Itinerary Check- 17 days

Hello!

Below in my tentative itinerary. Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
Japan Itinerary

Day 0 Wednesday 06:00 Leave USA
Day 1 Thursday 15:25 Arrive Tokyo
17:00 Check into Hotel
18:00 Dinner
19:00 Bed!
Day 2 Friday 8:20 Depart Tokyo for Naoshima
{Hopefully sleep a little on the train to help jetlag}
13:34 Arrive Uno Port
14:35 Take Ferry to Naoshima
15:00 Check into Air B&B
15:45 Spend rest of afternoon exploring Naoshima on foot or bike
Day 3 Saturday 9:20 Depart to Inujima to view art via Ferry
Have lunch
1:00 Depart to Teshima
5:20 Take Passenger boat back to Naoshima
18:50 to 19:55 Open Skies at Benesse House
20:15 Fancy Dinner at Benesse House
Day 4 Sunday 8:12 Ferry to Uno
9:02 Arrive Uno Port
9:35 Depart Uno for Osaka
11:39 Arrive Osaka
1:30 Tour of Church of the Light by Tadao Ando
3:30 Start to make our way to Koyasan
6:00 Night at Koyasan
Day 5 Monday 6:00 Wake up early to meditate with Monks
8:00 Spend morning and afternoon exploring Koyasan/ Onsen
Late afternoon start to make our way back to Kyoto,
18:00 Check into Kyoto Hotel (Hotel Anteroom)
19:00 Diner
Day 6 Tuesday Explore Kyoto
Day 7 Wednesday Explore Kyoto
Day 8 Thursday Possible day trip to Osaka (Night Kyoto)
Day 9 Friday Possible day trip to Nara (Night Kyoto)
Day 10 Saturday 15:10 Leave Kyoto
17:26 Arrive Kanazawa
Day 11 Sunday Visit 21st century Museum
Visit DT Suzuki Museum
Visit Kenrokuen Garden
Night Kanazawa
Day 12 Monday Morning- Not sure yet –Free time
13:48 Depart Kanazawa
14:13 Arrive Kaga Onsen
Possibly check into Beniya Mukayu ryokan Because it is close to Kanazawa, we
want one luxury lodging experience (the rest will be budget hostels etc.)
Spa day!
But open to other suggestions! Also book a ryokan in Hiraya, but it is very remote and difficult to get to. Haven�ft made my final decision yet..
Day 13 Tuesday 11:22 Depart Kagaonsen
14:52 Arrive Tokyo
15:00 Check into Hotel
Check out Nezu Museum
Dinner and Chill
Night in Tokyo
Day 14 Wednesday Architecture Day! (Ginza, Archi depot, Musashino Art University)
Ghibli
Night in Tokyo
Day 15 Thursday Day trip to Sendai
8:20 Depart Tokyo
9:51 Arrive Sendai
Visit Sendai Mediateque (I�fm an architect, I have to go see it)
15:30 Depart Sendai
17:04 Arrive Back in Tokyo
Night in Tokyo
Day 16 Friday Disney Sea
Day 17 Saturday Morning – Last minute architecture viewing
4:00 Leave Narita to fly home!

Looks like a very nice, personal itinerary.

My comments:
- have you considered flying on Day 1 straight to Takamatsu on Shikoku in order to take next Day morning the ferry to Naoshima?
- I find your Naoshima/Teshima\Inujima days a bit confusing. Do you think you have sufficient time on each island? Consider the closing times of the museums and daylight hours.
- there isn�ft a single castle on this route. Is that deliberate?
- is Ghibli just to see from outside? If you want to visit inside you must buy tickets in advance. They can sell out within hours of becoming available. If it is only to see it from outside, I personally think that you can�ft come close enough to see it well. It�fs a bit distant from Tokyo downtown , so just to see it from far from outside would seem a lot of effort for little gain.

Enjoy your trip to Japan!

Hello,

The Naoshima, Teshima and Inujima islands are very small and close together. But I will definitely consider flying down there in order to save time. It does cut out time on Naoshima short.

I am an architect and I have a very specific itinerary of buildings to see, so I need to hurry back to Osaka to take a tout of a famous church (you are only able to view it once a week in a narrow time slot).

Thank you for your input!

Also, I will definitely go see Ghibli, tickets go on sale April 10, I'll be the first one to purchase them!

Hi AJ,

Day 1 is not going to work like that. There is no way you will be able to get through Customs and onto transport to Tokyo to check into your hotel by 17:00. That's 1.5 hours after landing. I find Customs in Japan isn't that bad, but there is just a lot of walking around to where Customs is, going through Customs, getting your bags, getting to ground transportation, getting your tickets, getting on a train, getting to where you are actually staying. A better estimate is you're not going to get to your hotel by 18:00 at the earliest. I would also recommend you force yourselves to stay awake until 21:00 or you will be getting up 3 or 4 am. It's really not fun. I've been there many times. It's really hard on children, I am thinking of trying a sleep mask for the plane for my daughter.

Unless your AirBnB offers kid's bikes or your child is particularly tall I am 99% sure most bike rental places on Naoshima do no have kid bikes. I was trying to research this for myself because originally we were going to Naoshima and my daughter likes to ride, no place we found information had kid's bikes there.
There are rental places with children's bikes, but Naoshima wasn't one of them. Fortunately, the weather should be great when you are there for walking. Technically, Open Skies is held at the Chichu Museum and not Bennesse. They're close but make sure your dinner reservation gives you time to get between them.

I guess depending on flight times, you could look on your first day into flying from Narita to Takamatsu but I am less sure that is possible, because I think most domestic flights are from Haneda. I think it can also depend on your budget. It takes longer via JR but is covered until the ferry with a 2 week pass. if you go via plane you're looking at spending another 10,000 yen or so per person. I mean you can do the math, I wouldn't fly one way unless you can make a 1 week pass work starting on day 8. (you need a pass for the Sendai round trip more than the one way from Okayama to Osaka.) I think it gets confusing figuring out which makes sense, because your child gets 1/2 price on trains but not on planes. I would also just see if flying saves you time. A lot depends on when the flights are. I personally sleep easier on a train than on a plane but that is something personal.

The Hotel Anteroom looks fascinating. It feels like everytime I look at Kyoto some new hotel has sprung up. I saw some Machiya hotel that looked lovely.

Again, unless you are staying in hotel like the Tokyo Station Hotel I think your estimate of 8 minutes to get from the shinkansen to your hotel check in is off. Depending on where you are staying, you might have a hard time making it to the Nezu by 16:30. My last trip to Japan nearly every single day the Hokuriku shinkansen was delayed. The only day it wasn't was the day I had to make a connection in Omiya, so I got lucky! Though it might have been delayed by that afternoon, I did a morning train.

Good luck!

Thanks Rkold,

I was looking into flights and I am actually flying to Haneda. It might just be way too much travel in one day. I�fm happy with taking the train down the following morning.

You are right. 1.5 hours to get to our hotel is not realistic at all. I will look into that hotel you suggested. I tentatively book one at the New Hotel Otani.

Also, I think we are going to splurge for green class tickets on the JR pass, since we are traveling so much.

Hotel Anteroom is very reasonably priced and a great option for interior design enthusiasts.

Going to make sure I have enough time between Open Skies and dinner.

Thank you once again, absolutely could not have planned this without your help.

The only thing I am a little worried about is not having as much time to see everything on Naoshima, but maybe we can get up very early on day three and walk to any outdoor sculptures we may have missed on day 2, before we head to Inujima and Teshima.

I was hoping to rent bikes to move around the island a little faster.

Also, reserved a really nice room at Beniya Mukayu- think it will more than make up for the onsen ryokan visit I was initially planning for Izu.

Also, I apologize for my lousy spelling and grammar. I am writing these posts in between assignments at work, so they are hurried and sloppy!

I meant to say, we could wake up very early on Day three, so go check out a couple of the island sculptures that we may have otherwise missed on the morning of Day 2. It is a packed couple of days, but unfortunately we need to leave early on Day 4 to see the Tadao Ando church in Osaka.

Cheers!

Hi Aj,

I'm rushing out the door so I get the mistakes, I make them too when I don't read everything over before posting. I wish you could edit! It doesn't help my laptop is older than my daughter so the keyboard is finally going.

If you're coming from Haneda you might be able to make it in 1.5 hours. I could have sworn you said NRT in an earlier post. I might be confused. I guess though you could see if there are any late flights from Haneda to Takamatsu. that would save you lot of time and you could start from Takamatsu super early on day 2. It might be worth it to get more Naoshima time.

You will be getting up early in Naoshima, so you might have time to see more. Also if you do fly, you won't have a rail pass so you can use the more frequent and faster Nozomi from Okayama to Shin-Osaka. You can't take them with a rail pass but you can pay out of pocket.

I've only done green once, I didn't find it worth it. The regular seats on shinkansen are surprisingly nice. It's not like sitting in economy in the US. They're nice than some economy plus seats as well.

I did a few google searches and visited a few websites fore rental shops and could not find children's bikes for rent on Naoshima. I think it's not seen as being "high interest" for kids. Maybe they are adding them and the websites I saw are not accurate, but don't count on having bikes as an option. If there now are bikes PLEASE let me know so in 2019 when we go to Naoshima I can bike with my daughter.

The 7 minute transfer coming from Kanazawa is not realistic though, even if you stay at the Tokyo Station hotel, it's going to be more than that. You might want to take an earlier train if you want to do Nezu too.

I'm gl you found a ryokan experience. I am looking into one in Matsumoto now. :) I keep moving around my plans.

I might do 1 night at the Ante now. I want someplace not too far from Kyoto Station so I can catch a 9:20 train. I like that you can get cypress baths or a terrace with some rooms. :) Now I am off to the PO and Trader Joe's

Good luck!

I will definitely consider a flight and so glad you told me about the green line, dont' want to throw away $$$.

Yeah it's really wierd, we fly into Haneda (from Toronto) and out of Narita back to the states.

I found domestic flights for $58 per person, might be worth it for more time at Naoshima!

Will look into the Noshima train line.

Will definitely let you know how Hotel Anteroom is. It is only $150 per night for the 3 of us.

Those cheap flights were from Narita...
It looks like $460 for the three of us from Haneda.

Maybe we could take the Nozima to get us there a little faster, if we could get two more hours of time I would be happy!

Those are on discount airlines, what you want to do for the 10,000 yen flights is:

https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2364.html

The JAL Explorer Fare. It will be from Haneda because it is JAL.

You can PM me when you get back to let me know about Ante and the bike situation on Naoshima. I'd love to know about both. We're doing 4 nights at the Hana Touro, which I love, but I want to be closer to Kyoto Station on Sunday night so we can catch an earlier train to Nagoya.

Nozomi are faster than Hikari and if you were to splurge paying out of pocket for a faster train is probably worth it over paying for Green Class. I've only done Green Class once on a Haruka. You can do search on is Green Class worth it. I want to stress regular class on shinkansen is really really nice, except if you have tons of bags with you!

Another thing you can look into is if going: Okayama to Takamatsu to a ferry is faster or Okayama to Uno to a ferry is faster. I think the issue is more the ferry connections which slow you down. The ferry does not seem timed to the train arrivals in Uno.