6 weeks in Japan starting mid-Feb

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post here. I've read several posts and will continue to do so, but, I thought I'd go ahead and start this conversation. :)

My wife and I will be celebrating our 10th anniversary this year. Our work schedule is light for February and March (we own our own business/are wedding photographers), so we have decided to go for it and go to Japan for a total of roughly six weeks - starting Mid-February and returning March 31st.

While there, we're hoping to not only sight-see & take photographs, but potentially learn as well. This could be new skills, meeting artists, etc - we're really hoping to walk away knowing something new as well as having seen as many shrines & temples as we can fit in.

Neither of us are huge fans of cold weather, so we're thinking to head south once we arrive. I do already have lodging booked for the last nine days in Kyoto.

This is where I could use your help - I'm not terribly familiar with the area, and would love suggestions of what to do. I can do research once I'm pointed in a direction; however, right now, I don't have a great direction. Any suggestions are welcome.

Things that we enjoy:
• We're members of the Conifer society and do enjoy nice gardens / Japanese Maples as well
• We like learning & doing rather than just seeing. We're open to the idea of even volunteering our photographs if it means we get to participate or take part in something the we wouldn't have been able to otherwise
• We're healthy, able to walk quite a ways, in our early-30's
• While our portfolio-building days are past us for photography, we'd still probably enjoy photographing a traditional japanese wedding (we've photographed one in Okinawa before, a few years ago)
• Of course, we enjoy the Japanese culture & food as well :)

Also, last question, for the amount of time we'll be there, does the JR pass for the *entire* timeframe make sense (44 days, 42 days of passes for two people)? It's pretty costly to cover every day. So, I thought I'd ask. (Also, we're using mostly airbnb to find places to stay)

Thanks everyone! I'm going to continue to read as well. I appreciate everyone's advice and feedback ahead of time!

as well as having seen as many shrines & temples as we can fit in}

Shrines-and-temples gets old after a while, but maybe it's just me. You should not buy a JR Pass when you are staying in the same area, it only makes sense for long-distance travel.

Agree with the first response - the JR Pass only pays off when you condense a lot of long distance travel into the Pass timeframe. Depending on your final itinerary, a different pass or simply individual tickets will almost definitely come cheaper than a nationwide JR Pass.

I did a 39 day trip back in 2012, so I have a rough idea of how you might be able to organize your trip to save travelling costs. My suggestions:
1) Start off in Hokkaido if you can. Perhaps you can transfer at Narita and make use of the 10,800 yen discounted flights from JAL or ANA. If you go early enough, you may be able to experience some winter festivities going around. The Sapporo Snow Festival is going from the 5th to the 11th of February, and the Otaru Snow Light Parth is from the 5th to the 14th of February (very good for photos). Even without the festivals, you can easily spend 5 days just exploring Sapporo and Otaru. I know there are glass making classes in Otaru if you are interested.

2) Fly down to Kansai, making us of another 10,800 yen discounted ticket. You can easily spend 10 days exploring Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Nara, and Mount Koya, if not more! Temple lodgings are an experience. You can mix up temple days and city life so that you don't get too tired of temples.

3) Activate a JR National 21-day Pass, and just explore. Recommendations are Hiroshima, Miyajima, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Kanazawa, Takayama, Nagano, Matsumoto. You may also revisit the Kansai region if there are any festivals ongoing, such as Omizutori in Nara or Hanatoro in Kyoto. You may also want to use buses in between where places of interest cannot be access by trains, such as Kurokawa Onsen, Shirakawa-go, and so on.

4) Make sure to end up in the Kanto region (i.e. Tokyo). If you have any time left on your pass, you can make a daytrip to Nikko. You can easily spend 6 days exploring Tokyo, Kamakura, and Yokohama. If you are lucky, you may encounter a wedding at Meiji Shrine.

That alone would be 42 days worth of travelling :) If you are entering and exiting through Kansai instead, then just rearrange (2) and (4).

Check out the following for a list of decent Japanese gardens:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2099.html

If you want to find out things you can do and experience, I also suggest checking out the Wikitravel entries for some of those places I listed. They often have recommendations for things to do. For example, the Kyoto entry has listed some temples where you can participate in a Buddhist meditation session if you are okay with trying it out.

Thanks everyone!! Looking into everything!!

@Taiakun - thank you so much for the detailed response!! I'm looking into all of your suggestions.

However, if we'd like to go south for warmth (we're from the south in the USA ... we're just not very tolerant of cold weather / when it's near freezing temperatures). I would simply have waited until later in the year to visit, but, well, this is the timeframe we have to work with.

Do you, or anyone reading this, feel like we're really missing out by not going up that way? If it's just astoundingly amazing, we can deal with the cold. :)

Otherwise, do you feel there is enough in the Kumamoto/Fukuoka & Kochi/Kagawa areas to occupy the time?

Also, thank you everyone for the advice on the JR pass. I'm still on the fence about it. So, if we only use it once per week, it's best to buy tickets there. If we're using it daily, it's best to buy the JR pass - is what I am hearing.

I'm going to continue to do more research & try to find every interesting area I can. A HUGE thank you to everyone!! Keep the suggestions coming if you have anything to add. :)

Also, is there any website where people offer classes in Japan? Anything similar to skillshare?

I'd love to find & learn from a:

• Shou Sugi Ban master/teacher (we're doing this technique with our own home renovations - it'd be really neat to learn from something that does this traditionally)

• Artists of all kinds and walks of life

• Metalworkers (I've found one who is willing to teach us with an intensive course so far)

• People working with fabrics - dying, shaping, weaving, wax resists, etc.

• Custom Furniture builders/makers. (I'd just love to see how they make the furniture there - if there are differences, what they use for finishes, their techniques and tools used. I feel a lot would be pretty similar to the US, but there may just be some unexpected differences as well.)

• Anything else fun & unexpected. :)

Oh, also, while I'm posting (and I am *sure* this has probably been asked a million times, but): is there a website with a full list of ALL of the festivals & celebrations in Japan's different regions? I've found the general festivals, but I think there must already be a master list somewhere saying "BE HERE" for this festival/celebration.

Thank you!! I just thought I'd add this post as a side-note incase anyone knew anyone or knew of anyone.

Warmer climate
You can cover Kyushu instead of Sapporo. My suggestion:
- Start off in Fukuoka
- Activate a JR Kyushu Northern Rail pass (3 days), stay in Nagasaki for two nights, then go to Kumamoto.
- If you are interested in Mt Aso, Kurokawa Onsen, or Takachiho, you can use buses to get to those places from Kumamoto. You can then backtrack to Kumamoto, or continue east to the Oita area or Nobeoka.
- You can then activate a 21 day JR pass, then go exploring.

Since you had already covered Kyushu here, you can focus on the Chugoku, Shigoku, and Chubu regions with your JR Pass. When it is close to expiring, try to end up in the Kansai region (Kyoto/Nara/Osaka/Kobe) and explore the area. You can use a Kodama discount ticket (10,100 yen) to get to the Kanto region (Tokyo, Kamakura, Yokohama).

JR Pass
Yes, pretty much you have to be doing extensive long-distance travel every 2-3 days in order for it to pay off. If this does not pay off, then I recommend that you make use of discount air tickets from JAL or ANA to cover the longest distance first (i.e. Tokyo to Kagoshima). Therefore you will only have to cover the cost of a one-way trip via bus/train fares.

Classes
Japan-guide also has an entry on some places that may have things you are interested in:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2424.html

Some local tourism sites for some of the cities may have information on this. Uchiko in Shigoku for example has some fabric dying classes and pottery classes.
http://www.tourismshikoku.org/thingstodo/history.html

Festivals and Celebrations
You can check out the calendar on Japan-Guide which lists the most well known events.
http://www.japan-guide.com/event/

JNTO also has information.
http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/festivals/

Wikitravel will also have information on this, but you will have to search for each city individually.