the next month. If you’re using a JR East regional rail pass, get onto their website and buy it now! Tomorrow is the last day that you can buy passes at their current price. From Saturday onwards the passes are becoming more expensive.
We’ve saved £100 between the two of us by booking our rail passes now rather than in a week. If you book now you can pick an activation date about a month ahead.

Link to the website.

https://www.jreast.co.jp/en/multi/pass/

@Takoneko Thank you for the heads up. We’re not travelling until November, so unfortunately I don’t think we can buy our train pass yet.

I’m currently considering the 21 day pass, as we’re in Japan for 23 days. We will be covering a fair distance by rail, and the JR calculator suggests we will be better off with it.

@Pusspot You’re right, they don’t sell that far in advance.

The 21 day pass might save you money, but you’ll probably save a lot more with a combination of regional passes. The different JR companies offer regional passes that are generally a much better deal than the national passes.

For our next trip we would have saved money with a 14 day JR pass, but going with regional passes instead saved us another ¥40,000 vs the JR pass between two of us. (¥60,000 pp vs ¥80,000 pp).

Remember that with the national pass you also can’t use the fast trains on the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen lines without paying a fairly hefty surcharge each time.

@Takoneko Thank you - yes it’s an annoying about the Tokaido surcharge, but I’m not especially bothered about the Nozomi/fastest trains, and actually we preferred the older Shinkansen trains for comfort. It’s tricky to decide which passes are best for this trip. The 21 day pass is tempting because the difference between the 14 day version currently isn’t huge.
We’re starting in Tokyo for three days, with a day trip to Nikko. We could just pay for that separately, as it’s not that expensive. We wouldn’t activate a 21 day pass until day 2 of our trip, and it’s not much use in Tokyo itself. After Tokyo we’re going all the way to Fukuoka by train, which is an expensive trip.
I really don’t want to fly, because we loved the Shinkansen last year, and we like the ability to sit down and have a rest/enjoy the journey.

We could get to Osaka from Tokyo on an individual ticket, and then activate one of the Western Japan regional passes, to take us into Kyushu. I feel that we could end up getting lots of regional passes that we don’t make full use of though. Last year we maxed out the Sanyo West 7 day pass, which was excellent value.
Our itinerary for November is:
Tokyo 3 days
Fukuoka 3 days (hoping we will get Sumo tournament tickets)
Nagasaki 3 days

Kagoshima 3 days (car hire is likely here)
Takamatsu 4 days
Kanazawa 5 days
Back to Tokyo for the final night before flying home from Haneda.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

That will be me! Exactly because of the geographical proximity, we’re doing a cruise from Osaka and a few days in Korea to the end of our trip through Japan. On the last thread there were a few people discussing doing the same thing, so I think it’s quite relevant to some to a thread about planning a trip to Japan. I’m abusing @Specialnameforanoutingthread ’s experience of that route to help planning my trip.

I note your annoyance with it though, and keep it to a minimum.

And on another note, I’m making progress with our transport planning. I’ve found going direct with Japanese companies online has been relatively easy and saves quite a bit of money! Last night I booked the bus from Tokyo to lake Kawaguchi and paid £40 for 4 of us.

Looking at the next leg - Kawaguchi to Amanohashidate- you’re absolutely right, @Takoneko, there’s no easy way! Looks like a 7/8 hour trip whatever we do.