By Sue
Hi All, Have just returned from 3 weeks in Japan, thanks to all who gave advice and helped us have a great time. Thought I would address a few things that commonly come up on this forum and hope they help. Please bear in mind that this comes from our preferences (ie prefer country to city, fewer crowds etc)
- Airport to Tokyo- Narita express using Suica card. Very easy as long as you only have one suitcase each. Any more and I wouldn't do it. There is not a big step from the platform to the train and plenty of storage on the train. The suica card was great for getting around Tokyo- saved the hassle of buying tickets and lasted us for 2 full days
- hotel in Tokyo- Century Southern Tower- great location short walk from south exit of Shinjuku station. Very clean and modern business hotel- no mini bar of in room service but a good shop near reception. Would recommend.
- Train to Takayama. Shinkansen no problem. We got luggage stored behind last row of seats but can see that in busier season this could be a problem.
- Hire car from Takayama. DRIVING- same side of road as Oz so this not a problem. In more remote areas (here and Shikoku) roads very narrow and you have to rely on mirrors at every bend. Can be a bit unnerving but manageable. Would hire a smaller car for this reason. Satellite navigation useful even though place names in characters. Would try and get someone to put in destinations for me (ours you could put phone number in and it would get us straight there) Useful if only to see you are on the right highway number and heading in right direction. (Road signage is good sometimes and terrible others)
- Had 4 nights in Shin Hotaka (one hour north of Takayama). for us we were glad we stayed here rather than Takayama as it was less crowded and beautiful. Stayed at 2 different ryokan with riverside onsen- both great for different reasons. Good place for onsen experience as you can bathe next to the river and look at snow covered mountains
Tsumago- booked 2 nights but really one is enough (particularly if weather bad)
Kyoto- 4 nights. WE preferred here to Tokyo. Managed to rent a traditional Machiya (townhouse) in Gion. Would recommend staying in Gion for the atmosphere and still an easy walk to cbd and train station. (didn't have car here) Did the walk out of Lonely planet leading up to and on the Path of Philosophy to the Silver Temple which was enjoyable, but please note it is under renovation and you will only see scaffolding (think it will take a while to finish). We enjoyed the walk and the gardens and temples along the way anyway. Other sights, Golden Pavilion (gets very crowded), southern Higashiyama walking tour both worthwhile
Iya Valley on Shikoku. You definitely need a car here and road conditions as above. We stayed at a place called Iya Bijin (?bigin). It was perched out over a river gorge, service and food fantastic. They even realised that we were struggling with Japanese breakfasts and without asking gave us an "American breakfast" on our third morning.
One small disappointment is that this is a most beautiful area and parts have been spoilt by huge concrete monstrosoties of buildings along the rivers edge- not pleasing to the eye at all.
- We then went on to visit our son who is teaching english at a school in a small village half way between Nakamura and Sukumo, quite remote. Of interest, he has been in the country for 10 months and has fluent conversational Japanese. He says immersion is one thing but you really have to study hard as well as it is a difficult language
- Other hints:
Street addresses- print all your destinations and phone numbers out before you go (in Japanese characters) Even if you do this finding places can be tricky. In Kyoto and some other parts, prior to 1950, houses were numbered in order of construction, not in street order, so even taxi drivers will know a general area but not the exact place
Money- Find out before you go which accom accepts credit card and which don't - helps with working out how much cash you need. We needed mainly 1000 and 5000 yen notes, didn't have much need for 10,000 notes (not big spenders!!)
Hope this isn't too long and a bit useful.
