JoyceL

I have just returned from a 2 week stay in Japan, where I had a wonderful time. Thank you to everyone on this forum who helped with my planning.

I spent 5 nights based in Tokyo, and 8 nights based in Kyoto. This included daytrips to nearby areas: From Tokyo I spent a day visiting the Hakone area. From Kyoto I took daytrips to Himeji, Kurasaki, Kurama, Nara, Uji, Fushimi, and Horyuji. This was not enough time to see everything I wanted, but it was adequate. (I could have used an extra 2 days in Kyoto, and an extra 2 in Tokyo.) Given the same time constraints, the only thing I would do differently would be to allocate more time to Uji. Uji was the most interesting of all the towns I visited in the Kyoto area, but I did not have enough time to see everything it has to offer.

Some advice for anyone planning a Japan visit:

1. If you will be staying in more than 1 or 2 hotels, pack LIGHT. This is one piece of advice I did not follow, and I regretted my failure to do so. Do not bring more luggage than you can carry with one arm. Japan's luggage forwarding services are very reliable, but it is an expense and nuisance to have to foward luggage with every change of hotels.

2. If you are visiting Kyoto in spring or autumn, be prepared to share your temple visits with thousands of school kids. When I asked about the crowds, I was told it is a requirement of all schools to send all students on extended trips twice during their junior high and senior high school years. The students stay overnight in hotels, traveling in large tour buses to temples and other historical sights during daytime. The Kyoto area is a prime location for these visits. It did not matter what time of day I arrived at any tourist sight: The busloads of students were already there. This was often in addition to adult tour groups. For the most part, this was not a problem. The kids were always well behaved and pleasant to be around. But 2 areas were crowded to the point of claustrophobia: the temples in Kiyomizu-dera, and the temples in Horyuji. If you plan to visit either place during autumn or spring, I strongly recommend going first thing in the morning, or last thing in the
afternoon. You will not avoid the tour groups, but maybe there will be fewer of them. Weekends may also be better.

3. Be prepared for some physical exertion. Subway escalators fall into one of these categories: (a) no escalator at all; (b) escalators located in a distant part of the subway station; and (c) only one escalator that is inevitably going in the direction opposite to that which you want to go, e.g. an escalator going going down when you want to go up. Visiting temples can also involve much climbing. Many of them are located on top of hills or mountains.

Aside from the stairs issue, Tokyo and Kyoto are both very easy to navigate. When I stopped people to ask directions, they were usually very helpful. I had no trouble finding my way around either city, even though I do not speak Japanese. The nearby towns are also easy for travel.

4. Train transportation to/from the new Centrair Airport is not quite ready for prime time. This is an international airport, but the train I took from Nagoya to Centrair did not have a single map or sign using English letters. Everything was written in Kanji. The train announcements were also only in Japanese. Even though passengers said "yes" when I asked if the train was going to Centrair, I was not sure they understood me correctly. (I was the only person in the subway car with luggage.) The airport itself has some communication problems. Today I tried phoning Centrair to inquire about an item I lost. A recorded announcement says "press 3 to hear this announcement in English". But pressing 3 just produces another announcement in Japanese.

5. If you want to see Kabuki in Tokyo, and if you already know you like Kabuki, try to make an advance reservation before you arrive in Tokyo. The advance reservation tickets were sold out during my entire stay there. An option is to get only a 1-act ticket. The 1-act tickets are much less expensive and are sold only on performance day. If you want to get a 1-act ticket, arrive at the theater at least an hour before the show begins. I arrived 40 minutes early, and all the one-act seats were already sold out. I was able to get a standing-room ticket. A few minutes after I arrived, even the standing-room tickets were sold out.


HIGHLIGHTS:

The best parts of Japan for me were the landscape gardens. These are the ones I liked the most: in Tokyo, Rikugien Garden. In Kyoto, the gardens at Heian Shrine, Imperial Palace, Shoren-in Temple, Kodaiji Temple, and Nanzenji. In Uji, Byodoin Temple has a beautiful garden. In the town of Himeji, the 9 miniature gardens at Koko-en are wonderful.

The Kabuki play in Tokyo was also wonderful. It was very worthwhile, even though I had to stand the entire time. But Kabuki is not liked by everyone, and advance reservations are very expensive. So unless you have seen Kabuki before and know you like it, arrive at the theater early enough to get the 1-act ticket. Also be sure to get the English headphone translation. It can be rented with either type of ticket. Without the translation, the entire impact of the play is lost.

skyhopper

Thank you for the advice and highlights of your trip.
I thought about taking my big suitcase figuring on forwarding from hotel to hotel (3 hotels), but now I think I'm just going to take my backpack and my smallest suitcase.

emd

Joyce L, thanks very much for the report. I'd like to hear what made Uji so interesting. Please tell us more about that. I have never heard anythign about it or talked to anyone who went there.
Also, how was Kurmam? Did you walk the trail from there to Kibune? Did you visit Kurama onsen? Those are on my agenda for second Kyoto trip next spring. I'd also like to hear a bit about Fushimi and Horyuji also if you have time to write about what those were like.

someotherguy

I cannot answer for JoyceL, but the attractions of Uji are the Byodo-in (1053), one of the most beautiful buildings in Japan (it's on the back of the 10 yen coin), which in turn contains one of the greatest statues; Manpuku-ji, a very beautiful temple; and Ujigami-jinja, which has the oldest shrine building in Japan. Beyond these sights, however, the place is redolent of Japanese history and culture: the battle of the Uji bridge in the Gimpei War and, above all, the setting of the last 10 chapters of Genji Monogatari ("The Tale of Genji"--the world's first novel, and one of its greatest). It's also famous for growing tea.

JoyceL

Kurama was another highlight of my trip. I had a wonderful walk up the mountain to Kurama-ji temple. I didn't realize there is a funicular that goes up much of the route, and I walked all of it! By the time I reached the Kurama-ji temple, I was too tired to go any futher, so I decided to not go any further.

The walk up the mountain was exhausting, but very worthwhile. I would gladly do it again, even knowing now about the funicular.

I did not go to the onsen. But it would have been easy to do so: When I arrived in Kurama there was a free onsen shuttle bus waiting at the train station to bring passengers to the onsen. I do not know how frequently the bus runs (it was not there when I took the train back to Kyoto), but this is something you may want to check into if you are interested in visiting the onsen.

In answer to your questions about Uji:
Uji has several temples, a pleasant riverside area, and an interesting tea merchant's area: one or two streets that contain shops selling nothing but tea. I was short on time during my Uji visit (it was at the end of a day that also included Nara and Horyuji), so I did not have time to see most of the temples on my list. All I had time to see was the Byodoin Temple and the tea street, which is next to the Byodoin Temple area. The Byodoin garden was outstanding, and there is a very interesting museum containing most of the temple's contents. The temple itself is closed for restoration.

Uji is on the same JR train line that goes from Kyoto to Nara. This makes it very easy to visit both towns the same day. But it was also exhausting, especially since I had also visited Horyuji that day. It would have been better to just spend the day at Nara and Horyuji, visiting Uji another day. Uji and Fushimi would make a good daytrip from Kyoto, maybe combined with Tofukuji. (Fushimi and Tofukuji are also on the same JR line.)

I had visited Fushimi earlier in my trip. It is an interesting temple area. Your visit there can be either long or short, depending on how much walking you want to do up the mountain. The same day I also tried to visit the Tofukuji temple gardens, but the gardens were closed by the time I arrived. (They close at 4pm.) Tofukuji is another area on my list of "too many places to see and not enough time".