July 27, 2011 - Western Japan June 2011
Hi there. I thought given the general concern that there had been about travelling to Japan to give some brief notes from our latest (fifth) trip, in June 2011.
Initially we had been planning to travel from Tokyo and north so as to avoid the rain and heat, however we changed that after the earthquake to something that my family were more comfortable with, settling on Nara (4 nights), Gora Hakone (4 nights) Nagoya (2 nights) Takayama (2 nights) and finishing at Kyoto for 2 nights. Of those places, we'd stayed everywhere except Gora and Nagoya before and had spent quite some tijme at Kyoto in each trip, but essentially the kids were quite nervy about the trip and were being amped up about radiation etc at school so we wanted something familiar.
Changing our flight to come in at Kansai, we went straight to Nara Hotel. it is a truly gorgeous old hotel, one of the "Classic" Hotels (I think Kanaya at Nikko is another) essentially set in woods complete with feral pigs, although i'm not sure whether they were still around when we were there. The hotel isnt cheap, about 25000 JPY per room per night including an extensive brekkie, but it is so classy, the staff are so nice, and the grounds so good that it was like staying at a resort. Just a caution though, even though dinner is very much fine dining, it is priced accordingly, so I winced when paying for 4 though it was worth the treat. Town is only a 5 minute walk though, along the ponds and park, so we ate there most nights. Now personally I cant get tired of Nara, there is plenty to do, the people are friendly, the food is good, the sites are nice, and the park and deer are brilliant, with pretty good shopping. 3 days wasnt really enough, we all wanted to stay, I think if we'd stayed 6 we could have done some day trips and you'd feel rested enough to go home afterward.
From Nara though we went on to Gora. It was a big trip, about 4 1/2 hours, but worth it. Gora is just a little town, we stayed at Hotel Lalaca which is a modern ryokan. I couldnt rave enough about how well we were looked after there. The food is brilliant, it changed every night and morning, we ate in our rooms a few nights then in the dining room the rest. The staff really made us feel at home, we settled in and really made ourselves at home. We took the japaese western room (huge, room enough for 4 easy) plus the japanese room beside it (pretty big), the cost was extremely reasonable. They have great onsen facilities with a private room as well, and are handy to the ropeway and train station. 3 full days was nice, we would have found things to do if we stayed longer, we are slow travellers and generally only do one major thing each day.
Next we went to Westin Castle hotel at Nagoya. That was very nice as well, a bit out of town but quite swish. We were on the exec floor (8), with access to the exec room which was pretty handy, all up great value. Nagoya was good for the kids to go shopping, I found it pleasant enough for walks around the castle.
Then off to Takayama. We've been before, during the snow which was lovely, but we missed the squirrel (Risu) park because it is closed during winter. We had stayed at Tanabe Ryokan and then at Hotel Associa (both very nice, the Associa seemed to be closed this time), this time we stayed again with Tanabe-san. The ryokan is very pleasant, the food great, and we find the town very nice, with good sites and shopping. The squirrel park (we dont get them in Oz) was a huge treat, worth the 2000 JPY taxi ride, you get locked in a huge aviary with squirrels running up and crawling all over you, it was probably the most fun thing my kids have done, they wanted to go again the next day. The grounds around it are cared for by some lovely ladies, it is pretty much a forest, really worth the walk around.
Finally we were off to Kyoto. By this stage (later June) it was getting pretty hot, 30 celcius plus. We were staying at the Hyatt which is just beautiful (inside, outside it's pretty meh) with great rooms and food, in a location pretty close to Kiyomizudera which is our favorite temple precinct. I cant recommend the Hyatt enough, with the caveat that many of the staff speak english pretty much as well as you will, so it isnt a "japanese" experience so much. In any event, with the heat we didnt do much at all, just relaxed and ventured out to our favorite places, i'd have my morning walk but even at 7AM it was pretty stinky, by 11AM it was ferally hot, but still fun.
So there it was, 14 days in our 5th trip. It still hasnt cured us of our Japan obsession, in fact it was so good we have decided we will be back at easter next year. The people were just so friendly and welcoming, it was really hard to leave. It was also interesting seeing so quickly the alternate energy (solar/LED) was being implemented considering that we had only been over at Christmas last year. The LED lights gave no heat, so it was hard to dry our socks!
Hope someone gets some use out of this...
