ebishop

First of all, after reading a ton of wonderful suggestions on this message board, we have put together a partial intinerary.

We are spending 18 nights in Japan in July, part vacation, part graduation present for our 18-year-old son who is enamored of Japanese pop culture. We'd welcome feedback on any or all of our plans below.

July 12: Depart Chicago

July 13-18: Arrive Tokyo (stay at Hilton on points)
Visits to traditional sites as well as pop culture havens (hopefully, some will be relatively near each other). Try to get tickets to a baseball game. Possible day trips to Kamekura or Nikko. (Which would teen son prefer--Nikko, for the glitz factor?)

July 19: Fuji Five Lakes.
Husband wants to climb Mt. Fuji, son and I willing to consider it. Stay somewhere around Lake Kawaguchi because it's close to 5th station. Can anyone suggest a place to stay? Also, would like some perspective on the climb. Some say it's quite difficult (night, loose rock, thin air), and others say it's no problem. Also, I read in one place (Fodors?) that the huts were unpleasant places to stay mid-climb.

July 20-25: Kyoto, stay at Westin Miyako
Possible day trips to Ohara, Himeji, Nara, Miho Museum.
Any particular places teen son would like? I imagine at some point he will have seen one shrine/temple too many.

July 26-28: (Possibly) Miyajima, Momiji-so Ryokan
See Hiroshima Peace Museum & Dome on the way from Kyoto, and then spend that night and the next on Miyajima. One full day (the 27th) visiting the sites on Miyajima and maybe a trip to the beach!

July 28: don't know

July 29: don't know

July 30: don't know

July 31: Depart Narita airport for Chicago: 6:25 pm flight

You can see, the last few days are up in the air. We realize it's going to be hot, so are a little apprehensive about going further south for July 28-30. But maybe if we stayed right on the coast, ocean breezes would help.

Also don't want to have to backtrack a great distance to get to Narita on the 31st.

Maybe after Miyajima we should head to an easily accessible mountain area to cool off. And then go directly to Narita on the 31st (since our flight is not till 6:25 pm).

Also, would a 14-day JR pass, activated either on our way to Fuji Five Lakes (a bus from Shinjuki may be more direct) or our way to Kyoto, work here?

Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!

kelasher

My daughter is also a Japan nut, especially anime/manga. We went in 2003 for two weeks and are going back in 2006 for HER graduation present.

Anyway - We stayed at the Westin Miyako and it was wonderful - good choice! In Kyoto, try to get to Sanjusangendo - a temple with, I think, a thousand gold statues. Amazing.

If he likes anime/manga, look for Animate - a store that specializes in same in Tokyo. To save money, try the Book-Off stores. They have tons of manga and it is a discount bookstore.
Try to make it to the Harajuku district, Takeshita Dori Street and surrounding area. We were there on a Sunday morning which I heard was the big day to be there and it was jammed with teens. Lots of little shops of teen stuff and lots of teens parading around, some in cosplay outfits.

We spent half a day in a department store (Takishamaya Times Square in Shinjuku) just wandering around and looking at all the goods. That particular store is attached to a Tokyo Hands(?) store, which sells outdoor products/home products. The basement has tons of food vendors - you can make a meal of it.

You may want to hit Odaiba in Tokyo. There's a giant ferris wheel, a Toyota building with cars to try out, lots of shops and a few museums. There's even a Statue of Liberty.

We went to Kamakura and I loved it. The temples are amazing - especially the giant Buddha. Nikko may be more exciting for your son - we're going to go there next trip. I just found out about a place called Nikko Edo Village, sort of a ninja-samurai-old Japan theme park, which your son might like.

We went to Hiroshoma. Worth it, but quite depressing. Even the city was depressing looking.

We did a side trip to Himeji to see the castle. It's quite impressive and you can climb to the top and get a great view of the countryside. The castle itself has all kinds of defenses built in, like secret hiding places for the soldiers.

We also did Nara. There are deer all over the place and people selling crackers to feed them. Your son might like Himeji better - especially if you think he's going to be tired of all the temples.

Be prepared for lots of stairs and lots of walking. Pack light if you can - we were lugging heavy suitcases up and down stairs in the stations and it wasn't fun.

As for language, few people seem to really understand spoken English but we still got by on very little Japanese. Most products have the prices on them, most places have signs in English and Japanese. At least for the places we were, it wasn't too hard to muddle through.

Have a great time!

Kelasher

lcuy

I have not climbed Fuji, but got feed back from many who have, including a group of US high school students and their chaperones.

This is not a walk up the mountain. It is a climb. Many of our fiends said they were really caught off guard by the difficulty. They said they were not really prepared for walking in darkness, the crowds, the cold, and the scrambling across the loose rocks at the top. It was do-able, but most said it wasn't fun and they wouldn't do it again.

mjs

I climbed Mt Fuji as a 16 yo in pretty decent shape as I was running cross country during that time and I will tell you that it was not an easy stroll. It was an adventure but everyone knows that only a fool does it twice.

ebishop

kelasher: Thanks for all the Tokyo tips. I'll be sure to add them to our list--especially the discount manga store, as as my son was looking for one. It sounds likes like you and your daughter had a great time.

lcuy and mjs: I had a feeling that the climb was a bit more involved than some of the descriptions of it I read.

ebishop

lcuy and mjs: I'll wait to get a little more feedback on the climb but as it sounds now--maybe I'll skip it.

Thanks to you both and kelasher.

Florence

Bonjour Ebishop,

If you can change your plans re. hotel in Tokyo, I suggest you go to Kyoto on the 14th or 15th already, since this is the time for THE big festival, Gion Matsuri. On the 17th is a fantastic parade of giant floats, and the days and nights before all of Kyoto (and their country cousins) congregate to admire them in the streets, many wearing their nicest summer kimonos, craftmen and townpeople will expose their better works, you can visit some traditional houses normally closed to the public, etc.

look for infos here: http://raku.city.kyoto.jp/sight_e.phtml

and here:
http://www.kyotoguide.com/index/index.html


You can then go further south, or elsewhere (summer is festival time all over Japan), then spend the last few days in Tokyo, so no backtracking on the 31st.

For Tokyo, I suggest you find the book "Tokyo for Free" by S. Pompian (Kodansha): enough suggestions for months and for every tastes, for the price of a subway ticket.

mrwunrfl

The July Grand Sumo Tournament is held in Nagoya and will be on every day from the 10th through the 24th.

ebishop

Merci, Florence, for the suggestion--the Gion festival sounds lovely, but I'm afraid our dates are fairly set--at least the Kyoto ones. Maybe next time.
I'll take a look at the book you suggested.

mrwunrfl: Thank you for the sumo tip. Of the three of us, I am the one most interested in sumo. We'll keep it in mind when near Nagoya.

Does anyone have a suggestion for our last three nights, based on being somewhere near Miyajima? And do you think two nights in Miyajima is overkill or just right to relax after two big cities. (We are not the type of travellers who like to be in a new place every day--which you probably can tell by our 12 nights split between Tokyo and Kyoto.)

Merci beaucoup!

emd

If you are looking for anime/manga, go to Mandarake at Nakano Braodway Mall (western Tokyo, same JR line that goes out to the Ghibli museum in Mitaka- I think it is the JR Chou line). Shop after shop of it, and lots of pop culture collectibles and displays and cosplay too. Mandarake has other locations, check their website, Shibuya, etc. but none of them are like Nakano Broadway Mall- the website has a god descirtion of what Nakano is like. You and whatever other adult you might be traveling with will enjoy the other parts of Nakano Mall while son goes after the anmie/manga. There is a GREAT reflexology foot massage place in that covered mall- highly recommend it- and lots of other intersting shops.

If you see a "Book Off!" store, tell your son to go in. Real discount manga. But your son should realize that all the manga is in Japanese so he won't be surprised-- you won't find any English manga in Japanese stores.

Shibuya at night is a good place for pop culture kids, in the passenger street beside Starbucks. The Mandarake there has a cosplay stage where kids get up in cosplay costume and do karaoke, etc.

As you can tell, I like the pop culture stuff as my teen son does...

emd

There is a good Book Off at Sanjo Keihan subway stop in Kyoto, which is a straight shot down the street from the Miyako, about 3 stops down from Keage stop where the hotel is.

mrwunrfl

I think that taking your time on Miyajima is a great idea. Two night at Momijiso might be quiet and peaceful or quite boring, depending on your perspective. Momijiso is in the woods up the hill from Itsukushima shrine and what there is of a town around it. If you get to Miyajima at 4PM or so you could hike (or ropeway) up Mt Misen, then have dinner, visit the shrine in the evening? Something like that. Then next day sight seeing, the beach, and then go to Hiroshima for the night. I like Hiroshima, actually.

From Hiroshima/Miyajima, you could take the hydrofoil across the inland sea (national park) to Matsuyama. There is a great castle there, Dogo onsen, and a couple of other attractions in the area. Then train across northern Shikoku and a very scenic, breath-taking, trip across the Seto Ohashi bridge system to Okayama.

You could visit the World Expo in Nagoya at the end of July.

When I first saw "ebishop" I thought "ebi shop", a place where you would buy cooked shrimp.

ebishop

After scratching our heads for a few days, we've come up with a possible answer to our last few nights dilemma:

July 28: Miyajima/Takayama

July 29: Takayama

July 30: Tokyo

July 31: Depart Narita airport for Chicago, 6:25 pm flight

Does it make sense to travel from Miyajima to Takayama? I looked at Hyperedia, and if I read it right it look like only about a 4-hour trip once we got off the island and onto the train. Didn't check Tak. to Tokyo yet.
The mountains might be a refreshing (i.e. cooler) place to be after Miyajima.

Thanks, all!

KimJapan

Long trip Miyajima to Takayama. From Miyajima to Hiroshima Station, count on an hour at least. Then the journey to Takayama. 5 hours 22 minutes with 2 changes of train is the best I found. Takayama to Tokyo best I found was 4 hours 18 minutes and 1 change of trains.

It might be cooler than Hiroshima, but it'll still be hot.

You might want to go Miyajima - Nagoya to Expo like Mrwnrfl suggested, then take a bus from Nagoya to Shirakawa-go. S-go is much smaller than Takayama and not a city at all. Personally, I prefer S-go to Takayama, and it's closer to Nagoya.

You wouldn't have to be in Tokyo the day before for a 6:25 PM departure so you could stay a night in S-go in a minshuku for a really nice kind of traditional experience.

28 - Miyajima - Nagoya...Expo afternoon and evening (after dinner the crowds let up a lot)

29 Nagoya to S-go by bus, night in minshuku

30 Takayama if you like or Nagoya or Tokyo

31 depart

ebishop

Interesting, KimJapan. I read about a neat place to stay in S-go, but then keep reading that S-Go was about 90 minutes further than Takayama, which itself seemed a hike.

I guess you're saying that we can bypass Tak. and go to S-go via Nagoya. Hmmm.

And mrwunrfl mentioned the Sumo tournament in Nagoya--that would probably be a bigger draw for us than Expo.

Will talk to my clan. Thanks.

twirl

You are right, about the most direct path to Kawaguchiko from Tokyo is by bus. I live in Kawaguchiko and I use only the bus to get to Tokyo. The local train line is not JR from Otsuki anyway, so you couldn't use your JR pass the whole way from Shinjuku. It is really slow and considerably more expensive than JR lines or taking the bus. 1700 yen from Shinjuku west exit to Kawaguchiko.

Sorry can't recommend anywhere to stay but there are plenty of hotels in Kawaguchiko.

Climbing Fuji will be extremely hardwork in July for 2 reasons. 1, it is the first month of the official climbing season and half of Japan will be climbing with you (the other half will climb in August!). 2, the weather will be really hot and really humid. If your husband really wants to climb it, I suggest he does it at nighttime with a torch as opposed to doing it in the daytime. He can see the sunrise at around 4.30 (I think thats about the time it came up this morning!). Night time is a lot cooler than the day (so bring warm clothes).

Hope that helps.

mrwunrfl

I travelled from Miyajima to Gero onsen, just south of Takayama, last June. It was a long trip and I don't recommend it esp. if you will be going from Takayama to Tokyo <i>the next day</i>.

Travelling from Miyajima and connecting at Nagoya from the shinkansen to a bus to Shirakawago would be a bit much, IMO. Probably longer than the train to Takayama, once you add in connection and travel time. (I think Nagoya- Tak- S-go is roughly a right triangle and Nagoya- S'go is the hypotenuse) More expensive, too, since it would be a non-JR bus.

You might consider walking the Nakasendo in the Kiso Valley at the end of July. It can be an overnight or day trip from Nagoya. The Nagoya baseball team will be out of town (playing the Giants in Tokyo!) at the time and it will be too late for the sumo tournament, though.

Maybe Kurashiki or Koya-san or the area just south of Nagoya?