Hello! This is my first time posting on this subreddit. I am currently planning an 11-12 day vacation to Japan with my BF.
My bf and I both agreed that we would spend 3-4 days in Osaka and Tokyo with both of us choosing a city we each want to see as well. That way we both get to do something we really want and we both already agreed that we wanted to see Osaka and Tokyo together. I was looking at the Shinkansen Route Map and I was really interested in doing a day trip with him to a city connected to either the Tohoku or Joetsu Shinkansen.
I wanted to hear which cities we could feasibly make a day trip to that
- Is slightly English friendly. We are learning key words and phrases in Japanese but we could not hold a conversation in Japanese. Mostly due to time restraints for practicing to learn a new language.
- Is a great place to visit in November specifically since we are trying to do a late Fall/Early Winter trip
- HUGE bonus points if there are places in the city where they let you create something related to Japanese folk lore. I saw a friend on Discord posted a photo of a painting of 3 monkeys that they got to create on a trip to Otsu and it looked beautiful. They said the staff there gave them the stencils for making the art and it sounded similar to a ukiyo-e.
- My biggest concern is trying to avoid needing to stay a hotel at the city we make the day trip to (if possible), so I would prefer to not visit a city where we couldn't get back to Tokyo before 10pm. If this isn't possible, then I would like to know just so then we both can plan to do the city last and then take an early morning train back to Tokyo for the flight back home.
by Super-Excitement6458