[Itinerary check] 23 days of Cars and Trains

11 comments

1. Car related – Nissan heritage museum and Omari factory

2. Hiroshima it’s already a full day to do Peace park and Itsukushima, I do not think you can do Mazda museum on top of that. My best bet is that you can do two.

   Onomichi, if you think about the possibility to finish by bus, you will need a lot of planning. You will need to know where to drop the bike, as you cannot bring them on the bus, then need to know where are the bus stop, and where the bus go, and their schedule. Just to give you an idea, I went to Innoshima, I took a bus on the island to go to the bridge, then a bus on the bridge to Onomichi. At least, I was on foot, so did not had to bother with a bike. Another option would be to take one of the boat back to Onomichi. At least they accept bike (for an extra cost), if you are not able to return it. Again, this will require some planning as there might only be a boat every 1 to 2 hours.

   What do you mean by “Yazuka setting”, even if it’s a typo and you meant yakuza, I do not understand.

   Why do you want to take a slower train to go to Hakone ? This is not 1 train, but more like 5-6 train to get to Odawara and it will take a good 5 hours. Considering you can do it on the Hikari train in just over an hour, it would be a massive pain in the ass and waste of time to not take the shinkansen. And that is not even Hakone yet, you will need to take train/bus to go somewhere in Hakone. To even have a chance to see Mount Fuji, you will need to go either to south of Lake Ashi or to Owakudani, and it take time to get there.

   There is sport car rental in Hakone, so I would consider staying at a ryokan in Hakone for one night an do the car drive there.

   Do not see why you want to do Ghibli, Nakano, Kichijoji in that order. It kind of make no sense as you can stop at Kichijoji station to go to Ghibli, so you can check it out before and/or after. Going to Nakano then back to Kichijoji seems to be a bit of time wasted. You will spend an extra 30 minutes in the train, plus time to wait for the train. Unless there is a bar you absolutely want to check in Kichijoji, does not make much sense.

   Kind of doubt you can do Kurama and Sagano scenic railway on the same day, they are quite far from each other. It will likely be a better idea to go to Arashiyama in the morning of the next day, then go to the railway museum. While I spend hours there with a kid that love train, you do not need the full day for it.

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   I think that many people share the opinion that carting in the city is dangerous and obnoxious, but I guess that it’s useless to tell that to people who want to do it.

3. It is prudent to consider that universal can be hard going, particularly if you don’t have a reasonable standard of Japanese. Most of the stage shows and rides have a cinematic preamble (or narration throughout), so things can drag or be a bit less engaging if you don’t fully understand what’s going on. I still had a blast, but there were a few times where I wished I’d skipped something because I wasn’t as ‘in’ it due to the language barrier. Not sure if they still run it, but the Spider-Man ride was my absolute favorite.

4. The Mazda plant tour in Hiroshima was amazing! My husband has imported an RX7 from there and it was awesome to see inside.

5. Have you considered whether you need the JR pass? You don’t seem to be travelling by train that much so I’d check if it actually works out any cheaper, especially since the pass limits which trains you can get.

6. You need a rest day or two

7. For your professed interest in trains I don’t see a lot of actual train taking in the itinerary itself. IMO a fun thing to do is to take the different trains, which means going on both JR and private lines. Like you can do Shinkansen to Odawara up to Hakone one way, then Romancecar back on the Odakyu coming back, etc. It will, however, cost more. So if cost is a problem I get it

   Is this a solo trip?

8. I live in Kumamoto. Cool to see it on your itinerary. Enjoy the basashi!

9. Day 1: Hello Kitty shinkansen – my advice would be to just ride to Okayama and then switch to a Sakura train, which will arrive in Hakata 90 minutes earlier (taking Hello Kitty all the way to Fukuoka would result in you having to deal with afternoon rush hour).

   Day 3: English language tours of Mazda Museum had to be pre-booked and AFAIR were at 10am in the morning.

   Day 5: Generally, Imabari to Onomichi is an easier way to do Shimanami Kaido for most of the year (tailwind).

   Day 10: It’s not a good plan considering that it takes about 5 hours to get from Nagoya to just Odawara, never mind Hakone (or Fuji Five Lakes Area via Mishima).

   Day 11: Frankly, I would tell you just to make it a two day trip (eg. Kusatsu, Karuizawa, Komoro for autumn foliage) instead of doing cringy and dangeours karts in Tokyo.

10. The Hakone Turnpike is the spiritual home of drifting, so if you’ve got the time, I do recommend renting a car and drive around the area. I quite enjoyed driving there despite being in a K-car.

    Also I’d recommend going to a D1 event if available. I have been to one in Odaiba quite a few years back and it was a lot of fun.

11. Nice to see another rail fan here. Saitama and Kyoto museums are both excellent. There is another that sounds interesting between Kyoto and Tokyo but I don’t have that info handy right now.