I always enjoy reading trip reports so I thought I would go ahead and share a report on my Golden Week trip with my parents.
Warning, long post!
This trip was from May 2nd to 15th. Some background, I (late 20's) am a foreign resident living in Hokkaido. I have also lived in Tokyo before so I am pretty comfortable with navigating the city and transit system, and speak intermediate Japanese. I have briefly visited Kyoto and Osaka but this was my first time in Hiroshima. This was my parents' (both 60) first time in Japan, and as it was probably one of few trips they will make to Japan, we decided to try and hit a lot of major sites for the first half before spending time in Hokkaido.
Obviously Golden Week isn't the most ideal time to travel in Japan, but as a resident, this was the best time I could travel without having to take too much time off work. My parents like travelling, but this was their first time in Asia and anywhere where English isn't widely spoken. They enjoyed their time here, but I am pretty sure if I weren't living here, it wouldn't have been a destination they would have travelled to on their own. I planned most of the trip myself. Parents weren’t too interested in pop-culture (anime, music, etc) so I was able to save time by cutting out a lot of the more touristy anime spots. They were pretty down for anything else, and Dad knew he wanted to see a baseball game and visit Hiroshima, so we made sure to make those two happen.
May 2nd-Arrival in Tokyo
(Hotel Sotetsu Fresa Inn Tokyo Tamachi-Two double bed rooms)
Parents flew from Vancouver to Narita and landed shortly before 3:00pm. I flew JetStar from Hokkaido and was set to land shortly after 3:00. I figured I would have time to get my bag and get from terminal 3 to 1 to meet them before they got through customs and baggage. However, my flight was a bit delayed and landed closer to 3:30. Not a big deal, but surprisingly my parents got through customs and baggage and were waiting for me before I even got my bag. We took the train directly to Mita Station in Minato, which was only a 10 minute walk to our hotel. It was around 6:00 by the time we checked in and got settled, and the parents didn't sleep on the plane, so we decided on dinner at the hotel restaurant before grabbing some conbini snacks and heading to bed by 9:00.
May 3rd (Constitution Memorial Day)-Tokyo
Taking advantage of their jetlag, we were up and ready to go at 7:00 am, but first dropped off our suitcases to be shipped to our Kyoto hotel. We had each brought a mid-size suitcase and backpack, so we shipped our suitcases and kept two days worth of stuff in our backpacks. It was a bit of a pain to have to rearrange all the bags so soon after arriving, but I wanted to send the bags earlier, as I was worried about delays due to Golden Week. It was very easy to do at the hotel, and so worth it to not have to haul bags all over.
We grabbed a conbini breakfast before heading to Asakusa and Sensoji. There were a fair amount of people there at around 8:00, but not crowded yet. Almost all of the shops were still closed but my parents really enjoyed seeing their first temple. After grabbing a goshuin paper (I forgot my goshuincho at home, I was so cheesed) we took a walk to the Sumida river and had coffee with a beautiful view of the Skytree. After that, we made our way back through Sensoji, towards Kappabashi Street. It was after 10:00 so all of the shops in front of the temple were open and crowds were in full swing. My parents didn’t mind the crowds too much but they were really happy we arrived early and had the chance to see things with less people. Mom was on the lookout for kitchen knives, hence the stop in Kappabashi. There were only a few shops open due to the holiday, but it was fine.
We headed back to the Minato area for one of our few food reservations, the Harry Potter cafe. (Booked through the official site a few weeks in advance.) I really wanted to drag my parents to a silly themed cafe, but I knew anything like the Kirby or Pokemon cafe would be totally lost on them, so I compromised with the Harry Potter cafe. I’ve been to enough themed cafes to know that you pay a lot for the experience and atmosphere and the quality of the food is secondary. That said, the food here was my least favourite of all the themed cafes I have been to in Japan. The decorations and restaurant were cool, but unless you’re a diehard fan, I would skip this one.
After lunch, we headed to Tokyo Tower. We didn’t go up, but we took a look at the shops, saw the Children’s Day carp streamers, and stopped at the beer garden. We were leaving to go have a break at the hotel when we saw a sign for the Japantique Show and decided to stop in. (Free admission) It was cool but everything was way out of our budgets, by like, thousands of dollars. After that, we bussed back to our hotel for a rest. We stopped for dinner at a Yakiniku Like near the station, which is a great option for budget yakiniku in my opinion, before heading to Ginza to window shop and look at more things we couldn’t afford. I also had to point out the Kabukiza theatre to mom and dad, as I am a big Kabuki fan. We didn’t have time for a show this trip but I definitely recommend seeing even just a single act if it’s something you might be interested in. Headed back to the hotel and was in bed by 9:00.
May 4th (Greenery Day)-Tokyo
Another early morning, we took the train and arrived at Harajuku station around 8:00 a.m. We had breakfast at Sarutahiko Coffee, above the station. After that we wandered towards Meiji Jingu. It was already warming up (high of 29 this day) so it was nice being under all the trees. As we passed the entrance to the garden, they were just about ready to open, so we decided to wait and go in. It was too early for most of the flowers to bloom, but it was still a really nice spot. After the garden we made our way to the main shrine, followed by the Meiji Jingu Museum. They were having an exhibit on dresses of the Meiji era, particularly focused on Empress Shoken, so I thought it would be an interesting stop. There wasn’t much information in English, and the exhibit was pretty small, but seeing the dresses was cool.
I dragged mom and dad through Takeshita Street. It was very crowded, but my parents still got a kick out of seeing the stores and fashion, although they rolled their eyes everytime I offered to buy us matching platform shoes for some reason. After a stop in Uniqlo, we headed to Shinjuku for lunch. We stopped at a random izakaya near the station that I unfortunately forgot the name of. We snapped some pictures of Godzilla and the 3D cat billboard before heading to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. Happy surprise that it was free admission for Greenery Day. There were a lot of people there, but it is a large park, so it wasn’t too crowded. Like the Meiji garden, most of the flowers weren’t in bloom yet, but it was still really pretty and nice to just be able to rest under the trees in the shade for a while.
After the garden, we head back towards Shibuya. We wandered around the scramble and main streets for a bit. I had a ticket to enter a pop up store at 5:15, so mom and dad had to wait outside while I got my goods. I got out with enough time for us to get to the Shibuya Sky building in time for our 6:20 entry. I would have liked to have gotten 6:00 tickets to see more of the sunset, but I was just happy to have gotten any tickets during dusk. It was still an incredible view, and it was a clear day so we could see Fuji in the distance. Mom and Dad were a bit overwhelmed by crowds at this point, so we headed back to the hotel and had dinner at a soba chain near the station, opposed to trying to find something in Shibuya. Mom and Dad were in bed before 9:00.
This was definitely the most crowded day we experienced during the trip. My parents said that while they don’t feel the need to ever go back to Shibuya or Shinjuku, they were happy that they had had the experience of seeing them, and don’t regret going, even with the crowds. I had originally planned Shibuya, then Shinjuku in the evening so we weren’t doubling back, but the garden closes late afternoon and it worked out with the evening Shibuya Sky tickets.
May 5th (Children’s Day)- Tokyo/Kyoto
(Hotel Sotetsu Fresa Inn Kyoto Kiyomizu Gojo-Connecting Twin Rooms)
Checked out of the hotel early and made our way to Tokyo Station. We had breakfast at a cafe in the basement, before dropping our backpacks in a locker and taking a walk around the Imperial Palace grounds. After we got our bags back, we grabbed some ekibens for lunch and caught the 10:30 shinkansen to Kyoto.
Because of the holiday and wanting us to be sitting on the Fuji side, these were the only shinkansen tickets I booked in advance. I booked through the JR west site, just under a month before. I had no problem using my Canadian mastercard to pay, and at that time there were still lots of seats available. It all worked out too as we had amazing weather and got a beautiful view of Fuji.
After arriving in Kyoto, we picked up my parents JR Kansai-Hiroshima passes. I am not eligible for one as a foreign resident, but they were definitely worth it for my parents, and if I planned better, we could have gotten more value out of them.
After dropping our stuff off at our hotel, we went to Kinkaku-ji. The crowds weren’t as bad as I was expecting for mid afternoon during Golden Week and we thought the pavilion was very beautiful. After a vending machine ice cream we hopped on the bus to Arashiyama. The bamboo grove also was not nearly as crowded as I expected and we even had to empty spots to take pictures. Main street Arashiyama on the other hand, was very crowded, with a lot of tourists (foreign and local) having to walk on the road. We walked down to the Kimono Forest which was very cool and then headed out after that.
We planned on finding a restaurant in Kyoto Station for dinner, but as we were on the train back, we were delayed due to Kyoto Station being temporarily shut down to investigate a suspicious item. It turned out to just be a forgotten backpack but I think most trains were delayed about two hours. The delay sucked, but I guess it’s to be safe than sorry. (That’s probably easier to say as someone already in Kyoto vs one of the people who would have been stuck on an inbound shinkansen.)
After catching a replacement bus that was enroute to go near our hotel, we decided to bail on dinner at the station and find something closer to us. We ended up in a small and smokey but still tasty yakitori place before calling it a night.
May 6th (Substitute Holiday)- Kyoto
Waking up early again, we caught the train to Fushimi Inari. There was a small family restaurant on the main street leading up to the shrine that had just opened. (I think this was just after 8:00 am) We stopped there for breakfast before going up to the shrine. We got pretty far before Dad’s knees started bothering him. Fortunately on the hike down we passed a shrine dedicated to back and knee health, so Mom and I bought an omamori for him.
After that we headed to Kiyomizudera. I think this temple was my parents' favourite of all the shrines and temples we went to, minus the hills. We didn’t find the streets too crowded at this point but the hills and stairs did not help my parents' feet and knees. They did really enjoy walking through the temple when we got there, and we could have spent a lot more time here, but we had a lunch plans.
I booked us a 12:30 lunch reservation at Yakinikugyusho Shin. Normally I don’t bother too much with reservations when I travel but I was worried about the Golden Week crowds and I wanted to make sure we had at least one nice meal somewhere in Kyoto. I booked this through TableCheck. We all had different beef rice bowls and they were all delicious. The restaurant had a really cool traditional atmosphere too.
After that we wandered the area for a bit before heading to the Samurai Museum. I personally thought it was a bit overpriced for what it is, but our guide was funny and had a lot of information. We did enjoy the throwing stars experience at the end as well. We weren’t too keen on the optional samurai dress up experience so we opted out of that. We headed back to the hotel for a rest before heading out for dinner at a nearby burger place called Burger Eleven, which we were pretty happy with. Headed back to the hotel to pack and have an early night.
May 7th- Kyoto/Hiroshima
(Hotel The Knot Hiroshima-Triple Room)
We checked out of the hotel early in the morning after having our suitcases shipped to our Osaka hotel. Once again, really easy and worthwhile. After that we head to Nishiki Market for breakfast of tempura and seafood. We arrived as things were starting to open and not too crowded. After pursuing all the shops we bussed to Kyoto Station to head off to Hiroshima.
I had no idea how to use my parents' JR passes at the ticket machines, and since we would need both shinkansen tickets and limited express Haruka tickets to Shin-Osaka, I just decided to go straight to the ticket office and have them do it. They had English speaking staff, so it was really easy. We were able to get reserved seats together on the next train out.
We arrived in Hiroshima at our hotel around 2:00 pm. We went to drop off our backpacks, but the hotel actually let us check in early which was great. Then we toured around Hiroshima Castle and then Shukkeien Gardens. I feel like I could have spent hours in the garden, but Mom was dealing with some pretty intense blisters, so we walked around for a bit and fed the carps before heading back to the hotel. We had a drink at the hotel’s rooftop bar before dinner. The original plan was to walk to Okonomimura for dinner, but Mom’s feet weren’t up for it. We found a nearby restaurant called Hazaya, which was a great alternative. After dinner we grabbed some snacks and called it a night.
May 8th- Hiroshima/Osaka
(Hotel WBF Namba Motomachi-Two Double Rooms)
Up early again to visit the Peace Memorial Park and Museum. Ticket sales the day of started at 8:30 and we were first in line. It seems you can enter earlier with an e-ticket, which we could have bought on the spot, but we decided to wait the 10ish minutes till the counter opened. I won’t say much about the Museum other than it was very heavy, but incredibly well done. I highly recommend it. We beat a lot of the crowd, including most of the school tours that were arriving as we were leaving. After a small breakfast at the museum cafe we walked through the park and to the dome, then grabbed our bags from the hotel and headed to Osaka. Once again, did not want to fiddle around with the JR passes and ticket machines, so we went to the ticket office. We could have been on the next train out, but waited for the one after so we had time to grab lunch at the station.
We arrived in Osaka, checked in to the hotel, and headed to the Tempozan Wheel. The view was great, but the wind was quite strong, which scared my parents who are terrified of heights. This was in the afternoon but I imagine the night view would be amazing. After a little stroll around the area, we headed to Dotonburi for dinner. Mom and Dad weren’t too keen on takoyaki, which I was surprised by. They both decided they favoured Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. I’m more for Osaka-style but I won’t say no to either. Did a little bit of souvenir shopping before heading back to the hotel for the night.
May 9th-Osaka/Hokkaido
We set off early for Osaka Castle. Enjoyed walking around the grounds and the surrounding park. I took some of this subreddit’s advice and didn’t go inside the castle. We had gone inside the Hiroshima Castle, which is also pretty museum-like, so we weren’t upset to miss this one.
After enjoying the morning, we made our way back to the hotel to get our suitcases, then caught the bus from Namba OCAT station to KIX airport. We had time for lunch before checking in to our flight to Chitose. I don’t know about the international terminal, but the food options on the domestic side at KIX are pretty minimal. Had an easy flight to Chitose where I was reunited with my car and drove us to my house for the night.
May 10th- Sapporo
(Hotel Quintessa Hotel Susukino 63-One Queen Room and One Double)
From here out the trip was a much slower and relaxing pace. Had a lazy morning before making our way to Sapporo by car. Checked into our hotel and did a little shopping near Sapporo station. Attended a Fighters game that evening, which was a great time! ES Con Field is a beautiful brand new stadium and has a lot of great food options. I don’t follow baseball much but we still all really enjoyed the atmosphere. The Fighters won which I am sure helped a lot. I know they’re not one of the super popular teams in Japan, but if you’re a baseball fan with a free evening or afternoon in Hokkaido, I think the stadium alone is worth seeing a game here for.
May 11th- Jozankei
(Ryokan Hana Momiji-Comfort Japanese-style Room)
Checked out of our hotel just before 10 a.m.. We walked down to Shiawase-no-Pancake for a fluffy pancake breakfast, before driving an hour to Jozankei. We had a reservation at the Hana Momiji ryokan. My parents both have tattoos, but wanted to try an onsen. I looked at a few ryokan options in Jozankei before picking this one. Any room with a private onsen was out of our budget, but Hana Momiji has several private baths that guests can book, so this was the best option for us. We first arrived and parked at the ryokan before wandering around the town.
We came across a small temple that just so happened to have a small cave you could walk through that was full of Kannon statues. A bit strange but very cool. There were still carp streamers up so we enjoyed seeing them over the river. We had lunch at a small ramen shop, did a little more souvenir shopping, then headed back to the ryokan to check in. Mom and Dad enjoyed the private bath before dinner, and I used the public bath on the top floor after dinner. It was a little crowded for the shower stations but for a while I had the outdoor bath all to myself which was grand. The ryokan’s kaiseki dinner was amazing but we weren’t too hungry from lunch, and the food just kept coming. The sukiyaki was my favourite. After I visited the onsen we relaxed in our room for the rest of the night.
May 12th- Otaru (Mother’s Day)
We woke up and had the buffet breakfast at the ryokan. The buffet had a lot of options but was a bit underwhelming compared to the kaiseki dinner. We checked out at 10 a.m. and continued to Otaru. Since it was Mother’s Day, my siblings and I agreed I was to organise something nice for Mom. I decided to take us to a glass blowing workshop. This might seem random for Japan, but for some reason, Otaru is well known for glass blowing and music boxes. We had an 11 a.m. reservation at Studio J-45. The shop is more on the outskirts of the city, but it was a beautiful little store, and the staff were so friendly and helpful. There were only three staff members and one of them spoke English well enough to explain everything to my parents. My mom made a flower vase, my dad made a wind-chime, and I made a cup. It was a really fun and easy process and all of our pieces came out beautifully. I think the best way to access this place is by car, but if that's an option for you and you’re looking for a unique experience, I highly recommend this studio! One thing to keep in mind is that the pieces need to cook in the oven after, so you’ll either need to be able to pick them up another day, or have somewhere in Japan they can be shipped to (for a fee I believe). I could have shipped to my house but I wanted to make sure Mom and Dad had them before they left.
After that we headed into downtown Otaru to meet some of my friends. There was a cruise ship docked this day so it was a bit more crowded than usual. We stopped in at the music box museum and then we all went for lunch together and had some delicious gyukatsu. We strolled down the rest of main street to the canal. At this point it was late afternoon and starting to rain. Most things in Otaru close pretty early anyway so we said goodbye to my friends and drove back to my town for the night.
May 13th- Home
Didn’t do much today. I worked a half day to save some PTO. Dad wanted BBQ for lunch so we went to a yakiniku place in the next town over, and then met one of my friends at Hamasushi for dinner (our usual go-to spot).
May 14th- Sapporo
(Via Inn Prime Sapporo Odori-Triple Room)
Last full day in Japan for my parents. Worked another half day in the morning. Took a detour to Otaru on the way to Sapporo to collect our glassware. Arrived in Sapporo and checked into the hotel, then had tough time trying to find overnight parking. For our last dinner I booked a reservation in Kessel Hall at the Sapporo Beer Garden. (Booked online through their website.) Didn’t do all you can eat Ghenhis Khan (mutton), because as we were heading out my dad mentioned he doesn’t like lamb. 🤦So he had a seafood platter, mom had a sausage dish, and I ordered some lamb a la carte. Sure enough, he tried a piece of mine and made me order another plate of it. We enjoyed the beer and dessert as well, then went back to our hotel. The hotel had a public bath which I enjoyed that evening before heading to bed.
May 15th-Home
Woke up early to drive Mom and Dad to Shin-Chitose for their 10 a.m. flight to Narita. This would have given them plenty of time to get to their 4 p.m. flight to Vancouver, but just to be safe, AirCanada kindly delayed the flight till 8 p.m. so they could spend half a day in Narita.
Some closing thoughts:
Golden Week Crowds- I was really expecting the worst when it came to the crowds, especially in Kyoto, but I honestly didn’t find them to be that bad. Maybe I just got lucky but other than the day in Shinjuku and Shibuya, I never felt I was being “herded” anywhere. At Kinkakuji, we would maybe have to wait a minute to get a spot at the fence for pictures but it was never shoulder to shoulder like I was expecting. Kiyomizudera was really only crowded on the walk down, especially when cars were passing. We didn’t go to any viral restaurants, but we never had to wait more than 10ish minutes to be seated anywhere. It was probably more a case of right time, right place, but if you end up stuck with a Japan trip planned during Golden Week, I think as long as you’re patient and well planned, you can still have a really nice trip.
-Parents used Sakura mobile esims. It took us a couple tries to get the access point info input correctly but once we did, they had no problems.
-Didn’t want to deal with tracking down IC cards in Tokyo (we all have androids) so I brought two Kitaca cards from Hokkaido that they were able to use everywhere we went.
-Like I mentioned, I could have gotten more value out of the JR Kansai-Hiroshima pass had I planned better. Ex: I know you can use them on the express train from Osaka to KIX. Since our hotel was in Namba we weren’t anywhere convenient to catch it, and I was worried we would haul our luggage to Osaka station, only to not be able to find enough lockers to put our stuff in. It was just easier to leave our bags at the hotel, come back, then take the nearby limousine bus. If I did this again using these passes, I would have booked our hotel closer to Osaka station. That said, using the passes just to go from Kyoto to Hiroshima to Osaka already saved my parents about 5k yen each.
-Other than the ryokan, which I booked through their site, all our hotels were booked through Agoda.
-I mentioned Mom had blisters. She had gotten really good shoes, but it was her socks that caused all the problems with the toe seams rubbing the wrong way. Make sure if you’re investing in good shoes, you have some good socks to go with them.
-Overall I think it was a really good trip. It was tiring but fun to tour my parents around Japan. It looks like a lot very quickly, but we got through everything I had put on our itinerary, and didn’t feel rushed anywhere, other than our Kyoto lunch reservation. My parents enjoyed the peacefulness of Hiroshima the most, and we would have liked to see Miyajima if we had time, so should they come back, that is where they would probably visit again.
If you made it through this whole thing, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed or found this helpful!
by nahbestie