Hello all! I’m planning to go to Japan next year around the last week on March/first week of April with my gf and have come up with an itinerary for our trip.
Our interests are architecture, art, design and overall sightseeing. I’ve tried not to cram too many things each day and we plan to just go around the areas I listed below, walking between spots when possible.
30/03 – Arrival in Tokyo in the early hours of the morning, hotel and then: Shinjuku, Shinjuku Gyoen, Meiji Shrine, Shibuya
31/03 – Tokyo: Ueno Park, Nakamise Dori, Senso-ji, Imperial Palace
01/04 – Day Trip: Lake Kawaguchi, Maple corridor, sightseeing.
02/04 – Day Trip: Kamakura with Enoden Line. Various temples. Biking around?
03/04 – Early Shinkansen to Kyoto: Katsura Villa, sightseeing.
04/04 – Kyoto: sightseeing.
05/04 – Nara: Temples, Shrines and Gates. Biking around has been recommended as a way to visit a few shrines.
06/04 – Kanazawa or Miyajima, still have to decide on this one! Thoughts welcome
07/04 – Morning, Osaka: quick trip to see Tadao Ando’s Church of Light. Afternoon back to Tokyo, Ghibli Museum.
08/04 – Flight back
So this is it as it stands, I’m looking into the JR pass, but it doesn’t look like it offers me much aside from covering the Shinkansen fares.
Thoughts/recommendations are welcome, we are really looking forward to it!
Thank you
6 comments
Biggest note from me is skip Kanazawa or Miyajima…too much travel for one day. Add a full day in Osaka instead or another day in Kyoto.
Hotel room access normally is from 3pm, you can do the formalities earlier and leave you luggage, but make sure to get some sleep on the flight.
Shinjuku is a little vague, but shinjuku gyoen is nice, and after Meiji shrine perhaps head left for Takeshita street while your in the neighbourhood.
After that you can either head back for a bit of Yoyogi Gyoen or just take a right on Meiji dori which takes you down to Shibuya.
For the next day, between *Ueno* and *Senso-ji+. Or perhaps easier to find if you look between stations **Inaricho** and **Tawaramachi** on the *Ginza line*, *Shimbori dori* becomes **Kappabashi dogugai dori** north of the street that the subway line is built under.
**Kappabashi dogugai dori** is the area where most kitchenware resellers are situated in Tokyo. I highly recommend to by souvenir there if kitchen items are your thing, but do look around it’s a huge area.
Enjoy your trip! Safe travels!
Edit: formatting
Well, JR Pass cover fare of all JR trains, so you could go to Kamakura for free on a local train, take the Yamanote in Tokyo, take the shinkansen to Kyoto, the limited express train from Kyoto to Kanazawa, Monorail to Haneda or Narita Express to Narita. Actually it’s more a question of for how much you you take the train to see if it’s worth getting. And yes, there is subway and other private railways that are not covered by the pass that could be more convenient to use.
Note that if you are to go to Kanazawa, it would make more sense as a stop on the way between Kyoto and Tokyo instead of a day trip.
Just for your trip, Tokyo-Kyoto is 14 000 yen, Kyoto-Hiroshima is 11 000. Total is 50 000 yen, so much more expensive than the 7 days pass.
Kyoto-Kanazawa is 7000 and Kanazawa-Tokyo 14 000, so total would be 35 000. The 7 days pass is 33 610 if you buy direct from JR or 29 650 if you buy from a re-seller (travel agent), so in both cases, you would save money, so it can make sense to get it.
The only real downside for you is that you would not have access to the Nozomi that is the fastest shinkansen, so it’s up to you if you want to save a bit of time with a faster train or save a bit (or a lot depending on the itinerary) of money.
Anything that is outside of the 7 days you would have to pay out of pocket, same goes for any non-jr trains you want to use, but just use whatever you want, it’s still cheaper than not using the pass.
This looks like a nice trip!
You said you like architecture, do you know about the Edo-Tokyo open air architectural museum? I havn’t actually been there but it looks really nice from photos and I want to go there.
Also, I don’t know where you are flying from but when I fly from Europe and land in the morning I’m usually pretty jetlagged. Just something to think about so you don’t miss out on stuff because you’re too tired.
Edit: Have you looked at tickets for the Ghibli museum. To my knowledge they are reservations only and quite difficult to get just so you know. The museum is also a bit outside central Tokyo so make sure you have enough time if you start from Osaka.
Ghibli Museum, don’t plan on doing this until you have your tickets as others mentioned.
Miyajima’s floating tori gate is under renovations.
Also cut out going to Miyajima or Kanazawa from your trip entirely. You are barely staying long enough to barely visit two regions, don’t add a third. It’ll stress you out and reduce the time you spend actually enjoying Japan. Also, you have Nara and Kobe right next door to you anyway that you didn’t even mention, assuming you run out of things you want to do in Osaka/Kyoto.
I recommend visiting Lake Kawaguchi by car.
Where are you flying from? I did 11+ hours in the air before landing at 4pm the first time and 7pm the second time, and my only activities on my first day were getting to my hotel, eating something so my blood sugar wasn’t 0, and going the heck to sleep. Your first day is probably a wash.