Look like you're enjoying yourself mate, good stuff!
Great pics of Hiroshima there, it's truly a beautiful city.
P.S. When you go to 7/11 next, try their baked chicken skewers they have at their counters! (As well as the fried ones
)What to do in Japan for 2 weeks?
- Thread starter Raymond Lin
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Look like you're enjoying yourself mate, good stuff!
Great pics of Hiroshima there, it's truly a beautiful city.
P.S. When you go to 7/11 next, try their baked chicken skewers they have at their counters! (As well as the fried ones
)
Look like you're enjoying yourself mate, good stuff!
Great pics of Hiroshima there, it's truly a beautiful city.
P.S. When you go to 7/11 next, try their baked chicken skewers they have at their counters! (As well as the fried ones
There are soon much to eat...7-11 stuff is lower on the list
Today i got up at 6:30 to climb Fushimi Inari. Worth the trip!
There are soon much to eat...7-11 stuff is lower on the list
Today i got up at 6:30 to climb Fushimi Inari. Worth the trip!
Question is, how far up did you go?
Question is, how far up did you go?
All the way and there is no view up there!
Associate
7 years living in Japan, my advice:
Cut a day off Tokyo and go to Nara if you have time.
Arashiyama district in Kyoto is really nice too.
What camera are you using ? Really nice pics.
Have fun
Cut a day off Tokyo and go to Nara if you have time.
Arashiyama district in Kyoto is really nice too.
What camera are you using ? Really nice pics.
Have fun
7 years living in Japan, my advice:
Cut a day off Tokyo and go to Nara if you have time.
Arashiyama district in Kyoto is really nice too.
What camera are you using ? Really nice pics.
Have fun
7 Years! I bet you've visited all over?
Already been to Nara between Osaka and Kyoto, I am literally making the best of all the day light and went to Arashiyama this morning at the crack of dawn, I got out of bed and it was still dark...been walking miles and miles seeing as much as I can. Today I went to....see if you can spot them.
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Soldato
Amazing place I read Japan is expensive though did you find this?
Not overly so.
You can have a filling meal for under £10, convenience stores everywhere and they sell hot and cold food including fried chicken which are very good. So you can get by with £20 a day for food easily. What the bulk of my budget went to was entry fees into temples, skyscrapers and museums. 5 entry fees a day would set me back £50 and so £100 a day doesn’t go very far when you do that, not to mention I was spending about £10 a day on the subway and that’s with my walking a LOT. About 15-20km when I was in Kyoto and Tokyo. Pretty much if the destination is less than 20 min by google maps (or with 10min to nearest station first) I will walk it. I also prepaid £180 for a JR rail pass for a week to take me across country.
I bought a SIM card for 5000 yen with 5G of data which was enough for 2 weeks using google maps and some light surfing.
So my budget was vastly skewed like 50% for entry fees and the rest on food and transport.
That of course does not include accommodation, this can be cheap or expensive. I stayed in a decent double bed room in Osaka by the castle for £50 up to £400 a night in Hakone in a massive room with balcony, a “dinning room” with a private onsen with breakfast and dinner included (was price for 2 people, I could’ve had 2 dinner meals myself).
Tokyo was £140 a night and over the 2 weeks I spent just under £2,000 in accommodation.
I didn’t look into capsule hotel or air b’nb which you can do of course. I think you can easily cut my accommodation cost by at least 1/3rd and if I were to go again, I won’t be going back to Hakone as that’s a bucket list done for onsen and Mt Fuji.
@Raymond Lin That last picture is beautiful. If I remember rightly, you're in Kyoto Tower (or possibly just Kyoto station) looking north - I ate in that restaurant on the corner facing you at the junction (red/brown building), it was a lovely "fast-ish" food place. I also got my Nikon D7200 + battery grip for a very reasonable £750 in Yodobashi camera, which is just out of this picture, right underneath Kyoto tower.
EDIT: Looking at your costs, I feel extremely fortunate. The four times I've visited (always based in Kyoto) I was staying with someone so I effectively only had flight costs (Manchester to Osaka/Kansai was usually around £550-650 return) and my spends, a decent amount of which was spent on entries into places and train tickets. Food was very reasonable as you say. Some of the sushi places where you pay by plate were only around Y150 a plate, and after 8-10 you were stuffed anyway (that's about £10 or less).
EDIT: Looking at your costs, I feel extremely fortunate. The four times I've visited (always based in Kyoto) I was staying with someone so I effectively only had flight costs (Manchester to Osaka/Kansai was usually around £550-650 return) and my spends, a decent amount of which was spent on entries into places and train tickets. Food was very reasonable as you say. Some of the sushi places where you pay by plate were only around Y150 a plate, and after 8-10 you were stuffed anyway (that's about £10 or less).
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Soldato
Thanks for the information that quite abit spent on accomodation Im thinking of just doing Kyoto and Tokyo is it easy to travel between both I see they are far apart on a map it seems.
I would not want to spend that much as after we are going to Bali I will also being paying much of the girlfriend expenses so as cheap as possible would be good.
Soldato
I booked next years trip the other weekend ... which was an arm and a leg (as my costs are rather higher than Raymonds ) Tokyo -> Kanazawa -> Osaka -> Tokyo this time.
I normally figure on Y10k/day for walking around money ... so that's food, Suica card top-ups, shopping, entries to things etc ... but not Hotels, Flights or JR Rail Pass.
Y150 for a plate of sushi ... extravagance! ... I know somewhere in Osaka which is Y100/plate and you get a token which drops this to Y80/plate on a second visit!
) Tokyo -> Kanazawa -> Osaka -> Tokyo this time.I normally figure on Y10k/day for walking around money ... so that's food, Suica card top-ups, shopping, entries to things etc ... but not Hotels, Flights or JR Rail Pass.
Y150 for a plate of sushi ... extravagance! ... I know somewhere in Osaka which is Y100/plate and you get a token which drops this to Y80/plate on a second visit!
Kyoto and Tokyo is about 2 hour on the Shinkansen, for that price, i might be worth getting the JR pass and use it to go to Osaka for a day.
Here are the thing with the Shinkansen. On the Subway you are forbidden, or really disallowed, to eat, but eating on the Shinkansen is practically a ritual. Before you get on, make sure pick up a bento box of your choice. And here is the other thing, there are 3 types of seats.
1 - First Class (your JR pass not included)
2 - Reserved seating, you can reserve this in advance
3 - Carts that you can turn up and sit down, these are normally either the front of rear end of the train, like the first 3 carts.
4 - note that your JR Pass is not valid on all the Shinkansen, the fastest ones are not included.
Don't have a too heavy suit case, you might need to lift it over your head into the baggage space above the seats as there are very little spaces at the end of the train cart for luggage. I almost hurt my back doing this, so don't have like 20kg suitcase around and they don't like you taking a seat up with your bags.
I spent 3 nights/4 days in Kyoto, literally PACKED it in and I still have not been to everything or seen enough. I could spend another 3 days there easily. Kyoto isn't that cheap, I was paying the same per night as Tokyo. £440 for 3 nights.
Also, trust Google Maps, TRUST it, and be careful when it says "change lines" on the subway but in reality you are on the same train, because Japan subways are run by many companies, they own different routes so the same train going from A-B, half way through you will go from 1 line to another, like Central Line to Northern Line, in London, all without you getting off the train. I once got off the train just to realise I need to get back on the same one as Google maps sometimes even tell you what platform to get the subway/train from. Google maps also tell you the cost of the journey as well.
Soldato
I booked next years trip the other weekend ... which was an arm and a leg (as my costs are rather higher than Raymonds
Nice in August I did Tokyo-> Takayama -> Kanazawa -> Miyajima -> Kyoto -> Osaka -> My Fuji -> Tokyo and it was one of the best trips I've ever been on. There is an amazing Ninja Temple in Kanazawa with loads of traps, sneaky hiding places, false walls, hidden doors etc.
I am still going through the photos ! so many.
Yeah, if I had got free accommodation it would cut my cost down by like 40%.
I think it was broken down roughly as follows:
I paid for these before I left: -
Accommodation for 2 weeks £2,000
Parking at Heathrow £124.00
Petrol to and from airport £50.00
7 days JR Pass £180.00
Premium Economy Flight £940 (after using AVOIS points)
internal flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka £75.00
Pre-paid VR Zone in Shinjuku £40.00
Robot Restaurant £45.00
I gave myself an allowance of £1600 (I came back with 300 yen in my pocket, about £2.50), I planned for £100 a day with £200 contingency…which I ended buying souvenirs with.
The money paid for my food, entry fees to every temple, skyscrapers (Skytree is expensive, like Y3000 and then extra for the top level, same as Mori Tower to get to observation deck and then more for the roof top).
I ate everything from Y130 seaweed rice ball to chicken skewers for breakfast from 7-11 for Y400 (£3) to Kobe Beef lunch for Y6500 (£50), my most extravagant meal. Most of the time I was eating around Y1000 Ramen really. Only had 2 Sushi meals and both came to about Y2000 (£15) and I was full. I also had bought a couple of T-shirts from GAP for like $4000 as I ran out (didn’t bring enough), spent about £200 or so on souvenirs so in the end it was very close to £100 a day (Y13000). I did get a lot of Coffee and Ice-cream though, like Match Ice-cream….yes please! at every opportunity.
I still have my PASMO card (like an Oyster card), which is 5000 yen to buy in the first instance.
Next trip I will skip Hakone. Fukuoka and Hiroshima, perhaps go to Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka instead, do a round trip of the Kensai region, and much less museums and also much less skyscrapers. If you were to pick just 1 skyscrapers in Tokyo, pick Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills. If you were to go to just 1 Shrine, go to Fushimi Inari at 6am in Kyoto which is free and open 24 hrs. Skytree although impressively high, the tower is on the north east side of the city and quite far away is probably a miss, instead go to Hyatt Park Hotel which is free but because it is a hotel bar, you can't just turn up and take photos and the waiter will sit you down so buy a drink. I took the view that i paid for the view and got a free drink. Tokyo Tower is not that high and any photo of the skyline of Tokyo really ought to have that in it so being on it, negate the point.
I would still stick to hotels though, I don’t find them that expensive (Hakone is an exception because of where it is, and I happened to go there on a Saturday night, it is basically THE weekend break for residents of Tokyo to get away from the City so the weekend is very expensive and more so being the busy season like Autumn with the change of colours). When I was looking at hotels in Tokyo, I found many places around £120 a night and are 4*, I could have stayed in the Hilton in Odiba(?), where the full size Gundum is for a little less per night than what I paid for mine but that Hilton is a bit out of the way, so you got to take into account of the subway cost every day to and from the hotel. In the end I picked Park Hotel Tokyo which was by Shimbashi station, a place where all the Salary men goes to after work to eat and drink, walking distance to Ginza and also Tsuskji Fish market.
There wasn’t anywhere that was more than 30mins or 2 changes on the subway away and the hotel is located on the top 9 floors of a skyscraper, the reception is on the 25th floor and I was on the 34th floor so all the rooms get a great view of Tokyo.
Soldato
Haha did you go to the robot show in Tokyo? It was pretty insane but entertaining at the same time
Soldato
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku also has quite good viewing areas (on something like the 202 floor) and I think is free.
Raymond, I'd be interested to know what you thought of the Robot Restaurant as the people I know who have been there have been a bit disappointed with it ... personally I'd prefer to go to PARMS in Akihabara and see Kamen Joshi (as per the Joanna Lumley documentary last year). which is ~1500Yen.
If you do go to Nagoya then there is a good Railway museum down in the port area (you can catch a private railway down to it from next to the main Nagoya station). There is also a nice castle, which is a national cultural site, just north of Nagoya which is easy to get to via train as well.
One of the things in Japan is to go for restaurants which are "B-grade gourmet" ... these are ones which are normally really good but are the sort of place which normal people go to. You can normally get really good food at a lot lower price than the "top" restaurants ...
Raymond, I'd be interested to know what you thought of the Robot Restaurant as the people I know who have been there have been a bit disappointed with it ... personally I'd prefer to go to PARMS in Akihabara and see Kamen Joshi (as per the Joanna Lumley documentary last year). which is ~1500Yen.
If you do go to Nagoya then there is a good Railway museum down in the port area (you can catch a private railway down to it from next to the main Nagoya station). There is also a nice castle, which is a national cultural site, just north of Nagoya which is easy to get to via train as well.
One of the things in Japan is to go for restaurants which are "B-grade gourmet" ... these are ones which are normally really good but are the sort of place which normal people go to. You can normally get really good food at a lot lower price than the "top" restaurants ...
Was so weird, like someone on crack had thought….hmmmmm what show shall we make? I have no idea how they fit some of the animatronics in that space which I am sure is underground? As for what I thought? Hmmm
They really push the snacks, Popcorn and drinks, at every break a cart would come out to sell it. The show isn't that long, about 4 breaks and it was about an hour of actual show material in a 2 hour slot and it's just set pieces. The story is a bit naff but it is kinda fun for £45 and one off. It's not something I go back again and do not buy it at the door which is Y8000. Paying online is much cheaper. But if you ask me is it value for money? No, not really, it's just weird.
The area it is in is a bit dodgy, its in the red light district so you you are travelling alone or just a group of boys you will get people stopping you saying "Sex?"
p.s. I ran into a couple of YouTubers there, not sure if you know it. Fung Bros Food Channel.
I went to the Metropolitan building too, but when I went the South Tower was closed which I think has the better view. So I only went up the North Tower, and I think it is on the 33rd floor ? where the observation deck is.
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Soldato
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Ray would you mind doing an overall itinery breakdown of yours days, where you went and what did you did on each occasion?
Sure. I am still going through my photos at the moment, but I have to pre-face it that the 1st 7 days of my trip isn't for everyone, unless you like to be heading to A-B all the time, often eating snacks because it's a choice between catching certain places before it closes or a sit down meal.
That said, I saw a lot. Fukuoka, Miyajima, Hiroshima, Kobe, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, Hakone & Tokyo in 7 days. Then stayed in Tokyo for a week.
I can track my whereabouts through my photos !
Day 1
Fukuoka
Lands at 4:30pm, I only came here for the Ramen….and I wanted to start off somewhere south and work my way up and see Japan, what better place than the birth of tonkotsu ramen?
So I landed, then check in and went out for dinner for Ramen.
I also had a little mishap with the sim card so had to venture out about a mile on foot to BIC camera, took some photos along the way.
Day 2
Morning I went to a local Shrine, just to explore the place a little, I forgot the name but I googled Shrine in Fukuoka and it happened to be walking distance away so I went to see it and then left on the Shinkansen to Hiroshima.
This is partly how the streets are so clean….the leaves cleaning crew…
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