Looking for unique recs for 21 day trip

Hey guys.

Ifm looking for random/unique recs to do on our 21 day trip in Winter next year.

A bit about us just to make this easier (or harder, as the case may be). We are both female, young, experienced travellers from Australia. This will be my 5th trip back to Japan and my friend has lived and studied there for almost two years. She speaks wicked Japanese and I speak enough to survive and drunkenly chitchat. We have templed ourselves out over the years and neither of us are into museums. We love theme parks and horror houses, are night and party animals and we both have a lot of friends to catch up with. Ifm an aspiring writer and she is happy to follow me into dark, dingy and edangerousf places while I attempt to question yakuza and bosozoku about daily life. We love rock music but are in no way goths or anime fans and we do most of this stuff in heels with curls. We are the kind of people who have decided to take paper (or a whiteboard) with us so we can write eTHIS IS OSAKA/WHEREVERf on it and get randoms into photos. That always leads to crazy side trips but we want some ideas for just the two of us for the days when we donft want to be sociable but would die before we sat in our hotel room doing nothing.

We have used this site a lot to work out places to go, but still, japan guide is very mainstream. I guess I am hoping for some advice from either people like us or those who live in these areas on what we can do that isnft all over Lonely Planet etc. What is off the beaten track? Is there some weird shopping mall that you know of, or a theme park that isnft a massive foreign tourist trap?

This is our plan. It is pretty full on during the first half and we know this, but as said we are both experienced enough to get through it. Provided we stay semi-sober ;)

We have a 21 day rail pass to get us by.

February 2013

6th – Arrive 8pm, stay in Narita for the night due to connecting flights.

7th – early flight to Sapporo for 2 nights. We want to go to the winter festival and also to Otaru. Any suggestions for the days? Keep in mind that we are from Australia (Queensland to be exact) so we donft understand snow. Even though we are prepared we will probably freeze on the first leg. Basically any snow sport is right out.

9th – fly out of Sapporo to Narita. Train out to Takayama for 2 nights. Big travel day. Ifve been out there before but my friend hasnft. We want to see Shirakawa-go and try and get out to see the Shin-Hotaka Ropeway. Any other suggestions? Or good hotsprings?

11th – leave early and head to Hiroshima for 1 night. Manly using it as a bit of a stopover to break up the travel. Would be great to get out and see Miyajima.

12th – Train down to Beppu for 2 nights. We want to check out the Hells and go to Yufuin. What else is there to do down there? I think we are meeting with a friend of hers one night. Any good suggestions for the evening?

14th – Beppu to Osaka for 5 nights. This is where the fun really starts. Osaka/Dotonbori is my stomping ground. I have a lot of people to catch up with, lots of bars and clubs to visit so our nights are pretty full which is why we are staying so long, but what can we do during the day other than shop and nurse hangovers/Ukon no Chikara? We really want to go down to the harbour area and we have a night of crazy exploration in Shinsekai planned. But what else can we do, or what are good day trips? Wefve both been to and have no real interest in Kyoto (I used to stay in Kyoto but got bored so I used to catch the train down to Osaka to go drinking then get the morning train home) and wefve done Koyasan. Is there something wacky and weird that you know of? Or just something different?

19th – Heading up to Nagoya for 1 night. We have a concert there and Ifve been to the city 3 times and love it, so we have plenty to do and not much time to do it in :(

20th – Head back to Tokyo for 6 nights. And this is her stomping ground though we both know the area well and have lots of people to catch up with. Having said that, we have both spent that much time there that we feel we have found our favourite places and seen all there is to see. Which we both know is utter bull! There has to be so much more to explore!
We want to find this dodgy patch of dirt park in some strange town that I canft read the kanji for, but it is known as a motorbike chop shop hot spot, and we both want to go down to Yokohama Chinatown. We are staying a stop out of Shinjuku, right in the heart of Korea town so that also gives us a different experience. We want to try and get out to Fuji-Q High Land for a day as well, but then we are a bit stuck. We really need suggestions to keep us busy during the days. Sleep is for when we fly home.

26th – fly out at 9pm. So this day is D-Day. It happens every time so we never plan anything. Wefll be hung over, miserable and probably spend the day buying heavy things and drinking Strong Zero in a park somewhere.



So... can any of you help us out? Even if it is just more great bars to go drinking in.

Thanks for your time!

Firstly, your post is a crack-up. Thanks for the laughs. You guys sound like a lot of fun.

I'd suggest you buy a pair of snow boots. They're grippy, warm, waterproof, ridiculously comfortable and of great help to snow noobs. I bought a seriously cute pair from Amazon that arrived in Aus about a week later, for a good price. They were Sorel brand.

In Tokyo, you need to visit a crazy little restaurant named Kagaya. http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~kagayayy/

There's a theme park in Yokohama called Cosmoworld, which you might want to visit the night you're down there too.

Oh and Albatross at Golden Gai is a great bar. It's in about the 3rd laneway. We normally go there after Omoide Yokocho dinner.

http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?1+83560
Just in case there's anything in there that you haven't done

I agree with Sal1980, you sound like fun people to travel with and you have a nice writing style.

Have you already booked your internal flights? Is there a specific reason you chose this order? I would be more inclined to fly from Sapporo to Beppu/Oita/Fukuoka instead of back to Narita, and then head east.

There are some discount air pass options which may be useful (instead of Jetstar Japan or whoever you were thinking of flying with)
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2364.html

I'd also spend more time in Hokkaido itself but it depends what you are after I guess. I guess going somewhere like the ice-breaker ships from Abashiri may not interest you.
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e6865.html
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e6868.html

Also, if you don't decide to fly to Oita then I'd be inclined to just use the JR Pass to head south. You could stop in smaller towns or even cities that are just less visited on the way south. Even somewhere like Hakodate is interesting enough to spend a night but perhaps it is not lively enough for you?
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5350.html

Plenty of other options in Tohoku.
http://www.japan-guide.com/list/e1102.html

We have a 21 day rail pass to get us by.

Especially with the above flights you may be able to use a 14-day JR Pass instead and save some cash for wild nights.

9th – fly out of Sapporo to Narita. Train out to Takayama for 2 nights. Big travel day. Ifve been out there before but my friend hasnft. We want to see Shirakawa-go and try and get out to see the Shin-Hotaka Ropeway. Any other suggestions? Or good hotsprings?

Okuhida region for hotsprings.
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5942.html

I'd be more inclined to go from Takayama - Shirakawago - Kanazawa and spend a night in Kanazawa and then continue on to Hiroshima (via Kyoto).

11th – leave early and head to Hiroshima for 1 night. Manly using it as a bit of a stopover to break up the travel. Would be great to get out and see Miyajima.

Easy enough, just check the tide times link down the bottom
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3450.html

12th – Train down to Beppu for 2 nights. We want to check out the Hells and go to Yufuin. What else is there to do down there? I think we are meeting with a friend of hers one night. Any good suggestions for the evening?

No Fukuoka?

I think I'll let the others handle some of your off-beat Osaka/Tokyo requests!

Enjoy your trip!

Sal1980

Glad I could make you laugh. And yes, we are so much fun, according to us. Travelling with us is a different story though. Last time we were there together we took another two people with us and seriously I think they wanted to kill us by the end of it. Most mornings involved them being up and ready for day trip adventures, waiting for us, and then eventually finding my friend and I sitting in stairwells, drunk as all hell, hiding from the morning sun and trying to read Japanese gossip magazines. Upside down. Needless to say that we didnft do too many day trips ;)

Oh yes! Snow boots are a must! I already have an amazing pair. They are shiny silver waterproof, fur, Velcro space shoes. o.O That is honestly the best way to describe them, aka they were that amazingly ugly that I just had to have them ;)

Oh, been to Cosmo world and loved it. Wefve already planned to go back and go on the Haunted House tour again. So much fun!

Funnily enough Ifve been to the Golden Gai (Ifm a big fan of yazuka history and that place is rich with it) but Ifve never been to Omoide Yokocho. I think that needs to be added into the top drunk places to visit! There are also a number of things on that other thread that you linked. Thanks for that! And thank you so much for your help.


GC3:

Hiya. Internal flights are already booked and sadly (well, no, amazingly!) we got them for next to nothing. Only catch was that it was return only and in and out of the same airport. Hence why we fly back from Sapporo to Narita. The rest of the trip is set in stone as well; we honestly worked most of it out around weekends.

I think we are going to be a bit bored up in Hokkaido honesty, so two nights should be enough. And amazing as the ice caps are, thatfs really not our thing.

We thought about the 14 day pass as that would get us up to Tokyo, but then we are staying on the Yamonote line, are heading out to FujiQ, Yokohama, and back out to the airport. We crunched the numbers and it worked out pretty much even which we gathered was good enough. But we may look into that a little more anyway.

Kanazawa and Fukuoka just donft interest us in the slightest. Ifve been to Kanazawa and my friendfs been to Fukuoka and both of us found them rather forgettable. The only reason I would want to go to Kanazawa again would be to see that park in the snow. That would be pretty.

Thanks so much for your help though.


So anyone else got crazy ideas for Osaka??

Lol, you're welcome. We've had a couple of visits to Sea Paradise too, and ridden Blue Fall (one of those tower ones that drops you from the sky) about half a dozen times. It's nice looking out at Yokohama when you're waiting to plummet. I recommend it.

Have fun in those stairwells!

Ok, just popping back into this to see if anyone has any recs relating to my original question. We leave in 13 days so everything in the itinerary is set in stone, but we would still love some more crazy places to visit.

We have also changed to just the 14 day rail pass, which is great (especially with the exchange rate at the moment) and now Hiroshima night is taken up by another awesome concert.

Any suggestions for things out of the ordinary in Osaka or Tokyo? I've managed to find information on a thieves market in Osaka that we've marked down as a must see, as well as some seedy RLD spots, but other than that we still don't have anything new and crazy.

So please, if you have any ideas that aren't as commonly known, are off the beaten track, or just a little bit on the dodgy, dangerous side, then let us know.

Thanks again.