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.

(What would I do without you and this thread? Thanks so much)

No worries. I thought I’d mention it as I’ve done mine today and sorted my eSIM.

Doing the Visit Japan Web registration and customs declaration beforehand meant arrivals for us was much more straightforward and swift than our first experience with long queues. There were plenty of machines to use and plenty of help on hand.

Hello all, just thinking about booking a hotel for our trip to Tokyo in Autumn. Is Ueno a reasonable area for getting around? Nearest station to the hotel I’m looking at is Iriya. We are anxious about negotiating public transport so would like to keep it as simple as possible, we’ve looked at Ginza as recommended by Takoneko but it’s at the very top end of our budget.

@Fuckingfuckssake Ueno is well connected. If you’re near to Iriya station on the Hibiya metro line then you’re also only a short walk to Uguisudani station on the Yamanote JR line. Between those two options you should be able to get to most tourist areas pretty quickly either directly or with one change.

Ueno is great. You’ve got the park and museums during the day and loads of izakaya in the evenings. I’ve never stayed there but absolutely would. I love Ueno.

thanks - that’s not something we did on our last trip so I’ll do it as well

I’m just getting in on the thread as I’ve booked flights for late August early September. I know it will be very hot but it was a now or never with my 15 year old. 16 nights and very excited! ChatGPT is helping me plan so I’ll post an itinerary later and you can compare 😀. One question, did anyone stay at the Hotel Gracery Shinjuku or did it lose its novelty quickly?

@Ladyeggo
I wouldn’t personally stay in Kabukicho with a 15 year old. The gracery hotel chain is fine enough but I wouldn’t stay in the red light district with a child. Kabukicho isn’t dangerous if you’re sensible, but it can be a bit seedy.

@Ladyeggo We visited that area briefly last October. It was fun to see the Godzilla head roaring. However, the authorities played a loud continuous PA warning in English, advising tourists to take care. It was the only place we heard that type of announcement. We were there around 4 - 5pm and it was starting to get dark. I didn’t feel unsafe, but I didn’t particularly like the location. From there, we went to the Government building to see the illuminations. That’s in a much more sedate part of Shinjuku.

This thread (and the previous two) has been an absolute treasure trove, thank you so much everyone for your incredibly generous contributions. On which note, if anyone has time to comment on my very draft itinerary, I'd be grateful. Me and DH in our 50s, DTDs (15). Japan novices, but we've done a wee bit of family travel of the more adventurous kind (Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Belize, Iceland etc) in amongst the AI ones!

Looking at Easter 2027, arriving 3 April, so prob tail end of sakura.

Day 1 arr Tokyo, stay West Shinjuku
Day 2 private guide to get bearings - see if we can do a Kintsugi workshop somewhere and/or girls want to go to micropig/capybara/chinchilla cafes...
Day 3 - TeamLab, sights, maybe Sumo stable
Day 4 - Studio Ghibli (is that a whole day?)
Day 5 - train to Takayama - stay Murayama, folk village
Day 6 - day trip to Hida Furukawa
Day 7 - bus to Matsumoto for castle, hotel tbc
Day 8 - train to Nagiso, walk some of Nakasendo to Tsumago, stay Fukinomori
Day 9 - walk to Magome, travel onto Osaka, stay Intergate Umeda by station
Day 10 - sightseeing, maybe foodie tour (food v important throughout trip, we're massive foodies!)
Day 11 - Day trip to Kyoto (+ tea ceremony, bamboo forest?)
Day 12 - Day trip to Nara
Day 13 - train to Hakone, stay Fukuzumiro
Day 14 - lake, Fuji, baths
Day 15 - back to Tokyo, everything we ran out of time to see at start
Day 16 - home

Does that look doable or too much? Only day trip to Kyoto given everything people have said about overcrowding, but I don't feel like we can go and not see it? The itinerary means we won't see Hiroshima, and I'd wanted to do a temple stay at Koyasan, but I guess we'll just have to come back! I'm hoping the above gives a good mix of megacity madness plus rural peace, some ryokan, different transport. But is it too much travel?

Do you think it's likely we'd be able to do luggage transfer from Matsumoto to Tsumago, and Tsumago to Osaka? And with travelling around like this are suitcases ok or do people backpack?

@stinkingbishop That looks really good to me, even though I haven’t been to a lot of those places myself. I don’t think I it’s a crazy amount of travel. Hiroshima is amazing, but you can’t see everywhere worth seeing in 16 days so I think you are sensible to not try to cram in too much.

A lot of those animal cafes have horrific animal welfare practices, so do your research. Some of the most depressing animal attractions that I’ve ever experienced were in Japan. We were enjoying the aquarium on Miyajima and then got to most miserable penguin, seal and sea lion enclosures that I’ve ever seen in my life and it left me feeling a bit grubby about having gone at all.

I wouldn’t forward luggage to somewhere I was only staying for one night. Sometimes bags can get delayed and that would be stressful and potentially disruptive if you’re there for less than 24 hours. I’d send the cases to Osaka from Tokyo on day 5 and then take backpacks for the 4 night stretch in between. When you leave Osaka, I’d be tempted to do the same thing and send the cases straight to the airport and you can meet them there before departure.

@Takoneko@stinkingbishop that is very valuable advice, thank you, I’ll avoid the Godzilla hotel in that case. I’m working my way through the threads :-)

Thanks so much @Takoneko . That's a really good suggestion about the luggage, thank you. Makes huge amounts of sense.

And, yes, I'd wondered about the animal cafes, so we shall have a proper look at those from a welfare perspective.

Hi everyone. I've been following this thread for inspiration as I try to plan my own trip to Japan. I am wondering, is there anyone who has been on trips to Japan where they had to change flights on the way there and back? I have just made a thread about it myself. In a nutshell, I live in the North of England and the only direct flights to Tokyo from the UK are from Heathrow. Flying from Heathrow isn't really an option for me, so I would need to change flights on the departure trip and on the return. I am a bit nervous about it as I've only ever been on holidays with direct flights.

@CatConcerns I have flown indirect via Helsinki. Whilst I prefer JAL economy over Finnair, I’d say Finnair is perfectly decent. The process of transferring from one flight to another at Helsinki is the best I’ve ever encountered. You literally get right off one plane and you’re in the departure area for the next one. The gates are all close together and Finnair put live connections information on the IFE system. Your bags will get transferred automatically. Our local airport is Heathrow but we’ve opted for a JAL-Finnair connection on our way home because it saved us some money. It’s a really convenient airport to change planes in for non-Schengen to non-Schengen flights.

@CatConcerns we're looking at the same for next Easter, as Manchester closest. I want to avoid Middle East, as that's potentially still going to be difficult, and also Chinese airlines, given friction with Japan. There are Finnair routes from Manchester to Tokyo via Helsinki showing for this April, next year's not released yet. We've used Helsinki airport before for connections to Estonia/other Finnish airports, and it's been a delight!

We are flying with Finnair from Edinburgh via Helsinki to Tokyo at the end of April. First time visitors to Japan but have flown to Oz and NZ via Qatar in the past. We chose Finnair this time on price and flight times but happy that we have avoided the ME. I'll report back on the experience.

@meikyo don’t sleep on the blueberry juice. Finnair blueberry juice is magical and I’ve never found any that’s anywhere near as good anywhere else.

@TakonekoWill give it a try!

I will too! We’re transferring in Helsinki on the way with Finnair and coming back via Singapore with Singapore Airlines

Interested to hear how you get on with the flights, also in Edinburgh and looking at Finnair to go to Japan next year. Oh and agree, the blueberry juice is amazing and Helsinki airport is very organised although bigger than I expected.

Just thinking on it, the other big advantage of Finnair for people doing a golden route trip is that they have direct flights from Helsinki to Osaka. Transferring in Helsinki is far more convenient for an open jaw flight than doing it in Tokyo and doing the golden route one way rather than having to loop back to Tokyo on a two week trip is a big plus.

Hi everyone. I've heard about luggage forwarding and how it's a standard part of any visit to Japan. It's a new thing to me however - with holidays I've been on in the past, we've taken our luggage from the airport to the hotel, and then it remains there until departure date. I assume this would work if you were only staying in one place (Tokyo for example) but if you are planning on traveling around Japan, then luggage forwarding would be required.

So how does luggage forwarding work exactly? I'm hoping it's one of those things that sounds complicated written down, but is actually straightforward when you actually do it. I've also seen a few posters saying that they only take one small suitcase with them to Japan. I don't know if one suitcase would last me any longer than a week (when going anywhere abroad, not just Japan) but with the aforementioned luggage constraints, I'd have to find a way to make it work.

@SpaEnjoyer It’s not obligatory to use luggage forwarding. I’ve been to Japan three times and never used it before. However, I will be using it on my next trip for one leg. Taking luggage on the Shinkansen is very straightforward. Taking it on Kyoto buses… not so much.

If you’re doing a pretty straightforward journey via Shinkansen, then it’s easy enough to just take your bags with you. If you’ve got lots of metro connections to make, are travelling via busy commuter lines or are stopping off for a night along the way then luggage forwarding is a really good option. Your hotel front desk should be able to help you to do it.

You can definitely do pretty much any length of time with one medium suitcase. Two weeks is possible without doing any laundry.

@SpaEnjoyer we didn’t use luggage forwarding on our trip to Japan last year. I had read about it, and thought it sounded like the ‘done thing’. In reality, we found that taking our medium sized suitcases on the trains was really straightforward. They fitted on the overhead Shinkansen luggage racks, and also on a couple of local trains. You will see plenty of passengers (including locals) taking their suitcases on the trains. It’s really orderly, so we didn’t find it stressful getting onboard with luggage. I can see the appeal if you’re travelling with children, or staying overnight (eg Hakone, Fuji etc) enroute to another destination.
I also read about a lack of lifts at train stations. This is partly true, because you will have to hunt them out. There are lots of stairs, but equally there are plenty of escalators. We never struggled, and we are getting on a bit.
Lots of people will say that luggage forwarding is really cheap (especially on sites like Reddit!) We worked out that it would cost on average about £15 per bag (x2) each time, so it would add up quickly when visiting 4 or 5 cities. I’d personally rather spend that money on something else.

I agree with @Takoneko - you really don’t need or want a huge suitcase in Japan. You will likely feel burdened by it by the end of the trip. All our hotels provided a great selection of toiletries (including facial products, often found in the reception) and most hotels had washing machines. We never had the opportunity to change for dinner or get dressed up on our trip. We do dress quite smartly (Japanese people are rarely scruffy) so we could transition to the evening quite easily. BTW, our medium sized suitcase are IT luggage, and they are very lightweight.