Wrote this comparison as I thought it may be useful to someone who isn’t sure how much they will fit into the day. I put a strike through the planned things that we never ended up doing. Of course, everyone travels differently – we went at a very relaxed pace, and most of the activities we did were free.
The dates we visited were Sunday 5th November to Thursday 16th November 2023.
|Location|Nights|Accommodation|Weather|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Tokyo|2|Hotel|25c hot and humid|
|Takayama|2|Hotel with onsen|20c sunny perfect weather|
|Gero|1|Ryokan with onsen|16c rainy (added to the ambiance!)|
|Kyoto|4|Hotel|average 16c, mix of rain and sunshine|
|Hiroshima|2|Hotel|18c sunny|
|Tokyo|1|Hotel|forgot to record!|
**Day 1 (Sunday 5th)**
**PLANNED:**
Evening – Shinjuku Golden Gai, Omoide Yokocho
**ACTUAL:**
Evening – Got lost in Shinjuku looking for our hotel, lugging heavy bags around. Once we finally found our hotel we only went out to get drinks/snacks and then went to bed.
**Day 2 (Monday 6th)**
**PLANNED:**
Morning – Yoyogi Park, Meiji Jingu shrine
Afternoon – Harajuku, Takeshita street
Evening – Shibuya Crossing, Akihabara
**ACTUAL:**
Morning – Yoyogi Park, Meiji Jingu shrine. *\[I would skip Yoyogi Park, it is just a nice park but nothing special especially if you’re going to walk around the Meiji Jingu Shrine anyway\].*
Afternoon – Harajuku, Takeshita street, Shibuya Crossing *\[did not explore the Shibuya area and it was still daylight, so for us this was not worth the detour. Partner thought it was over hyped as there are hundreds of people crossing the streets everywhere in Tokyo\]*
Evening – Shinjuku Golden Gai, Omoide Yokocho
**Day 3 (Tuesday 7th)**
**PLANNED:**
Morning – ~~Studio Ghibli Museum~~ *\[unfortunately shut the entire duration of our stay!\]*
Afternoon – Train to Takayama (4 hours 30 mins)
Evening – Walk around town
**ACTUAL:**
Morning – Akihabara *\[so glad we dedicated more time here and came in the morning. My partner is really into electronics so it was fun seeing all the little stores they have full of components\]*
Afternoon – 2pm Train to Takayama. The train stops in Nagoya for a few hours so we just explored the train station and had dinner *\[definitely took longer than 4 hours 30 mins to get here\]*
Evening – 9pm Got to the hotel and just slept.
**Day 4 (Wednesday 8th)**
**PLANNED:**
Morning – Historic high street (Sanmachi-suji District). ~~Yoshijima Heritage House, Kusakabe Folk Crafts Museum~~
Afternoon – ~~Sakurayama Hachimangu Shrine~~, Higashiyama Walkway, ~~Takayama Festival Floats Exhibition Hall~~
**ACTUAL:**
Morning – Walked to the edge of town, hiked up a beautiful graveyard, visited a few temples
Afternoon – Town museum, ate snack food & found café in the historic high street (Sanmachi-suji District)
Evening – I chilled in the onsen at our hotel whilst my partner went on a walk
**Day 5 (Thursday 9th)**
**PLANNED:**
Morning – Bus to ~~Shirakawa-go~~ walk around town for 2 hours
Early Afternoon – train to Gero
Evening – Dinner & Onsen
**ACTUAL:**
Morning – walked the Higashiyama Walkway *\[this was my favourite day of our whole trip. I absolutely loved Takayama, and I think the onsen revitilised me enough that i could manage all the steps to visit every shrine on this walkway. I would have liked to go to Shirakawa-go but we feared it would be very touristy, and we loved the vibes of Takyama so much, it was more fun walking around than sitting on a bus for hours\].*
Afternoon – train to Gero
Evening – Dinner & Onsens *\[our ryokan this evening was absolutely incredible, we spent so much time exploring it that we didn’t even leave to see the town of Gero. I’d like to go back one day\]*
**Day 6 (Friday 10th)**
**PLANNED:**
Morning – ~~Explore Gero~~
Afternoon – Train to Kyoto
Evening – Gion Shirakawa, Hanamikoji Street, Visit Pontocho
**ACTUAL:**
Morning – squeezed in another onsen visit after breakfast before returning to the train station in town. Our hotel dropped us off at 10:30am however there were no trains until 12:22. It was pouring with rain and the lockers were full already so we just sat at the station and waited.
Afternoon – Train to Kyoto
Evening – walked around by the hotel & got dinner
**Day 7 (Saturday 11th)**
**PLANNED:**
Morning – Higashiyama, Matsubara Dori St, ~~Hokan Ji Temple, Yasaka Pagoda~~
Late Afternoon/evening – Kiyomizu-deru
Evening – Dinner in ~~Nishiki Market~~
**ACTUAL:**
All day – train to Nara, walked down the high street, pet deer, visited Tōdai-ji temple, had Starbucks by the pond
Evening – Walked through the Nishiki Market at 9pm but it was all closed. All the restaurants we walked past were closed, but thankfully we found a Pizza Hut that saved us as I was starving. *\[If you want to go to Nishiki Market, go in the morning, not at night…\]*
**Day 8 (Sunday 12th)**
**PLANNED:**
Morning – ~~Golden Temple~~
Afternoon – ~~Fushimi Inari (Tori gates)~~
Evening – ~~Eikando Zenrinji Temple (3000 maples trees, lights up at night).~~
**ACTUAL:**
Morning – Kiyomizu-deru, walked through the streets of Higashiyama *\[I have never seen anywhere so busy in my life, it ruined the experience for us because you could barely walk let alone eat at any of the shops. Note that it was a Sunday so I imagine the weekends are twice as busy as a weekday\].*
Afternoon – Walked through another temple that had lots of food stalls. Then walked Gion’s main street, and then Gion corner and Pontchoco *\[It was not dark yet so the streets were dead quiet here which was a nice change, but didn’t really have much atmosphere either\]*
Evening – Walked around some more & got dinner
**Day 9 (Monday 13th)**
**PLANNED:**
Morning – Arashiyama, ~~Tenryuji Temple~~
Afternoon – walk down main street to do shopping/lunch, view the bridge, then go to the Monkey Park Iwatayama
**ACTUAL:**
Morning – train to Arashiyama, walked through the short bamboo forest, then the nice park that follows
Afternoon – walk down main street, view the bridge, then go to the Monkey Park Iwatayama *\[we loved walking through the park, admiring the view of the water with lunch, and visiting the monkeys! Its a bit of a hike but definitely worth it. If you are coming exclusively for the bamboo forest then it is not worth the trip\].*
Evening – Shabu Shabu for dinner back in Kyoto city
**Day 10 (Tuesday 14th)**
**PLANNED:**
Morning – Nara, pet deer, visit Tōdai-ji temple
Late Afternoon/Evening – train to Hiroshima
**ACTUAL:**
Morning – train to Hiroshima
Afternoon – shopping, visited arcades and cafes
Evening – Okonomiyaki for dinner! *\[we did visit the okonomiyaki tower block but everywhere was full and we found it awkward waiting in such a tight space so we went across the street instead to another restaurant serving the same thing\].*
**Day 11 (Wednesday 15th)**
**PLANNED:**
Morning – Hiroshima museum
Afternoon – ~~Miyajina island (visit the Itsukushima Shrine and its “floating” tori gate, and see cluster of smaller temples and shrines like Daisho-in Temple and Daiganji Temple.~~
Evening – Okonomiyaki for dinner
**ACTUAL:**
Morning – Hiroshima museum
Afternoon – more shopping, more arcades and more cafes!
Evening – Okonomiyaki for dinner again!
**Day 12 (Thursday 16th)**
**PLANNED:**
Morning – leave Hiroshima to visit ~~Himeji castle~~
Afternoon – leave ~~Himeji~~ to travel to Tokyo
**ACTUAL:**
Morning – visited a cafe *\[by this point we found it more enjoyable to just relax where we were, rather than dealing with the stress of getting to Himeji castle and where to put our bags\].*
Afternoon/evening – train back to Tokyo. Bought super noodles for dinner and went to bed. *\[Probably an uninspiring end to a trip for most people but we never got a chance to try Japanese super noodles and we wanted to before we left!\]*
**Final thoughts & Tips:**
1. Using the trains took much longer than I expected. I didn’t plan any train times so we just rocked up to the train station, got lost most of the time and finally found the train we needed and then would sit at the platform for a while, especially if we had just missed that train. Obviously to avoid this, plan ahead for the train times.
2. We changed hotels a lot and we had two suitcases (15kg each) that we had to lug around with us often which honestly was a lot of effort, especially around the train stations with all their steps or trying to find where the lifts/escalators are. I’d recommend forwarding your luggage on, though we did not do this so can’t comment on it other than I would do that next time, or if not visiting a lot of cities I would rent a car.
3. We didn’t plan what restaurants to go to and I found most of the food we ate was average. So I would recommend planning where you want to eat too. Also restaurants, especially outside of Tokyo seem to shut by 7pm so bear this in mind too!
4. It took me two days to get over my jet lag so you may want to account for that too.
5. There are so many stairs… Get practising now! I thought I was of average fitness but by the end of day 1 my legs were shaking. I didn’t get used to it until I was able to recover in the onsen on day 4.
by Picklewithaplan