Benefitted from reading trip reports here so paying it forward 🙂
**About us:** British couple in our thirties and my parents, who both have limited mobility. My wife speaks Japanese, while for my parents it was their first time in Japan.
**Our trip:**
* Two weeks in early April.
* Flew into Fukuoka, landing pretty late in the evening. This was fine albeit the airport is a building site at the moment.
* For the most part we stayed in western-style chain hotels, so I won’t comment on the hotel unless there is something unusual about it.
* Unless otherwise stated, we travelled on the train by the fastest route (Shinkansen or LEX). I calculated our train costs before the holiday and the full JR pass did **not** save us money. We used a 7 day JR Kyushu pass, 1 day Kintetsu Rail Pass and 3 day Hakone FreePass. For the rest of the travel we bought single tickets or used IC cards.
* **Aso:** I was worried about the plan for the first full day as it seemed rather ambitious. We got the train to Kumamoto, hired a car from Toyota Rent a Car (there are two branches by the station and inevitably I managed to take us to the wrong one first), and drove up to Aso. The effort was worth it – I have never seen a landscape like it. Nakadake crater is still closed though. After driving around some viewpoints, we returned the car in Kumamoto and got back on the train to finish the day in a Kagoshima hotel. In the event, the day went swimmingly, but I was glad to not try and add any Kumamoto activities to the mix.
* **Kagoshima (two nights):** Sengan-en was the best garden of the trip – if you want to know the meaning of “borrowed scenery” this is the place. We did the tourist bus on Sakurajima, but I wished we’d had a car that day too – somehow didn’t feel we saw much more from the bus than we did from the ferry port!
* **Nagasaki (three nights)**: we had the best food of the trip in Nagasaki – the shabu-shabu in DOT.lamb was a consensus favourite, as well as Katsushika. Glover Garden has an electric-assist wheelchair rental which was essential for my parents to be able to access and enjoy it – we entered via the top entrance which I think is probably preferable since you get the view over the harbour as you walk downwards.
We visited both the Atomic Bomb Museum (wheelchairs available), but also the small and challenging private Nagasaki Human Rights and Peace Museum (no wheelchair, no lift). It is difficult to know whether to recommend the latter, which unflinchingly addresses unpleasant episodes in Japan’s history. There is relatively little English information. We found both museums deeply moving and thought-provoking.
The Nagaski Ropeway is a must-do on a clear night.
* **Kyoto (three nights):** Hotel Anteroom was certainly our most fashionable hotel – it has an art exhibition space and the building itself is characterful – definitely recommended.
Stopped off at Okayama for Korakuen – certianly worthwhile for us due to amazing cherry-blossom.
We did an unsurprising itinerary for Kyoto: Nara, Kinkakuji, Ryoan-ji, Fushimi Inari, Tofukuji, about which I have few novel things to add. For Nara, getting the private Kintetsu railway day pass including Nara Kotsu bus was a good move which reduced the level of walking required compared to the JR option. Of the temples, I think we liked Tofukuji the best – deeply creative gardens.
* **Hakone (two nights):** this was a bit of a chillout stop in an onsen hotel – Hakone Yutowa. We did a bit of self-catering here – worth considering if you don’t think you’ll get value from the hotel restaurant as the other restaurant options are limited (although we did also go to Gyoza Center which was excellent).
Hakone is a very developed resort – but this is what we wanted since it meant good accessibility for my parents. Have to say the standard of the art museums here exceeded my expectations, particularly liked the Narukawa museum which has a view of Fuji.
We took the RomanceCar into Tokyo, which is worth the additional limited express fare.
* **Tokyo (two nights)**: My wife has been to Tokyo many times and so we didn’t do a typical tourist itinerary. To be honest, I think you could spend two weeks in Tokyo and still be finding new things to do – my advice is don’t worry too much about missing out on “the best stuff”, there are so many great things. We did the Jiyu Gakuen Myonichikan school designed by Frank Lloyd Wright; the new viewing floor in the Sunshine City tower, which seemed to be designed to be more child-friendly than other viewpoints; single act Kabuki at Kabuki-za (lift available); Korakuen, which is surreally overshadowed by the Tokyo Dome; the National Art Centre (wheelchairs available); the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum (no lift); looked at the Shibuya crossing; and walked by the Meguro River.
* Flew home from Haneda – <3 monorail.
**Overall thoughts about accessibility:** My parents managed well throughout. They can walk short distances, but stairs are an issue. There are lifts, escalators or ramps in every station we went to, and most public transport was level-boarding or low-floor enough except some of the trams we ran into on Kyushu. Members of the public always gave up seats for my parents without being asked (getting lots of thank yous from us of course!).
I wish I’d had the foresight to rent a wheelchair for Tokyo. The hotel wasn’t able to obtain one for us at short notice, and my parents did struggle with the degree of walking required to get around Tokyo, even by public transport.
We used taxis liberally, just hailing them on the street rather than using an app. I can’t recall any occasions where we waited more an a couple of minutes.
Using TA-Q-BIN also helped on this front.
**Final thoughts:** This was an amazing, amazing holiday – I don’t think there is much I would have changed.
by Five_Tetrahedra