April 2023 Itinerary Check

So for the last few years my wife and I have had a trip planned for Japan. First was October 2020 which obviously was canceled so we moved it to October 2021 where it was again canceled. We moved it to October 2023, but earlier this year decided to move it to next year with hopes that Japan seems to be opening up more and more. We don’t wish to go as a group so we’re holding out for a hope of a full reopening. Now with Japan starting to open we are hoping for April 2023.

We compiled various lists of things we wanted to do for this trip and made what I believe to be a fairly packed list, but with waking up early each day and being fairly quick moving people we hope it will work out, but I figured I’d throw out initial thoughts, concerns, and see what those who have been thought.

Now I know how “long” something can take is always super personal with some people being the type to just sit around and others moving through rather quickly. For example on our honeymoon we went to Paris and did the Louvre expecting to be there all day from guidelines, but we still had a good amount of time left to explore Paris after we finished. I say this mostly to cover what I suspect a lot of things will be later on. A “dedicated to this and then fit in these other things in evening or morning before”.

So… with that prelude out the way, let’s see what we can do.

April 1st is entirely a travel day due to timezones. We leave at 6am our time, but due to travel time mixed with timezones we won’t arrive until 2PM on Sunday April 2nd. We are heading to Haneda Airport, which in hindsight to what I realized later on was probably not the best idea, but we got a good deal on the flight and not going to change all that.

So we land in Tokyo at Haneda Airport on the 2nd. Originally we’d planned to do Tokyo first, but I read that for those likely to buy a lot its better to save Tokyo so easier to move around. Plus since we are flying out of Tokyo I realized it’d be a bit weird to do half Tokyo->Kyoto->Tokyo because of the constant moving around. I also realized if I view the second as a “travel” day, I don’t feel like we’re “wasting” travel time going to Kyoto on the train thus cutting out the days we miss out.

Sunday April 2nd, arrive at 2pm Haneda Airport, Train to Kyoto (2.5hrs if google is accurate), check into our hotel for 4 or 5 nights, and use the short evening to see somethings in Kyoto. I’ve heard the Bamboo forest looks beautiful at night so figured maybe see that at night and in the morning when less people to get both views.

Monday April 3rd, the first full day in Kyoto. With this my wife has (so far) listed Fushimi Inari Shrine, Gion Geisha District, Southern Higahiyama, and the Bamboo Forest as her things to see. I figure in the morning we see one of the forest/shrine (again, hearing go early for less crowds and better pictures, but also see at night for beautiful views), then the day is pretty open. We could go see Gion which seems to be in or near Souther Higashiyama crossing those two things off her list. And depending on how long that takes maybe fit in other things in Koyto? Then we have the evening for the Inari Shrine. I heard climbing up before its dark and watching sun set so climb down with the night is really cool so try that. And then we have from sundown to whenever we head to the hotel for any other miscellaneous stuff.

Tuesday, April 4th. In the early morning we go check out the Bamboo Forest/Shrine (whichever we didn’t do on the morning of the third) in order to get that early morning, low crowds, view. Then we planned to head to Kobe. Now, I know a lot of people will say there isn’t a lot in Kobe, but this is more a personal thing for us. We’re fans of the Fate series. She loved the animes, she even streamed some of the original visual novel, so on and so forth. With that in mind we’d seen various people show pictures of places from the anime and thought it would be cool to go around and see a lot of these. Plus its an excuse for Kobe beef! Normally, just going to Kobe for that might be a waste, but if we have a personal reason then its two bonuses. As such, we figured we’d walk around Kobe, see a handful of sights (I’ve made lists, locations, etc), and then when we feel we’ve seen a bunch and are happy we can head back to Kyoto and have the late afternoon/evening to fit in more Kyoto. Or if we find way more in Kobe than we planned, well more time in Kobe before heading home for the night. I suspect the former though.

Wednesday April 5th. This one is mostly for the wife, albeit I gave a few suggestions. We were thinking of hitting Nara and Osaka on this day. My wife saw a lot of pictures and heard from her friend who went about Nara Deer Park and wanted to check that out. I noted Osaka’s castle could be interesting as well. So we decided a split day with part of it in Nara and part in Osaka. I don’t know if we’d have a lot of time upon returning to our hotel base in Kyoto but if we do, evening Kyoto for stuff.

April 6th, Thursday: This one is pretty much going to be a full day if I’m understanding due to travel time and a lot to see mixed with a night time show. Thursday we travel to Nijigen no Mori on Awaji Island. The anime theme park looked cool as did the Godzilla museum which seems really fun. I saw that it wasn’t too far a trip from Kyoto and so we decided to travel to it. I also saw they had a night time show that seemed really cool, but I’m not sure if that would make it difficult to get back to Kyoto if it is too late? Either way, this day would most likely be pretty full unless there was some small stuff done in Kyoto before traveling to Awajii Island. And honestly, if we did have extra time I’d think checking out Awajii Island might be cooler than more time in Kyoto. Maybe I’m wrong?

**April 7th Friday: Alright here is where things get the most chaotic. Because we have two different options and I wanted to hear thoughts on what people think or if there is a way to make both work.**

Version 1: We check-out Kyoto Hotel in the morning and have a very open free day. This is a day that let’s us decide what we want to do on the spot. If we felt we wanted more time in Kyoto, then we spend the day in Kyoto before booking the train back to Tokyo in the late afternoon/early evening and checking into the Tokyo hotel for 6 nights. If we felt we were good in Kyoto then we head to Tokyo in the morning and get an extra Tokyo day. This was the original plan we had. I like having a day to account for “things we didn’t think of” or “unexpected changes”. For example, when we went to Paris my wife LOVES ancient Egyptian stuff, but that exhibit was closed for cleaning the day we planned it. Luckily, we had an adjustable day and we went back to the Louvre so she could see that. I usually like to have a day where I go “If something goes wrong, we can do it this day”.

Version 2: My wife liked the idea of a ryokan and an onsen. However, she’d prefer a private onsen, both because of privacy and also because she has a tattoo along the back of her neck. I know there are ryokan’s with rentable onsens as well as some with some in their room, however the question was making it work. From my own searching, I see Kyoto has Arashiyama Benkei, but it seems fairly expensive. Not unaffordable, but my wife was like “or we could move that money toward other experiences in Japan”. However, going to a far more dedicated hot spring town like Kawaguchiko usually has way more options and lots of different prices. For example even Konansou’s most expensive rooms tended to be a nice price and had a view of either the lake or mount fuji. So we debated using our free day to instead head to Kawaguchiko, spend a day at a Ryokan with an onsen, and then head to Tokyo the following morning. But looking at travel time from Koyto to Kawaguchiko seemed really weird as it wants to spend us back to Tokyo and then to Kawaguchiko. Searching around this reddit it seems there is a better path of Kyoto to Mishima. Mishima to Kawaguchiko, but it also mentioned very limited travel so not sure if it would work timewise? If we’re spending 5+ hours of the day just moving around trying to get to a spot it almost feels wasted. Luckily getting from Kawaguchiko to Tokyo seems…mostly straight forward. Although google lists the same travel time from Kawaguchiko to Tokyo as Kyoto to Tokyo which felt really weird. But I guess faster/slower trains?

*With this said, does anyone know a good way that one could get a ryokan-onsen experience with some privacy and that allows small nape tattoos (a fox if it matters) that doesn’t break the bank for two. (For comparison, I see 45000yen to 67000yen per person at Arashiyama Benkei vs like 41800yen to 63800yen TOTAL at Konansou. My wife was fine with the 60-70kyen total. Basically I’m guessing her threshold is $500 total, but not positive. I messaged asking her and will edit if she’s awake before I head out. While also not sending us WAY out of our way with our main two destinations for this trip being Kyoto and Tokyo, but willing to divert to places relatively close by (as evidence by Kobe, Nara, Awajii Island, Osaka). Hell, if there are good onsens and ryokan in those areas perhaps we’d stay in one of those towns for a night and reorganize things?*

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The next bit will have some slight variants based on version 1 or 2, but Tokyo is relatively compact and I don’t think anything here has an issue? I’m going to try and short form things with a date format of X/Y where X=w/o Ryokan and Y=w/ryokan

April 7th/8th has us check into Tokyo. Either way the 7th is probably full (either because we were at a Ryokan or because we were in Kyoto and headed to Tokyo just that evening).

April 8th/9th without Ryokan has us go to Shiroishi for something my wife REALLY wants to do. I’m going to avoid getting into that because I’m aware of the mixed stories surrounding the experience, if its worth it, if Japan should have it, blah blah blah. I’m not going to be able to talk my wife out of it. This has to be 8th or 9th and can’t be moved as weekends only. Shiroishi is a bit of a ways away so that’s going to be most the day just because of travel time. Albeit, if there are ryokan/onsen in this area its mostly a travel day (going to Shiroishi and back) rather than spending a lot of time there. So maybe if diverted could fit stuff there? If not, we return to Tokyo that evening and hit up small things depending on what time we get back.

For future note small things involve:
She wants to see Harajuku+Shibuya because she wants to see Scramble Junction, the Hachiko statue, and there’s a specific Pokemon Center she wants to see there. I forget which? I think that’s the Mewtwo one? I don’t remember. Odaiba City at sundown to see Rainbow Bridge light up, Gundam base, shops, etc. Anytime I say “small stuff” or “miscellaneous” it involves slipping these in during downtimes.

Sunday April 9th/Tuesday 11th: Shinjuku section of Japan+miscellanious. This is 9th or 11th mostly because the animation museum in Suginami is closed on Monday. Our plans for the Shinjuku/Suginami day are basically Nakano Broadway, Gyoen National Garden, Omoide Yokocho, Suginami Animation Museum.

April 10th-12th/10th, 12th: Akihabara/Ikebukuro/Miscellaneous/Freedays: These are 2-3 days dedicated to just the countless shops, restaurants, arcades, etc in Tokyo.

Fly out April 13th.

TL;DR cause damn that’s long…

Wife and I are traveling from 2nd-12th (April 1st and 13th are flight days) to Japan. We plan to hit up Tokyo and Kyoto as our main two “hubs” to be based out of while briefly touching areas like Nara, Osaka, Kobe, Awajii Island, and Shiroishi. We’re video game and anime nerds so there a handful of stuff slipped in that might seem “wasted” but important to us. After forming the first draft of an itinerary my wife mentioned possibly doing an onsen and ryokan. She has a tattoo. She would prefer privacy so either in room or rented (or options for both). Is there an easy way we can slip one in with a max price of about 85k JPY for a night for *both* of us (IE: total not per person) that is in our areas or at least not massively out the way. Or is that something we should pass on for this trip and maybe think about for future visits?

Also does one thing we’re horribly lacking in Kyoto time? I’m working with the limited time we have, but is it too much even still? In total we basically have a full day in Kyoto than a handful of “mornings before we go” and “evenings before we sleep”.