Japan, shuppatsu shinko!

[Nick_Burman]

Hello all.

 

Me again...with a bit over 60 days to go, preparations are still going on. The European leg of the trip has been dealt with - we have hotel reservations in London (going) and Milan (coming back)(in the end we found hotels with accommodation which was cheaper and better than renting a flat), the flights have been reserved and paid all the way to/from Narita, everything is set up for departure.

 

Today my mother and I sat together and worked out the final itinerary, with dates and times. The result is in the attached picture. Please excuse my atrocious handwriting... :D :( :wacko: :blink: on the right you'll find approximate running times between places (taken from Hyperdia and a few other sites); in the middle is the itinerary - the long straight line is the itinerary itself, the side arrows are the side trips. On the right is the schedule we worked out, from April 28th to May 25th; the little bed symbols indicate places where we will stop and stay (a pair for each place). One detail which caught our attention is how easy some of our moves will be - when I saw the distance between Kanazawa and Kyoto, for instance, I reckoned on 4h, Hyperdia says that the Thunderbird covers it in 2h20 (which means I think I'll do the dotted line move, by way of the Fukutetsu and Tsuruga).

 

With itinerary and dates worked out, the only things missing are buying the JR passes, dealing with hotels and allocating funds for expenses (which will mean buying dollars - the Brazilian government has imposed a 6% international credit card transaction tax, which has rendered the use of this kind of payment mode expensive). As for hotels, I mentioned before that we will be giving priority to hotels like Toyoko Inns and their kin (although I'll be taking Ochanomizu's suggestions into consideration, especially in Kyoto), question is, can I reserve as I go or is it better to have it reserved beforehand (for the arrival in Tokyo I'll be reserving beforehand, I'm aiming for the Shinagawa area)? Also, I would like to stay in an traditional ryokan, my thought was about doing it in Takayama, does anyone know of an suitable establishment? Failing Takayama, if anyone has a suggestion for an ryokan in one of the towns I'll be going through I'll be grateful.

 

I'm eager to hear about your comments...

 

Cheers NB

[lurkingknight]

I used agoda.com for my hotel bookings. When I went in late march/april last year, we booked hotels in january, kyoto was near sold out.... seriously.

 

Osaka might be a better staging point since it's central to kansai. It takes about an hour to get to any of the other cities in the kansai area by train. Your JR pass won't help you a whole lot here, most of kansai is private rail, with an osaka loop line that's JR but I don't feel it's as all encompassing as the yamanote loop in tokyo. Since nothing seems to open until 10am, you have time to take the train/subway from osaka to kyoto or kobe or nara in the morning and be in 'town' by the time things open. And I think by being in osaka and going outwards in the mornings makes it easier as I think rush hour people are coming IN to town.

 

Passmo and suica should be interchangeable in kansai, passmo is the local prepay fare card, suica is more eastern japan, but they're the 2 big ones and their systems now offer interchangeability (also a lot of other fare cards as well) The only thing I think in kansai that can't take suica are the kyoto busses... and I don't think they take passmo either. But that's easily solved by visiting the tourist information desk at kyoto station and getting an unlimited bus pass, I think they do 2 or 3 day cards.

 

Also for kansai is the kansai thru pass, it's unlimited travel on just about every private rail and bus line in the region. It's a bit more expensive at 5000y for 3 days. The day ends at midnight, so if you activate the card on a day say at 8pm, the day in the system ends at midnight so you only get 4 hours out of it.. we learned that the hard way. But you can buy one and not use it until you're ready to. I worked it out later on hyperdia... you'd have to take the subway 4-6 rides for a minimum of 1 stop to get your money's worth from the card... so it may not save you money in the long run, but for convenience factor to jump into a subway from where ever you get lost to and find your way back somewhere, it's quite handy.

 

The nice thing about the thru pass is that it's 3 non consecutive days, so I can activate and use it on monday for the day, and not use it until thursday and activate it then for thursday and again on saturday. You also get a book of coupons for local attractions, but for some reason the regular prices were already the discounted rate, so the book was a bit useless.

Edited March 2, 2014 by lurkingknight

[JR 500系]

Oh very nice plan!

 

Can I also suggest using buses for Kyoto? There is also a one-day pass for Randen, tram for touring around the city. It's really convenient, plus you can take some nostalgic tram which I believe anyone would like!

[Nick_Burman]

Oh very nice plan!

 

Can I also suggest using buses for Kyoto? There is also a one-day pass for Randen, tram for touring around the city. It's really convenient, plus you can take some nostalgic tram which I believe anyone would like!

 

That's one idea, although most likely we will use whatever means of transportation it takes to get around. The "bus" on the plan refers to the Takayama - Shirakawa-go - Kanazawa leg, since it cuts the dogleg through Toyama (and takes in Shirakawa-go, an UNESCO World Heritage site).

 

Cheers NB

Edited March 4, 2014 by Nick_Burman

[westfalen]

On the last three trips I have organised myself I booked all the hotels online before I left, one less thing you don't have to worry about while you're there.

 

I agree with Lurkingnight about basing yourself in Osaka, I did that during mt 2011 trip for five days. I bought a 3 day and a 2 day Kansai Thru Pass to use on top of my JR Pass so I was covered on everything.

 

I will be arriving in Japan as you are leaving with a little overlap, on the Nov 19th I will be heading from Tokyo to Nagoya at the start of my trip.

[JR 500系]

On the last three trips I have organised myself I booked all the hotels online before I left, one less thing you don't have to worry about while you're there.

 

I agree with Lurkingnight about basing yourself in Osaka, I did that during mt 2011 trip for five days. I bought a 3 day and a 2 day Kansai Thru Pass to use on top of my JR Pass so I was covered on everything.

 

I will be arriving in Japan as you are leaving with a little overlap, on the Nov 19th I will be heading from Tokyo to Nagoya at the start of my trip.

 

West buddy - I'm green with envy... It seems every year you're able to visit the land of trains... I wished I could do that¬¬

 

 

That's one idea, although most likely we will use whatever means of transportation it takes to get around. The "bus" on the plan refers to the Takayama - Shirasawa-go - Kanazawa leg, since it cuts the dogleg through Toyama (and takes in Shirasawa-go, an UNESCO World Heritage site).

 

Cheers NB

 

Hi Nick¬ I think you meant Shirakawa-Go?

 

http://wikitravel.org/en/Shirakawa-go

 

It's a fantastic place to visit, but when I went to Takayama in 2012 it was snowing too heavily and we were too late to be able to go there... Pity. I see in your plan you have the Toyama Kurobe gorge tour too? I'm wanting to go there too! Hope to visit Kurobe dam, one of the largest dam in the world too while i'm there...  

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZthbi2cJms