Trip Report – 14d Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Himeji, Okayama, Tokyo 3/29 – 4/12

This is a trip report for a 14-day trip from 3/29 – 4/12 for 4 people (2 married couples).

We flew from San Francisco to Haneda via United. Our original flight to Japan was supposed to be SF > Osaka but United canceled that flight and we booked one through to Haneda instead and took the shinkansen to Kyoto. We had an option to book a connecting flight from Haneda to Osaka, but decided to take the train since we were doing the JR pass anyway. However, the line at Haneda to get the JR pass was over an hour and so it was about a 5-hour “trip” from the plane landing in Haneda to our hotel in Kyoto. We were pretty exhausted by the time we got checked in.

**Tips (apologies if some of these are very obvious)**

* Get a JR Pass if you plan on taking two or more shinkansen trips. The JR pass includes rides on any JR rail line, which you will likely use if you’re traveling around.
* Get on of those Suica or ICOCA cards. Each city has the subway/metro and other rail lines. They don’t share day passes. For the most part, I don’t recommend the day pass on any metro, unless you’re bouncing through the city only using the metro. It’s much more convenient to have a card to fill up once in a while than getting tickets for each individual trip.
* Google Maps is surprisingly good at plotting trips via transit. In Kyoto, I recommend that you limit it to trains only unless you want to chance the buses. Buses going through the major parts of Kyoto (Shijo, Gion) were super crowded and just a bad time. For Osaka and Tokyo, there are multiple ways to get from one destination to another via different rail lines. Make sure you read through the transfer information carefully. Sometimes it’s super confusing which exit you take and whether you should stay on the platform. Sometimes Google will recommend that you “stay on the train” for the transfer. I found this information to be unreliable.
* Have someone in your group have access to good cellular data. There are public wifi networks available, but usually not when you need it.
* Be prepared to walk *a lot*. Bring your best walking shoes. I suffered a lot by walking in a pair of shoes I usually don’t wear for long walks. We averaged 20k steps per day. And keep in mind that some of the walking is slow walking, which is almost like museum walking. Can be super painful.
* This is said a lot in other posts – don’t be too ambitious! Unless you’re super fit and used to walking 10+ miles a day, you will get tired. Plan a break between lunch and dinner where you can sit and recuperate.
* I was really worried about crowds and waiting to get into restaurants before the trip, but that worry was mostly unnecessary, but with a few caveats. In Kyoto, you’ll want to plan very carefully. We were there during peak peak season (cherry blossoms + spring break for Japanese schools). Literally everyone was in Kyoto. All the popular spots were super crowded, so all the surrounding restaurants were also pretty packed. So in Kyoto, you need a plan (I’l include more details in the Kyoto section below). For all the other places we went, food was not a problem. In Osaka and Tokyo there are so many restaurants on every block in commercial areas that you don’t have to worry.
* Eat a good breakfast in case you don’t find a place for a proper lunch. Most days we just did some street snacks or prepared for a late lunch. There are a few breakfast option types. The easiest is getting something at conbini, which we did a few times. They have a variety of things like sandwiches, onigiri, instant miso soup/ramen, yakisoba, different kinds of bread, etc. There are 24-places like Yoshinoya, Matsuya, Sukiya which serve rice bowls or sets. Yoshinoya has more than just gyudon now. These are usually inexpensive and pretty decent. There also western-style cafes that will have coffee and eggs/brunch type dishes. Those have varied opening hours.
* Google Maps is pretty good for finding places. Yelp is pretty much non-existent in Japan. We found a lot of places by randomly looking at nearby places with 4.0+ stars.
* For nice restaurants, make a reservation! I used My Concierge (which does charge a 10% booking fee) and Table Check. If you speak Japanese or have a friend who does, they can call ahead. I made reservations at a couple of kaiseki places, a teppanyaki place in Kobe, and a Michelin-rated tempura restaurant. Doing so also allows you to tell them any dietary preferences, which is super helpful since we had 2 people in our group with very specific dietary preferences. You don’t want to communicate on the spot before your meal at the restaurant if you don’t speak Japanese.
* If you don’t speak Japanese or don’t look Asian (sorry, I’m not being racist, I’m just giving my experience), you might get turned away from smaller establishments like yakitori or izakaya places. My 3 travel companions aren’t Asian, but I am and I do speak a little Japanese. In Osaka, we found this tiny hole-in-the-wall kushiyaki place and in Okayama we found this place that served local specialties. Both times the chef asked if anyone spoke Japanese. My theory is that they wouldn’t have seated us if no one spoke Japanese.
* Hotels can forward your luggage to your next hotel for a reasonable price. We did so from Osaka to Okayama for about $10-15 per piece. This can be super helpful if you have a few days where you doing 1 day per city. Don’t lug your stuff around or use lockers. Just pack 1-2 days of stuff in a day pack and send your larger pieces to your next destination!
* Hotels have really nice and a robust selection of amenities. You don’t have a to bring much. For example, every hotel we stayed at had nightgowns, so no need to bring pajamas! As a woman, I was impressed by the skincare amenities as well. You can also buy pretty decent skincare sets at any 7Elevent or Lawsons. They come in travel sizes too! There are also slippers so you don’t have to bring your own.
* Bring or buy a handkerchief! There are a lot of public bathrooms but some of them won’t have a dryer or paper towels.

**Itinerary and city specific tips**

Kyoto, 5 days.

* Stayed at Royal Park Hotel Shijo, which was very nice, conveniently located, and reasonably priced for the value.
* Near the hotel is a [great Japanese food hall](https://goo.gl/maps/1vtxqjD31P355RYn9) that opens at 7am for breakfast.
* If you’re going during a busy season with a lot of tourists, expect Kyoto and its most popular spots to be *packed*. In this case, I recommend getting up early and going to your most important spot first thing. For example, one day we got up at 6am to do the Keage Incline and Philosopher’s Path. By the time we finished that, it was barely 9am, so we did Ginkakuji (wasn’t planning on it but we were nearby) and there was no line. The next day, we went first thing to Ryoanji and enjoyed the rock garden with relatively few people.
* We had a great lunch meal at [Hanasaki Manjiro](https://goo.gl/maps/SdWWnyYMH59n4eAB9). We also ate at [Kitcho](https://goo.gl/maps/6SWCWsxj2y7x1dF66), which was a wonderfully long meal with great hospitality, albeit very expensive.
* The main drag in Arashiyama is likely going to be packed, but you can veer off and there are usually very few people. For example, we went to [Gio-ji](https://goo.gl/maps/LgPXiJmA2Z25WsUX9) and the surrounding area and it was very quiet.
* The Sagano romantic train through Arashiyama is highly recommended. Reserve your tickets in advance and make sure you take the physical credit card with you to redeem the tickets.

Osaka, 3 days, with a day trip to Nara.

* Stayed at Courtyard Marriot Honmachi, which was also very nice and reasonably priced. It was the nicest one of our trip. The location was a bit awkward, requiring a transfer to go almost anywhere.
* Namba is more central. It’s also where you can just bump into a restaurant and it’ll likely be good.
* We had really good tonkatsu at [Daiki](https://goo.gl/maps/XnPqTXaiGXdqiMVg8) (get there 20-30m ahead if you don’t want to wait 1 hour per turnover, though the food is really worth it), amazing pork skewers at [Tonji](https://goo.gl/maps/mTo32mxJJ8Cmvr6VA) (this is the place that I mentioned where it was super small and you need some Japanese to get by), and outstanding udon for breakfast at [Udon Kyutaro](https://goo.gl/maps/4qA9Nun6FnELD4PF6). The Michelin rated tempura place I made a resy at was [Shunsaiten Tsuchiya](https://goo.gl/maps/W5Gmv8PbeGCt5C5H9), which is a little out of the way, but worth it! If you’ve never had high-end tempura, I highly recommend Tsuchiya or a similar restaurant. The Kuromon market was fine; I was mostly underwhelmed because it was so crowded. But if you want really good seafood and willing to pay for it, then by all means. For reference, I got a uni-ikura donburi and it was 3,400 yen. Not to say I didn’t enjoy it, but the ambiance just wasn’t great with all the crowds.
* Take a day trip to Nara, which is only 30m by train, if you’ve never been. I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of getting booped by deer and seeing the gigantic buddha at Todaiji. We had one of our most memorable meals at [Hirasou](https://goo.gl/maps/AGwEGHCr4z7mq48T6). Eat at the restaurant, which serves seasonally changing teishoku and then take some of the local speciality, kaki-no-ha sushi as a snack.
* If you really want to go into Osaka Castle, get there early. We went there just to see the grounds and the castle without going in at 11am and the line was super long.

Kobe, half day, Himeji, 1 day.

* Stayed at the Hotel Monterey Himeji. It was kinda meh but very conveniently located next to the train station and a 20 minute walk to Himeji Castle.
* This is why we sent our luggage ahead to Okayama — we were doing 3 cities in 2 days!
* We stopped in Kobe for half a day to do the Kobe Herb Gardens and have an iconic kobe beef lunch. The Herb Gardens (and the gondola ride) were superb, but unfortunately it was raining heavily so we couldn’t see the amazing view from the mountain. The Gardens provides umbrellas while you’re on the grounds, so we did a little exploring. We stopped at the nice cafe at the glass house for some tea and strawberry desserts. It was expensive but a nice place to rest our feet and kill time until our lunch resy.
* We had lunch at [Kobe Steak Ishida](https://goo.gl/maps/SZGrfC3QFP3oiajTA), which I made a resy at. I tried reserving at other restaurants but they were all booked. Teppanyaki places usually only have 20-40 seats in each restaurant, so that’s why they fill up quickly. Plus these places are popular with tourists since they’re conveniently located and offer reservations. There are plenty of other places serving kobe beef that I’m sure you can bump into if you have time. But because we were on a schedule, I made a reservation. The experience was pretty good, but not as good as I’ve seen on Youtube. For example, they gave us pre-fried garlic slices instead of frying them live.
* We didn’t do much in Himeji in the afternoon; just checked in, chilled, and ate some dinner. Gotta be rested for Himeji Castle the next morning, which we were expecting huge crowds and lines. Because you can only get tickets by lining up (no online reservations ahead of time), we wanted to be up early and get ahead of crowds. The ticket windows open at 9am and you have to walk 10-15m in the grounds before you get to the ticket gate. There was a sakura festival being prepared for as well, so I’m glad we went first thing in the morning. We didn’t really need to get there at 8:30am, though. The crowds weren’t as bad as Kyoto (we were traumatized and overcorrected). After getting tickets, you can make your way to the main keep. You have to take off your shoes and carry them with you, by the way (they do supply plastic bags for you). There isn’t a line to get into the castle, but the castle has (very steep) stairs only, so when you get to the top floors, there is a wait. The views are amazing, but I think the information you glean from the poster boards (although difficult to read because of poor lighting and crowds) is the real gem. After you get out of the keep, there is a great photo spot. Wherever you see a cell phone stand is a great spot for photos. I also recommend that you go through the western galleys as those have interesting information as well as great shots of the main keep.
* For lunch, we randomly found a [delightful hole-in-the-wall okonomiyaki place](https://goo.gl/maps/qUhAxF8um8hBAcDJ6). Definitely recommend. It was super cheap as well.
* After lunch we went to the Koko-en gardens, which you can get a combo ticket with the castle. I highly highly recommend that you make time for these gardens. There are 14 or something gardens to walk through and each is unique and delightful on their own. Through there were a lot of people, it was still very refreshing and calming.

Okayama, 2 days.

* Stayed at Hotel Granvia Okayama. It was pretty nice and right next to the station.
* We were here for personal reasons and didn’t do any traditional sightseeing, so I won’t detail what we did.
* We ate a great place with local Okayama specialities, but I cannot find it because I don’t remember the name, unfortunately. Near the station is a few great shopping streets. There are lots of good eats there.

Tokyo, 2 days.

* Stayed at Meguroholic Hotel. It was decent but small. It was conveniently located for what we needed to do, and great if you have a JR pass (since you can just get on the Yamanote).
* We were also here for personal reasons and didn’t do too much sightseeing.
* Tokyo was *super* crowded in the major areas (i.e. Shibuya, Meiji Shrine), so be prepared.
* I wasn’t very impressed with Harajuku, but we went to the Shiba cafe, which was pretty fun.

That’s all I can think of. Happy to answer questions! Hope this is helpful for someone!