All you Japan experts- please help plan holiday to Japan
 

Hello, My husband and I are considering spending about 8-9 days in Japan (other than Tokyo), with our two year old. We plan to leave around March 28. Since we have been to Tokyo before, we are planning on arriving and flying out of Osaka. We are interested in gardens and outdoor activities, pretty scenery, charming local villages/architecture, and flea market type local shopping. On doing some preliminary research, I have ended up with the trip invovling Osaka and Kyoto and some smaller towns/villages as day-trips. We are generally fond of hiring a car, since it gives us felxibility. My questions are as follows -<BR>What iteninary should we follow? Which places/villages? Is it okay to hire a car or should we stick with the trains (we neither speak or read any Japanese)? What is the weather like? We would like to stay in good/charming hotels (can be upto $200-250/night). What do you recommend? Any other tips would be much appreciated. Many, many thanks. Deepa

Hello, <BR>Hope you have a nice trip. I fly for Japan Airlines and so I only have some knowledge of the downtown area's during layovers. However I have taken my family to Osaka for a few days. Kyoto is nice. What I wanted to suggest is to stick with the trains. Taffic in Japan is always heavy and always expensive. Tolls can be $20. The bullet train is great so you may want to check out Nagyoa area as well. This is my favorite. Have a nice trip.

Bonjour Deepa,<BR><BR>First, forget about a car in Japan. Remember they drive on the left, almost all the signs are in Japanese, tolls and gas prices are horrific and the traffic conditions are hell most of the time. Trains and bus will give you all the flexibility you need.<BR><BR>Given your interests, Kyoto is definitely the place you want: full of gardens, flea-markets and ideally located for daytrips to local villages. <BR><BR>Staying in Kyoto as a base, you can organise yourself almost on a day to day basis: the TIC, located right in front of the station at the base of Kyoto Tower, will keep you up to date with local events and help you organise your trips. Have a look at Kyoto visitor's Guide at http://www.kyotoguide.com/e-whatson/index.html <BR><BR>You can find all kinds of hotels and ryokan well within your budget. Have a look at the Kyoto page of Wellcome Inns http://www.itcj.or.jp/search/pref/kyoto.html (main page http://www.itcj.or.jp/index.html)<BR><BR>

Thanks Darren and Florence for your helpful replies. I have completely dropped the idea of hiring a car. However, I do want to find out more about which villages we should visit and how easy they are to get to by train. Also, since we are flying in and out of Osaka, how much time do you think we should spend there or should we skip it completely? Also, I have ended up with two hotels (fodors recommended) that I think I could explore - Fujita and the Miyako. Any idea about these or any other particular ones? Also for Osaka. Thanks very much.

Glad that you gave up on the car. No way. Try to spend your time in Kyoto. The Eastern part of the city is great. The walks around Kiyomizu temple and Sannenzaka are about the nicest in the country for atmosphere and shopping. Take a train to the suburbs areound Arashiyama, which is another great place for walking around. Spend another day in Nara. About an hour to the west is the city of Himeji, which is nothing special except for its great castle. Forget Nagoya. Nothing there. The weather should be nice, so I would suggest getting your reservations immediately. This winter has been warm (I live in Tokyo) so the cherry blossoms will probably be early...right around the time that you are visiting, which means giant crowds.