What to do in Japan for 2 weeks?

Flying towards Asia I prefer to take a late flight out and sleep on the way there. Then I land around afternoon. I'm able to then tire myself out for the rest of the afternoon and evening before sleeping for a few hours that night. I then make sure I'm up and out of bed by 8. If I stay later then I risk hitting the night time in UK which makes it hard to get out of bed. This technique gets me through the jet lag within 2-3 days.
 
I pride myself to be able to sleep anywhere....the plan is to sleep at least 6 hours on the way there which should get me through the first day. Since I land in Tokyo and leave from Tokyo, the first day I rather head off straight to somewhere like Kyoto, travel around a bit and spend the 2nd half of the trip entirely in and around Tokyo. If I arrive in the evening then I would have to get a hotel the first day there and then go to Kyoto only to return again.

The return flight is at midday so I really need to be in Tokyo the night before.

Airport parking booked now! Spent over £1k already and I've not even looked into accommodation yet!
 
garak112 said:
I've done the arrive at 8.30 am thing three and whilst you do get an extra day it feels horrific.

First time we did it we went to the hotel and they let us check in early. Next thing I knew in was 10pm and this screwed me up for the next four days.

Second time we went out and about but by 6 we had crashed completely.

Last year we went and watched sumo but fell asleep before the maintenance wrestlers came out.

Going this year and landing at 2.40 pm. Only reason was the BA flights for our dates were quite a lot more than the ANA ones when we booked. I'm hoping it might work out better in terms of jet lag. It's a shame that virgin don't fly there any more because the fares were a lot cheaper accross all carriers (£395 direct in 2013 which works out about £427 with inflation today).

Even though you are flying back from tokyo you can get quite a distance in that time. A couple of years ago we did Tokyo-miyajima-Fukuoka-Nagasaki-Kumamoto-Kagoshima-Yakushima. Train down then a flight back. ANA do special 'experience japan' fares which are between £40-70 a flight.

If you go to Hiroshima I recommend staying on Miyajima. It's my favourite place in Japan (and possibly anywhere). Can get over to the island using the JR pass as well.

In Tokyo we tend to stay at the Citadines (the one near shinjukugyoen-mae) because it's not particularly expensive and because it's an aparthotel the rooms are bigger than standard rooms elsewhere. A lot of the standard rooms elsewhere are between 15m2 to 17m2 which felt claustrophobic. I can also recommend the Keio plaza.
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Thanks, but i think i'll have to suck it up and go for it. There are a lot of other places in the world i want to go, so I don't think i'll go back again soon, plus it isn't cheap!

This my plan (1st draft) so far....

Sunday Day 1 land in Tokyo (10:30) - Straight into train to Mt Fuji, look at the sites, stay the night.

Day 2 (Monday) to Kyoto, a couple of temples and Bamboo forest, stay perhaps 2 nights, 5th day (Thursday) i'll head to Osaka? Also planning to go to Kobe and then Hiroshima.

By Sunday or Monday i'll do an internal flight to Tokyo for 5 nights from Hiroshima.

Is this doable?
 
Saw the sunrise atop Mt Fuji last year, the hike isn't too memorable but the overall experience, including watching the sunrise was pretty special. Whilst nearby I was going to hire a Skyline and an NSX for a few hours and do the routes around Hakone. Can't quite remember the prices but it seemed quite reasonable for what I deemed was a bit of opportunity . Couple of hundred for 90mins per car.The excess and my lack of performance car experience made me think twice though. Looking back, wished I went for it though.

Another highlight was Miyajima, spent a couple of days there and it was the perfect place to unwind and soak in a bit of culture.


Edit: Car hire was through fun2drive .
 
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I would spend two weeks trying all the Japanese vending machines and cart home several metric tons of weird and whacky Japanese hentai DVD's.

But that's just me.
 
Okay, still planning…

What do people think?

Start with landing in Tokyo at 10:30am, go straight to Hakone for the first night, work my way down to Fukuoka for the first 7 days. At Fukuoka do an internal flight back to Tokyo for the 2nd week.

Or

Fly straight to Fukuoka for the first night, and work my way up Japan, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Osaka, Hakone then Tokyo on the Shinkansen.

The number of journeys will be the same, which order would you do it in? A little quiet time in Hakone for a day before Tokyo sounds tempting.
 
I'm currently planning trip with friends for 3 weeks to Japan in 2018. FYI you can fly Tokyo to Osaka with Peach Airways for about £40... which seems to be worth it as it costs more in train fares.

We are starting in Tokyo, then going to Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto before going to Hiroshima and Kure (naval museum) then back to Tokyo
 
HybridX said:
I'm currently planning trip with friends for 3 weeks to Japan in 2018. FYI you can fly Tokyo to Osaka with Peach Airways for about £40... which seems to be worth it as it costs more in train fares.

We are starting in Tokyo, then going to Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto before going to Hiroshima and Kure (naval museum) then back to Tokyo
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Nice.

I know about the flight but not completely decided on travel within Japan yet for the long distances. The reason I am thinking about trains is because i want to go to Hakone for 1 day to see Mount Fuji and stay in a traditional Japanese inn there. The flight between Fukuoka and Tokyo is not cheap, about £150 at the moment….like a return ticket between the UK to most EU countries via BA.
 
bingham67 said:
No idea never been want to go next year keep seeing Nara park (feed the deer) and Kyoto pictures on Instagram looks fantastic
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I went a few years ago and the deer were pretty scabby looking but maybe it was the wrong time of year. The temples in Nara were impressive to see though.

Kyoto was nice, particularly as we went at cherry blossom time. The Shinkansen was as you'd expect - quick, on time and clean. Tokyo was enjoyable in a very busy sort of way although actually the underground lines seemed less packed than the Tube lines in London but that might have been down to the time of day. Okonomiyaki in Hiroshima was a good experience, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum was worth going to see although it felt like an odd juxtaposition being so close to what were clearly some of the seedier parts of town. Oh and the Osaka Aquarium is good if you like aquariums.
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
Whatever you do I want a full iteniry and scoresheet after, we're likely going next year.
Weather and temp reports too pls.
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same although 2019, group of us want to get rugby world cup tickets. So would be somewhere between 20 Sep 2019 – 2 Nov 2019 deepending what tickets we can get.

Japan seems like unbelievable amount of things to do, thanks to culture being so different and the history.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Okay, still planning…

What do people think?

Start with landing in Tokyo at 10:30am, go straight to Hakone for the first night, work my way down to Fukuoka for the first 7 days. At Fukuoka do an internal flight back to Tokyo for the 2nd week.

Or

Fly straight to Fukuoka for the first night, and work my way up Japan, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Osaka, Hakone then Tokyo on the Shinkansen.

The number of journeys will be the same, which order would you do it in? A little quiet time in Hakone for a day before Tokyo sounds tempting.
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I'd make the following comments ....
- Personally, I've been to Hakone a couple of time and thought that it was massively overrated. But I suspect that this depends a lot on where you stay there.
- Traveling to Fukuoka and working your way back up sounds like a good idea. The only potential issue is that there isn't much luggage space on the shinkansen so traveling with a large suitcase could be an issue (I normally use a smaller case for the periods of my holidays I'm outside Tokyo (think cabin bag size) and leave my large suitcase in the Tokyo hotel. Make sure you have okonomiyaki in Hiroshima as it's different from varieties you get in Osaka and Tokyo.
- Depending on the time of year you go you might need to make sure you have a backup plan if you are flying internally. I've only done it once (New Chitose (Sapporo) to Kansai (Osaka)) but was very lucky as the last big typhoon of the season was bearing down on Osaka and it was very touch and go whether we would be able to fly (we were the last plane into Kansai airport before it was closed and they were shutting down the rail station as we got into Osaka) .... if we hadn't we would have been stuck in Hokkaido. If you are flying internationally on a Japanese carrier you might be able to get a deal on any internal flights (I know JAL have done this in the past although I don't know if they have any offers on at the moment).

Roll on Autumn 2018 for my next trip ...
 
Raymond Lin said:
I have to google that…it just means cute?
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The word does mean that sort of but when used as a noun it refers to a whole genre of stuff. It started with stationery & now they sell household items, clothes etc. It is a Japanese word but it is big business all over south east Asia & the word is known all over that region. Some of the biggest companies are in South Korea. There is a big crossover with anime & manga merchandise
San-X is one of the biggest companies in Japan
http://www.san-x.jp/characters/tarepanda.html
 
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