Advice for 15-day itinerary on November 2023

4 comments

1. Day 1: The typical advice would be to start the day with Meiji Jingu and Yoyogi Park since both Harajuku and Shibuya open later. Typically, you want to hit Harajuku during school hours to avoid the crowds.

   Day 2: It’s worth noting that it will take at least 3½ hours to do a Shibuya – Kanagawa Institute of Technology – Ghibli Museum relay. If you choose to do it, I would probably visit Kanagawa Institute of Technology in the morning, because otherwise only 10 am slot would really work for the Ghibli Museum, assuming you would like to see the institute in the light of the day and eat lunch as well.

   Day 8: This is really a half-day (at most) worth of itinerary. You may want to visit Ninna-ji and Kitano Tenmangu, or Nijo-jo.

   Day 10: To be honest, visiting Katsura Imperial Villa would typically work better with either Arashiyama or Southern Higashiyama/Gion, because the area has direct train connections to those areas.

   JR Pass is not a viable option for that itinerary. An open jaw airline ticket might make sense in your case.

2. On Day 7, Sennyu-ji Temple is located near Tofuku-ji Temple. It is a family temple of the Emperor’s family.
   Its garden has autumnal foliage from early November.

   Day 11, why not stay in Nara?
   On the way from Kyoto to Nara, you can also visit Byodoin Temple in Uji.
   The views of Nara Park at dusk and sunrise, especially of Tobikino, are worth seeing.

3. The JR pass is superb assuming you use it every day to make it value for money. They have buses and ferries to.

4. Day 1 : When planning your days, check at what time things open. You usually do not want to start in an ara focused on shopping as the stores usually open at 10 or 11am. So on that day it would make more sense to go to Meiji-jingu first. I guess that the park you mean Yoyogi park, in that case, I think that the good reasons to go are for cherry blossom or people watching during the weekend when it’s warm. It might still be ok for people watching in November, as long as it’s on the weekend, otherwise, for me it’s an easy skip because Yoyogi park is a park, not a garden. For a proper garden, I would go to Koishikawa korakuen or check if Rikugi-en have a autumn color illumination.

   Day 2 : The Kanagawa Institute of Technology Plaza in not only far, it is also absolutely nowhere near the Ghibli museum. If will take over 2h to move from one to the other. What I would do is dedicate the full day for things around Kanagawa, for example not too far from the closest train station, there is the Romancecar museum.

   Day 3 : Both are not good morning places. You could do something like Kanda-myojin in the morning if you start by Akihabara or Hama-rikyu garden and Tsukiji outer market if you do Ginza first.

   Day 13 : Koyasan you plan to spent 2 nights ? I think that one is enough and keep in mind that if you stop at a temple and plan to eat dinner there, you will have to check in like before 5pm, considering it’s over 3h train, you will have to leave Super Nintendo world like before 2pm.

   Also, you might want to avoid long train distance on the way you fly out of Japan.