I’m going to Japan for the first time in over a decade, with my wife who’s never been in the country at all. I was a foreign exchange student in Osaka for a year, so I’m most familiar with places there, and I have some old friends I want to see. I have some specific questions for areas in the itinerary I know need improvement, but **any and all suggestions are welcome!**
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**What we have so far:**
**11/8** – Arrive in Narita Airport around 5 PM, take the Ueno Skyliner to our hotel, probably not have much energy for more than grabbing dinner before crashing
**11/9** – Visit Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and Tokyo Nature & Science Museum since they’re right next to Ueno station, and then check out Akihabara
**11/10** – Pick up our reserved 7-day JR Pass as early in the day as possible, take Shinkansen to Osaka, explore Umeda, Namba/Denden town, meet old friends for dinner at 4:30 PM
**11/11** – Osaka Castle, Osaka Museum of History since it’s across the street, meet another friend for drinks that evening
**11/12** – Shinkansen to Kyoto, visit temples along the north side (Ryoanji, Kinkakuji), Shinkansen back to Osaka
**11/13** – Show my wife around various familiar places in Osaka, meet last set of old friends at about 4 PM
**11/14** – Head to USJ as soon as it opens! Spend a long time there, and then see Osaka Aquarium afterward
**11/15** – Largely undecided, other than the fact that we take the Shinkansen back to Tokyo on this day. We can spend extra time in Osaka and head to Tokyo later, or head back to Tokyo early, and I’m not sure which to go for.
**11/16** – Explore nerd hubs: Shinjuku/Nakano, Ikebukuro
**11/17** – Yet more free time until we need to leave to catch our 6:30 PM flight out of Narita
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**Questions:**
For 11/12, Are there any recommended routes for getting the most out of Kyoto in a single day? I know that a day isn’t enough to appreciate it in full, and we’ll definitely be coming back in the future, I’m just wondering if anyone has thoughts/experience over how to use that time efficiently. It’s hard to predict how much time exploring two or three temples will take, and whether we need to make more specific/elaborate plans than that.
While some days (e.g. 11/10) are pretty booked, others are quite open, and I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to make a bunch of specific plans and have a strict hour-by-hour schedule, and I often hear stories that people’s favorite days in Japan are ones where they just went exploring instead of going to planned/scheduled events, but what’s the strategy to that? How do you pick where to explore?
6 comments
While in shinjuku get a maid salon head massage.
Best $20 I spent, for a 45 min scalp massage with shampoo.
If you’re just visiting Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, most JR pass calculators will show that it doesn’t pay off
Narita Express round trip discount ticket is cheaper than Skyliner and you can use it as withing 14 days.
You can exchange JR Pass earlier an have it starting the day of your choice, the earliest you can change it is when the specific office open, so just do it the 9 at Ueno station.
You lived in Osaka for a year and you think that the shinkansen is the best way to reach Kyoto? Most of the time, people are not moving from Shin-Osaka station to Kyoto station and using te shinkansen often involve a more complicated itinerary and not even much (if any) time saving. Just search for most efficient itinerary from you real start point to real end point.
The advice I would give about Kyoto is to pick an area an focus on that specific area. I see too many people say they want to do things like Arashiyama, Fushimi Inari-taisha and Ginkaku-ji in a day, while they are in quite opposite area. If you are looking at the Kinkaku-ji and Ryoan-ji area, there is obviously other temple/shrines in the area like Kitano Tenaman-gu or it would not be terribly difficult to stop by Nijo castle, just need to plan the proper order for the bus to make sense from one place to the other. In general, just be flexible on what you plan and focus on things that are close to each other instead of trying to hit all the top location in Kyoto.
My personal strategy, especially in big cities, is to pick an area an list possible interesting places, like museum, temple, shrine, park, shops, whatever. I can have 10 items in a day. How do I manage it ? I just re-evaluate my list during the day, see how I feel, how much time I have, what are my priority. I know I will likely not do everything in the list and I just give myself the time to enjoy the moment, it there is a street that look cool, just go and check it out. There is days when I did nothing of my plan and that is also fine.
I think that several people over plan and are too stuck on the idea they have to do everything and they end up burning themselves running from one place to the other.
about your day in kyoto… what are your interests? as many big name tickets? food? touristy stuff? shrines/temples? gardens? bang for your buck?
For effective use of time in Kyoto get a taxi instead of the buses if where you are going to next is not in walking distance. If you can take a subway to next destination that is ideal. You may also need to walk to a main street at some busy areas like Kiomizudera. As the streets around the temple are incredibly narrow and busy. You can be stuck in traffic for quite a while. There is a lot to see on the eastern side so you can probably start off in the early in the morning at Fushimi Inari, then take a train up to the Gion area, check out Kiomizu and then head to Nishiki market, walk to the end of that then take a taxi to Arashiyama area.
I haven’t done all of that in a single day but I think i could be possible. I was just at Nishiki Market and Gion yesterday doing some shopping and that really only took 3-4 hours.
> I often hear stories that people’s favorite days in Japan are ones where they just went exploring instead of going to planned/scheduled events, but what’s the strategy to that? How do you pick where to explore?
There are a couple ways I go about this. I’ll choose a starting point either my house, some large station, or some random station. Then i’ll just pick a general direction and start walking. I’ll stop into any interesting stores I come across or If i see a alley or some interesting side street i’ll just go down. There is no real end destination and I’ll just keep walking until I feel tired or bored i’ll then look for the nearest station and find my way back.
I’m not sure it’s realistic to do both USJ and Osaka Aquarium on the same day. I think I spent a solid 4 hours or so when I visited the aquarium. That, in combination with USJ, would make for a really long day.