Hello, thank you very much for your help!
On January 25th, my wife and I will be traveling to Japan for the first time. We’ll be in Tokyo from January 27th. We have all our hotels booked, except for one exception, which I hope you can help me with at the end of the itinerary.
Our main focus is to explore the cities, walk around, visit as many places as possible, enjoy Japanese food, and try anything recommended. We love Japanese cuisine and are willing to eat whatever is suggested. Our trip will primarily revolve around exploring, eating, and searching for video games.
Briefly, here are some highlights of our trip:
* Day 1-2: Flight
* Day 3-7: Tokyo.
*We only have* ***Shibuya Sky*** *booked for Day 6.*
*On Day 7, we have tickets for* ***Team Lab****. We don’t want to make major plans for this first visit to Tokyo; we want to get lost and explore the city center, the main neighborhoods, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Akihabara, Ginza, Minato, Shinagawa, etc. Mainly, we want to eat, explore, go to UNIQLO, and look for video games.*
* Day 8: Tokyo to Takayama. We’ll travel on the Shinkansen Tokyo-Nagoya-Takayama. We’ll stay one night and explore the main attractions.
* Day 9: Takayama to Kanazawa.
* Day 10: Kanazawa
*In Kanazawa, our main goals are to visit Kanazawa Castle, its gardens, and the Samurai residences. We’ve also seen the Contemporary Art Museum, so that’s a must-visit in these two days.*
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* Day 11: Kanazawa to Kyoto
* Day 12-14: Kyoto
*We’ll travel early from Kanazawa to Kyoto. We have many things to do in Kyoto, with enough time to do it leisurely. We want to visit the Golden Pavilion Temple, Ryoan-ji, explore Higashiyama, visit the Imperial Palace, and Nijo Castle. We’d like to know if you have any recommendations for a hot spring that accepts tattoos.*
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* Day 15: Kyoto to Osaka
* Day 16-18: Osaka
*In Osaka, we have two important things:* ***Universal Studio*** *on Day 17 (tickets already purchased with FastPass) and half a day in* ***Nara****. The rest of the time in Osaka, we want to eat, explore the city, and visit Dotonbori, Shitenno Japanese Garden, and Osaka Park.*
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* Day 19: Osaka to Koyasan:
*In Koyasan, we’ll stay in a* ***temple****. We’ll arrive in Koyasan around noon and plan to explore the city and Kongobu-ji Temple. The next day, wake up very early to visit the cemetery.*
*Now, we reach Day 20, where we have our* ***biggest doubt.***
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In our original itinerary, on this day, we’ll travel to Hiroshima in the afternoon, intending to arrive around 18:00 after a 4-hour journey. The idea is to check into the hotel, explore the city, and eat. The next day, visit the Peace Memorial Park very early, then go to Miyajima Island to see the Torii. After that, return to Tokyo on the 20:00 train.
**Honestly, our question is whether it’s worth going to Hiroshima, as we do want to go, but above all, we want to know if the limited time we have is feasible for what we’ve planned in the itinerary and if the experience is worth it.**
**If not, we have two options.**
1. Go to Hiroshima from Kyoto, considering that we have many more days in Kyoto. It would be a day trip without accommodation (2 hours of travel). With this, we could stay one more night in Koyasan or Tokyo, depending.
2. Skip Hiroshima and stay an extra day in Koyasan. With this, we could visit Mount Koya.
**Let me know what do you think!**
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* Day 22-23: Tokyo.
*This will be our second time in Tokyo. We’ll stay in the Ueno district, so the plan is to explore this area of Tokyo.*
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* Day 24-28: We’ll take a 6-day trip to **South Korea**. The plan is mainly to stay in Seoul and go to Busan.
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* Day 29-31:
*We return to Tokyo. We don’t have accommodation yet, but we’ll probably stay in the central area to do the last-minute shopping and explore the city one last time. For these days, we have absolutely no itinerary, just do what we didn’t manage to do in the previous stays. We only have a reservation for Harry Potter on the 30th.*
And well, on day 31, we embark on a long journey back to Santiago, more than 35 hours, but very happy with this experience!
We appreciate any guidance you can provide. I tried to summarize as much as possible while conveying a clear idea of our purpose. I hope you can help me with the Hiroshima dilemma, which is the main question.
Thank you very much!
by Iriscience
