Part 2- 16 day trip report- Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima/Miyajima, and Kinosaki

Ok, got some sleep and will try to finish this up. Please see [previous post on this sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/13390o4/16_day_trip_report_tokyo_kyoto_osaka/) for part 1 and some background.

* **April 20**: **Fushimi Inari, Kyoto Gyoen National Garden, Cooking Sun Izakaya cooking class**
* Step count: 34,052
* Early morning wake up, took Keihan main line subway for short 20 min ride to Fushimi Inari and arrived \~7:25 am and it was pretty empty. Made the full trek up the mountain with plenty of photo ops along the way as the crowds thin out the further you go. It was a hot day (82 degrees) so I was glad to be in a light dress and sneakers. The path is stone steps throughout however so not really “hiking”. Even with picture taking, we completed the whole thing by 9:20 and went to **Vermillion Cafe** just as it was opening. They also had a clipboard outside so we put our name down and got one of the first seats inside. Cute cafe (Australian I think?) for some coffee/matcha and light food and a nice view. Because we were done early, we took the train back toward our hotel but decided to keep going past and explored Kyoto Gyoen National Garden. At first it just seemed like wide open, tranquil space, but we then found some late-blooming cherry blossom trees and got gorgeous pictures and enjoyed strolling around. The heat brought us back to our hotel for a quick refresh before we made the 30 min walk to our previously booked cooking class (booked via TripAdvisor [Izakaya Style Cooking Class provided by Cooking Sun](https://www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductReview-g298564-d11454615-Izakaya_Style_Cooking_Class-Kyoto_Kyoto_Prefecture_Kinki.html). This was another trip highlight and we really enjoyed learning about the ingredients/techniques used in the foods we had been trying throughout the trip. The staff were great and the class was small (7 people total), time was from 2-4:30pm. We walked back to the hotel to rest/avoid the heat and then went out for drinks. First we tried to get into at L’Escamoteur but a kinda rude host told us they were full at 8pm (when they opened) and did not offer to allow us to wait… however, happy this happened because we went around the corner to **Bee’s Knees** and had lots of fun trying 3 cocktails each at this inventive speakeasy style bar- definitely caters to tourists but was a fun vibe and spoke with some fellow tourists there. We were tipsy after and got some sushi around Pontocho that was still open at 9:30 pm that was surprisingly delicious despite our complete lack of research
* What went well: Getting to Fushimi Inari early, completing the climb, finding blooms in Kyoto National garden, our cooking class, Bees Knees cocktails/customer service
* What I would have done differently: Not try L’Escamoteur given the rude encounter
* Pictures [Kyoto day 4](https://imgur.com/gallery/B3Yqaqp)
* **April 21: Kyoto –> Osaka (Mipig cafe,**
* Step count: 21,462
* Finally slept in! Checked out of ALZA at 11 am and said goodbye to our favorite hotel of the trip. Went to Kyoto Station and explored a little in the morning, got 551 Horai pork buns and pork shumai before our quick 15 min train ride to Shin-Osaka. Opted to take the regular subway right to our hotel in Namba (instead of JR line) and arrived at 1pm. We were just planning on dropping our bags off there but were surprised to find they allowed us to check in 2 hours early! Highly recommend **Hotel 88 Shinsaibashi** for the great service, spacious room, and excellent location right near Dotombori. After dropping off our bags, walked around Dotombori during the day just to check out the street signs and snap some pics before heading to our pre-booked (online) 30 min at **Mipig Osaka** (2:30-3:00pm). Honestly I loved this cheesy little cafe. We originally were going to do the Hedgehog cafe on Tokyo day 2 in Harajuku, but decided to switch the animal cafe experience to our Osaka day based on time and so glad we did. The piglets were SO friendly. I literally had 3-5 pigs on my lap at all times (they come to you). We got great pics and had fun cuddling with them (they seemed well taken care of to me at least) but 30 min was definitely enough for me. We then went shopping around (my husband to several skate shops in the area since he’s a skateboarder) and I headed to **Rikuru’s cheesecake.** I had read about the hype online and figured it was touristy and overblown, but I actually liked it (better after 1 day in the fridge). It definitely is egg-y and not cheesy/sweet but that was fine by me bc I don’t like NY Cheesecake much anyway. After a stop back at the hotel to change, we went to Osaka Aquarium for our 5:30 pm entry ticket (bought that day online – it was a little hard to figure out how to purchase ticket online). Loved the aquarium more than expected and it was a relaxing change of pace. Wish we got the English audioguide as signage was limited, but we didn’t realize you needed to get this BEFORE entering the main part of the aquarium (because you start at floor 8 and then make your way back down). We made do anyway though and were amazed at the huge crabs, the whale sharks of course, and the penguins at the end having barely any enclosure separating them from us (def not what you would see in USA). We left right at 7:45 pm around closing, and then headed to **Tempozan Ferris Wheel** which was lit up at night. Rode the ferris wheel at 8pm (after short wait for “clear” car which wasn’t really necessary in hindsight) and then took subway back to Dotombori as we were starving. Tried delicious gyoza from the stand with the large sign (can’t miss). There were long lines for a lot of the popular foods but we made it to Creo-Ru around 10pm and decided to sit in their izakaya since it was chilly outside. Tried the famous takoyaki balls (neither of us were a fan honestly but we aren’t big on fried food or octopus so our expectations weren’t too high), but we had a delicious meat/tofu dish there that was recommended and tried some kushikatsu too. Had some salmon sashimi there which was a mistake – only not great fish of the trip. Ended night with delicious melonpan with ice cream from the stand with the moving sign and called it a night at 11pm.
* Pictures [Osaka day 1](https://imgur.com/gallery/9l0sjdW)
* What went well: Mipig cafe was fun! shopping around Osaka, spending time at aquarium, seeing ferris wheel at night
* What I would do differently: Didn’t love Creo-Ru, maybe would have chose a better izakaya or just sampled food from different street stalls/waited in some lines if we had the stamina but this was still pretty fun regardless
* **April 22: Osaka day 2- Osaka Castle,** **Nishinomaru Garden,** **Osaka Sennichimae Doguyasuji, Shinsekai, Tower Knives**
* Step count: 28,700
* Jet lag slowly was improving which meant we didn’t make it to Osaka Castle (via subway + walk) until 9:45 instead of planned 9am (fine by me!). There was a short line to get in the castle and we made our way up the museum floors to the observation deck on top. Because I know very little Japanese history, I found the museum a little dry (esp first few floors) and in hindsight would have spent more time on floors 5-7 which had more info in the exhibit. We were in the castle for about 1 hour and then went across to Nishinomaru Garden- it was a lovely sunny day and we got much better views/pics of the castle from here than inside the castle park. We then trained back to Dotombori and had a delicious udon noodle lunch at **Imai Honten**, an authentic noodle shop. There was a short wait but it went really quickly and was worth it. Then tried some egg tarts on Dotombori (pastel de nata are my fav dessert and I wanted to compare) before heading to Sennichimae Doguyasuji, Osaka’s kitchen street. We popped into a couple knife shops here, as well as the cool Design Pocket shop (for plastic replicas of food that we see in all the restaurant windows -got some fun souvenirs here) but decided to head to **Tower Knives Osaka** in Shensekai which is where we made our purchases for Japanese knives for our trip. Very pleased with our purchases and the customer service here. Note- they do have a shop in Tokyo too. Touristy for sure but great service, English, and we got to try out several different knives (cutting tomato and carrot to test them) and they had free engraving if you followed them on Instagram. Then went back to Namba, tried **Nana’s green tea** (delicious). Then went to a really good sushi place that we just found on Google maps (I *think* it was **Honto Sushi Kaiba**) for a delicious meal. Not a lot of English spoken and we ordered some unexpected things haha but that added to the fun. One of our favorite dinners of the trip.
* What went well: Great food today overall even though we didn’t plan it out ahead of time. Great knife shopping experience
* What would do differently: Spend less time in Osaka castle or read up more about it beforehand to get better understanding
* Pictures [Osaka day 2](https://imgur.com/gallery/LmmRwzK)
* **April 23: Hiroshima/Miyajima day trip**
* Step count: 25,910
* Decided to do a day trip from Osaka to Hiroshima/Miyajima, knowing this would be ambitious and a long day. We took the 7:35 am train from Shin-Osaka and arrived in Hiroshima at 9:05 am. Decided to go to Miyajima first (we wanted to see at high tide which was at 10:48am that day- recommend researching the tide schedule before you go), so we hopped on the JR local train to Miyajimaguchi and made the short walk over to the JR ferry- made the 9:40 ferry and arrived on the island by 9:50am. To save time, our plan was to take the **Hiroshima World Heritage Sea Route** (45 min ferry) directly back to the Atomic Dome park (instead of backtracking they way we came and ending up at the station which is 35 min walk away). This was a smart idea even though a little more $$ (not covered by JR). However, we should have purchased the tickets right when we arrived on Miyajima, because we wasted time (20 min there and back again) backtracking back to the ferry port to purchase them after seeing the shrine (it was a Sunday and the last ferry was at 2:15 pm from this company and they were selling out). We purchased a 1:55pm ferry back which was *just* enough time on Miyajima. We saw the oddly calm deer, snapped great pics of the shrine, and took the ropeway system up Mt Misen and decided to hike to the top. I was a little worried about timing but we were lucky that we beat the ropeway crowds and the hike from the observatory at the end of the ropeway to the top of Mt Misen and back took us \~50 min including our stop for pictures. We got back down and had just enough time to squeeze in some street food for lunch before making it back for our ferry (had AMAZING oysters somewhere we passed on the street with soy and miso versions; momiji-manju pastries and some fried oysters/fried chicken and just made it to our ferry. Happy we went with the direct ferry and we explored the sobering sites of the **Atomic Dome** and the **Peace Park** memorials before making it to the **museum**. There was a line for the museum but it went surprisingly fast. Very happy we decided to go for the audioguide – the museum was very crowded and we would not have been able to easily read all the plaques otherwise. This was a truly amazing (while depressing) museum and we spent >2 hours there, leaving around 5:30 pm (it closes at 6). Our pre-booked train back to Osaka was at 7:02 pm. Originally we planned to get okonomiyaki for dinner in Hiroshima, but with the 35 min walk back to the station we were pressed for time and didn’t want to risk it (plus we didn’t really want a heavy meal) so we just grabbed some snacks on the train instead from konbini.
* Pictures [Day trip to Hiroshima/Miyajima](https://imgur.com/gallery/KGaJ1ia)
* What went well: surprisingly our timing/travel all worked out perfectly for our tightly packed day trip. Miyajima shrine was beautiful and enjoyed the deer. Glad I got to experience the Atomic Dome (really powerful) and learn so much at the amazing museum.
* What I would do differently: Honestly didn’t love the ropeway up Mount Misen- they cram multiple groups in the cars and while the views were pretty, I would have rather spent more time exploring Momijidani park and hiking a little on the trails through there to avoid the crowds and time constraints. Given our time spent at the museum, we kind of failed on dinner so would have entered sooner.
* **April 24: Osaka –> Kinosaki onsen**
* Step Count: 18,806
* In the morning, went to Osaka station, stored our bags there, and explored the Kita area of Osaka (which we had not seen before). Made our way to Umeda Sky Building which was actually a lot more interesting than I had expected (we had time to kill so read the whole exhibit about how the architect planned the structure) and went up to the observatory for nice views over Osaka – it was a good way to say goodbye to such a delightful city. Because we arrived from Kyoto at Shin-Osaka, I for some reason assumed we also would be leaving from there so made our first train mistake and went to Shin-Osaka and then needed to turn right back around and go back to Osaka station for our JR train to Kinosaki Onsen. This was dumb since it was clearly on our ticket, but thankfully only wasted about 15 min and we still had plenty of time to make our train and grab food in advance. We actually got to ride the Hello Kitty train (unintentionally!) because of this snafu so it was a happy mistake. Recommend getting to the train stations early for all reserved shinkansen trains because finding the correct area/platform can definitely be confusing! Took the 2 hr 45 min train to Kinosaki Onsen and arrived at 3pm. Walked 6 min to our lovely ryokan stay at **Morizuya Inn**, another highlight of the trip. We were a little confused after arriving at the in because we were unexpectedly led by an elderly woman to a house a few doors down (and she spoke minimal English). Turns out it was the owner’s lovely mother and she brought us to her house to experience an authentic tea ceremony!! The owner also LOVED taking our picture and kept telling us to pose in different places with props haha. Our ryokan room was a traditional Japanese room with tatami mats and was so lovely. They had me pick out my favorite yukata (casual Japanese kimono-like robe used for onsen hopping) and matching jacket and accessories, from like 200 options and showed us how to put them on. We had an amazing (and HUGE) kaiseki dinner served in our room before getting into our yukatas and geta shoes and heading to our first onsen experience. There are 7 public onsen in this town and our ryokan gave us a pass that allowed us to visit all of them for our full stay there. And the owner took SO many pics of us all over town in our yukata, completely unprompted by us, it was so sweet. The onsen are really hot and of course my husband and I had to split up (they have separate male and female communal baths) so we didnt spend too long in each. Our first night we just visited Kounoyu Onsen since it was closed the next day. We then checked out a cool retro arcade in town and played a few games before bed.
* Pictures [Osaka day 3–> Kinosaki Onsen](https://imgur.com/gallery/n0OA40z)
* What went well: I am so happy I chose to add Kinosaki Onsen to our trip. It is pretty close to Osaka (easy train ride) but felt a world away. Finally we had a part of our trip made for relaxation and the town was so quaint and adorable. There were barely any non-Japanese people there (despite how foreigner friendly the town is – just look at their amazing website [Visit Kinosaki](https://visitkinosaki.com/)), and it is one of the few public onsen town that allow tattoos of any size (which I have several). The hospitality in this town was unmatched and we really enjoyed slowing down our pace and just enjoying the scenery and each other’s company.
* What I would have done differently: Train station mix up between Shin-Osaka and Osaka stations – luckily this did not cause us to miss our train as there are only a few a day going to Kinosaki
* **April 25: Kinosaki onsen**
* Step Count: 10,036 (thank goodness!)
* Great relaxing day in Kinosaki despite it raining the entire day. We woke up pretty early and were served a traditional Japanese breakfast in our room at 8am (again – HUGE) before heading out to onsen hop. We went to Goshonoyu Onsen (most popular one, very lovely with outdoor section) and Ichinoyu Onsen (known for its cave onsen, also very pretty). All the onsen were pretty empty when I went and mostly only had Japanese people, but I still felt pretty comfortable after reading the appropriate customs. We were a bit “onsened out” so we went to a nice cafe (that also had a lovely art gallery) and relaxed a little before wandering around town in the rain to shop for souvenirs. We had massages scheduled at 3 pm (scheduled online about 5 days before arriving) at the very fancy **Nishimuraya Hotel Shogetsutei**. If you can afford to stay here, go for it as it looks amazing and the service here was unparalleled. We had excellent massages (Special Relaxation- G – 80 min on website) and felt rejuvenated after. They insisted on driving us back to our accommodation after the massage instead of having us walk in the rain – such great customer service in Japan, I feel weird NOT tipping! After some sweet potato ice-cream themed sweets, we then went to our hotel’s private onsen (they have 2, no reservation was needed when we went) and cleaned up before our amazing Tajima beef dinner at **Irori Dining Mikuni.** It was pricey but decadent and we had the “popular BBQ course” which was so much fun. We booked this online in advance on gurunavi which was very confusing without a Japanese phone # or zip code – in hindsight, we could have just had our ryokan help us with this instead, but we had anticipated more crowds then there were. We had another dip in the private onsen before bed.
* Pictures- [Kinosaki Onsen](https://imgur.com/gallery/krsUC1v)
* Overall an amazing day, would not have done anything differently. Loved our massage and our dinner
* **April 26: Kinosaki onsen –> Tokyo travel day**
* Step Count: 14,895
* Another 8am breakfast served in our room before 10 am check out. We then headed to the train station (owner dropped off our bags for us) before making the long train ride back to Tokyo (with short 25 min stop in Kyoto). Ate on the train. Arrived in Tokyo at 4:12 pm and checked in to **Hotel Ryumeikan Tokyo** which was an easy 4 min walk from Tokyo Station. It was a great location and surprisingly spacious. We then did a little architecture tour of Ginza that we found online and was fun to follow and headed to eat our only chirashi of the trip (its a favorite of mine from home so wanted to try some in Japan). Found some at **Ginza Sushi Marui**, which we were able to go to without reservations around 6:30 pm and it was quite good. They served a very adventurous “free” izakaya appetizer (see pictures). Then headed to **Bar Landscape** for some delightful fancy cocktails (had 2 each, they were great), and then went to a tiny jazz bar my husband found online called **Blue Eyes**. There was only 1 other person there but we had fun because the owner had a robot dog?! and she kept putting it (her?) in my lap haha. Had 1 drink here (drink was just okay) but it was a fun memory.
* Pictures – [Kinosaki onsen–> Tokyo](https://imgur.com/gallery/TEgRWkU)
* **April 27: Tokyo neighborhood wandering (Roppongi–>Ebisu–>Naka-megura–>Shibuya; Ginza)**
* Step Count: 41,383 (wanted to tire out before flight!)
* For our final day in Tokyo, we slept in a little (for us) and decided we wanted to get in as much walking/exploring of different neighborhoods of Tokyo as we could to see a different side of the city compared to the beginning of the trip. It was a gorgeous, sunny day. We decided to take the subway to Roppongi and explored Roppongi Hills. I saw the Maman spider sculpture (something I have always wanted to see), and then we went down to Mohri Garden and ate a lovely (although European) breakfast of pastries and coffee at **Bricolage bread & co**. We didn’t need to wait at all for our table which was nice. We then made our way from Roppongi to Ebisu, and stumbled upon a gorgeous park called **Arisugawa-no-miya Memorial Park** \- this was a surprise gem. We wandered through Ebisu and checked out the Nadiff A/P/A/R/T art book store that I wanted to see before walking down to another park with the Institue for Nature Study. This was a small nature refuge – not really worth an out of the way trip but a nice walk through nature and reprieve from the sun. We headed along to Naka-megura neighborhood on the Meguro River Cherry blossom walk (even though of course the cherry blossoms were no longer in bloom) – it was still lovely however. We tried to go to I’m donut? (a shop I just saw on Google and thought the name was funny) but had a really hard time finding the location because Google maps was wrong. We ended up getting “stuck” in the Naka-megura train station there because we swiped in looking for the place and it would not let us swipe out without taking the train. Turns out the donuts at this location (OUTSIDE of the station) were sold out, so we took the train to Shibuya to correct our issue with the SUICA. But, now on a mission for these donuts, I found another **I’m donut?** shop in Shibuya city. There was quite a line (all Japanese) outside, but we decided what the heck, lets wait and see what the hype was about. OMG they were so good. No english in the store so had to whip out our phones for translation. Then completed last minute souvenir shopping and another look at the scramble (this time at 6pm in all its glory). We decided to Google search another seafood-based izakaya for our last night, and had one of the best meals of our trip at **Uoshin Ginza**\- the sushi, sashimi and random grilled fish we ordered were FANTASTIC and it was such a lively place with mostly locals.
* Pictures [Last day in Tokyo- 4/27/23](https://imgur.com/gallery/w1CXaoK)
* **April 28: Tokyo station exploring in AM, flight HND–>EWR at 5:15 pm**
* Step Count: 13,518
* Explored Tokyo Station area, had a soba noodle lunch in the station and did some more souvenir shopping in the area before taking the subway (Asakusa line) directly to Haneda airport. Long line at the airport but it went really quickly and we had a smooth direct flight home to Newark

For anyone that read this all, sorry for the long post! Let me know if you have any questions!! Overall had such an amazing trip and cannot wait to return to Japan in the future.