Third trip to japan august 2013, suggestions?

hello,

after visiting japan in 2010 july and 2012 november with my girlfriend, next year i would like to visit japan with a good friend of mine in august 2013 for 3 weeks.

we would like to stay in tokyo, hakata, kyoto, yaeyama islands.

has anyone some suggestions which places we should definetely visit?

i have seen already: tokyo, nikko, kamakura, yokohama, hakone, sendai, yamadera, shimo yoshida, takaragawa onsen, shosenkyo gorge, kyoto,arashiyama, osaka, hiroshima, iwakuni, miyajima, nara, amanohashidate, yakushima.

but we will visit hakone, nikko, kamakura, yokohama, fuji (travel up the mountain) again.

is it safe to travel up mt fuji? when to start and where, what to bring and how long does it take?

where are the best summer festivals and fire works and from which time on and where to see those enlighted mountains in summer?

also would like to do some kabuto and stag beetle searching on the country side. where and when can we do that and is august 10th to 30th the right time to do so?

thanks for helping
snkfreak

August is prime season for the Tohoku festivals - Nebuta (Aomori), Neputa (Hirosaki) Kanto (Akita) Tanabata (Sendai)

http://www.tohokumatsuri.jp/english/index.html

It's a beautiful time of year to visit places like Hachimantai. I thoroughly recommend Goshogake. The Shirakami Juuniko & Anmon falls areas are both impressive if you are interested in Beech tree forests.

I second the Tohoku Sandai Matsuri... I went last year and it was really great! Book early for that though, hotel rooms are hard to come by since the matsuri are so famous.

I also recommend going to Nagaoka's fireworks right before the start of the Sandai Matsuri. It is around August 2nd or so, and are very famous in the Kanto region... really spectacular!

The Yaeyama Islands are great, you really can't go wrong with anything you do there! I definitely recommend them.

Not only in Tohoku, August is the prime time for festivals all over Japan.

Shikoku would be another good one if you're interested in festivals. Both the Awa Odori and Yosakoi Matsuri occur at that time:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e7802.html
http://www.attaka.or.jp/yosakoi_lang/english/what's.html

Uwajima also has one of their Bull Sumo tournaments:
http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/regional/ehime/uwajima.html

Shikoku also has a lot of nice touring options (4 original castles, great gardens, the 88 temples, Konpirasan, Ryoma sites, Dogo Onsen, etc.)

The art islands in the Seto Inland Sea will also be hosting the 2013 Setouchi Art Triennale. I've been to Naoshima and Inujima and they're both great! It's highly recommended if you like art:
http://setouchi-artfest.jp/en/

North in Okayama, the have their Momotaro Matsuri and they do a night light-up of Korakuen Garden which is really beautiful. (It's also great in the daytime) The Kibi plains are also one of my favorite places, especially nice if you like cycling.

some more info about our trip:
we are staying from august 11th to august 30th.

our main staying points will be tokyo, kyoto, hakata.

any daily trips suggestions to beautiful places we could visit there to see summer festivals and enlighted mountains?

thanks so far for your opinions. :)

any suggestions how to plan our trips? dont know the airpass conditions for august so i cannot decide when to visit yaeyama and what before and what places after...

There are many firework festivals in Tokyo and Fukuoka in mid-August. At the festival, many people enjoy seeing fireworks with delicious food and cold beer. And, many women wearing YUKATA(informal summer KIMONO) are very cute. I used to like the festival, when I lived in Fukuoka and Tokyo.

One big festival was held near Tokyo Bay at August 11th this year, but the day of the same festival of next year has not been decided.