ricachon78

Hello there!!

I'm trying to put together an itinerary for 29 days to Japan & China for me and my girlfriend
for next may and to be honest... I need help!! Not so sure on how to use the time to it's best...

29 days: 11 in Japan and 16 in China?

1- depart USA
2- arrive to Tokyo
3- Tokyo
4- Tokyo
5- day trip to Nikko
6- train to Kyoto
7- Kyoto
8- Kyoto
9- day trip to NARA
10- day trip to Osaka
11- Hiroshima (day time) & overnight Miyajima
12- Miyajima (AM), Himeji (afternoon) & train to Tokyo in the evening
13- Air travel: Tokyo to Beijing
14- Beijing
15- Beijing
16- Beijing
17- Xian
18- Xian
19- Chongqing
20- Chongqing
21- Yangtze cruise
22- Yangtze cruise
23- Yangtze cruise
24- Guilin
25- Guilin
26- Hong Kong
27- Hong Kong
28- Hong kong
29- fly back to USA

About Japan?
* Is it enough days in each place?
* Should I skip a place and added to one of the cities mentioned, or to a new place?
* I have already been in Disney World so Tokyo Disney it is really worthwhile?
* Japan rail pass... is it my best bet? or train ticket to each destination?

About China?
*How can I make a day trip to Mt.Huangshan (Yellow mountain)?
*I'm not sure about the travel length from one city to another?
* Will all the train traveling will be overnight? And is it hard to buy train tickets?
*Is it 3 days 2 nights on the cruise is enough? Should we go for more?
*will independent travel will be very difficult to get around?
*Should I add or take out a day in the mentioned itinerary?

Unfortunately this is all the the time that I could get for vacation, but I also have one extra day off when we come back for us to rest before starting work again... Should I add this resting day to our itinerary? Will it make that much of difference? If it does, should it be used in China or Japan?

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!! I will be always grateful for your help!!

Alexis

rkkwan

Japan -

- Why not fly out of Osaka to Beijing? No reason to go back to Tokyo.

- I think unless it's your goal to visit every Disney establishment in the world, then skip the Tokyo Disneyland. There are better ways to spend a day's time

- Not sure about railpass vs tickets. You can find out individual train cost on www.hyperdia.com and then compare with the cost of the pass

China -

- In general, your itinerary is already pretty hurried. I don't see how you can add Huangshan, which is no where close to any of the places you're planning to visit.

- The cruise is set length. I believe from Chonqing going downstream to Yichang is 3 days and 2 nights. Some cruises continue down to Wuhan, but there's nothing to see between Yichang and Wuhan.

- I don't think there's non-stop flight from Yichang to Guilin. With a connection to time to/from airport, that's already half a day gone.

- Huangshan isn't the easiet place to get to. And no way you can do it as a daytrip from any of the major cities, even from Hangzhou.

- As far as train travel, Beijing-Xi'an is an easy overnight train. XI'an to Chongqing is also overnight (between 14:30 to 17:33; three trains to choose from).

- From Yichang to Guilin, you need to fly; via Guangzhou, Shenzhen or Chengdu

- Guilin to Hong Kong also fly

bhuty

ditto

"- From Yichang to Guilin, you need to fly; via Guangzhou, Shenzhen or Chengdu" you'd probbaly find it easier via guangzhou i'd expect.

You need an extra night in Guilin.

Arrive in guilin (depending what you do with the cruise and how you change the itinerary then you may be able to get a train with sleeper to guilin, sleep on train arrive early morning in guilin) and get on boat to whatever the name of that place is thats half a day noat ride away. bugger me my memory is killing me.

Stay 2 nights to be kind to yourself and then return by bus (hahaha...you'll get the joke later) to gulin, stay overnight then go to HK.

Thats what I would do.


regarding beijing to Xi'an. when you get to beijing check out the o/n train to xi'an as suggested and then check out prices by plane. Sometimes travel agents can get up to 70% off within the last two weeks and this makes it very cheap.

In may I don;t expect it to be too hard to buy train tickets. haha i just relaised, that its never too hard to get the tickets its just that sometimes the seat has been sold a few times. So what i mean is that in may you should be able to sit in your own seat without having to book in advance. If anything i would go book a day or two just to be sure.

I don't think that independent travel is a big problem despite the language hassles. Be careful though and safety first.

mrwunrfl

For that itinerary, you definitely need a 7-day JR Pass. Activate it on Day 6 and it will be good for getting you back to Tokyo on the 12th.

If you take the good advice from rkkwan and fly out of Osaka then you will still need a 7-day JR Pass. You could spend an extra day in Tokyo at the beginning and then go to Kyoto on Day 7 and on Day 13 go from Miyajima to Osaka Kansai airport. You'd actually save the cost of one of the airport transfers that way.

rkkwan

There's no direct train from Yichang to Guilin. If you want to stick with just trains, it'll involve a very long backtrack, and then long connection.

If you really want to avoid flying, for whatever reason, you may try taking a coach to Wuhan from Yichang, and then there's direct train from there to Guilin. Train K21 departs Hanhou (one part of Wuhan) at around midnight and arrives Guilin at noon the next day, for example.

Marija

I would cut a day from Chongqing unless you need it for a daytrip to Dazu (highly recommend Dazu). Many of the Yangtze boats leave at night, giving you three nights and two and half days on the river.

When we went there were only late evening flights to Hong Kong from Guilin. If you don't want to spend the extra time in Guilin you can catch an early morning flight to Schenzen and then take a bus or a ferry to Hong Kong.

Make sure you arrange a flight out of Yichang in advance, since that's not a place you want to be stranded. I think you can fly Yichang to Xian, and Xian to Guilin so you may want to do Beijing-Chongqing-Xian-Guilin.

Our self guided trip report of China is at
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34682619

rkkwan

I only find three WEEKLY flights from Yichang to Xi'an. So, that may not work. However, there IS an overnight train that takes 16 hours (17:06-9:14).

So, you can do definitely try this route as suggested by Marija. All by flying except this train trip from Yichang up to Xi'an.

Marija is also correct about flights Guilin-Hong Kong. Daily flight on China Southern leaves at 6:20pm. Arrives HKG 7:40. On certain days of the week, there's also a Dragonair leaving later, and there's also an upstart based in Hong Kong called CR Airways with 5 flights a week - also in the evening.

Flights to Shenzhen is more plentiful and cheaper.

oceania

Ricachon my trip to Japan trip was very similar to yours except I didn't go to Nikko, I went to Mt Fuji and Nagoya instead (had friends there).

The ONLY way to travel within Japan (for tourists) is JR Pass unless you want to pay a small fortune. Just remember you MUST get your JR Pass from home, you CANNOT get it once you're in Japan. Once you're in Japan you must first get it validated before you can use it. A lot of pepole don't do this and just show up and then can't ride bullet and get mad at the Japanese for their backward ways...seriously, I met people like that.

I didn't go to Tokyo Disney either, I don't think I missed much either. I think your itinerary is good. IMO, the Peace musuem is a must see in Hiroshima and Miyajima Island was surreal, I love Nara and Kyoto as well. Didn't care for Tokyo or Osaka as much.

If you're looking for a hostel in Kyoto, I can recommend a really good one that's cheap (for Japan).

I'm not sure if you bought your tickets already but you can fly in and out of Hong Kong, Tokyo and Osaka on a Cathy Air Pass (much cheaper), but you have to pay extra to fly into Beijing but I think it still works out being cheaper
http://www.cathay-usa.com/offers/aap/subdefault.asp

kappa

> Just remember you MUST get your JR Pass from home, you CANNOT get it once you're in Japan. Once you're in Japan you must first get it validated before you can use it.

Oceania said above. Just to avoid confusion, you cannot get the pass while still outside Japan. You can only get the voucher for that. Once you arrive in Japan, you will finally get the Pass in exchange with the voucher at which time they will also stamp the valid dates on you pass. Unless there are procedures other than that I know, this is what I have always done so far.

oceania

Just to avoid confusion, you cannot get the pass while still outside Japan. You can only get the voucher for that. Once you arrive in Japan, you will finally get the Pass in exchange with the voucher at which time they will also stamp the valid dates on you pass. Unless there are procedures other than that I know, this is what I have always done so far.

Yeah sorry, you get your voucher outside of Japan and exchange it for the JR pass in Japan...misuse of words. Thanks.

ricachon78

Thank you, thank you so much for all the info & feedback!!
This has totally help me on my planing.
I also was planing on starting a week after "Golden week" (May 7) hoping that it would not bee as crowded as the 1st week of May : )
Now... Japan itinerary looks good & is simple enough to get around, but I have no clue on how to use 15 or 16 days in all the must-see places in China? and on how to get from point A to point B?
We want to do the usual "1st time visitor" trip (Beijing, Xian,Yangtze cruise, ect. and if possible ...Mt.Huangshan (Yellow mountain)
Can anybody suggest me how to use those days in China?

Thank's much!!
Alexis

rkkwan

Alexis - You should forget Huangshan for this trip. It's no where near the other cities you're going, and after consulting my parents (who've been there twice), you really need 4 days out of your itinerary to do it. One day to get there, one day out. Two days in the mountain (with an overnight stay up at the top). The reason you need one day to get there and one day back is that the airport at the city of Huangshan doesn't have that much frequencies, and it's also a long way to the mountain itself. You need at least two full days to do the mountain justice.

So, go do it next time. Unless you want to take out part of your itinerary.

WileyCoyote

Ni hao
Not to hijack this discussion, but I am in the final planning of my trip to China in April(for 16 days).

I'd like to know if anyone has done the Three Gorges Yangtze Cruise since the Reservoir has been filling up. Is it still worth doing? (...I know that MANY/most of the original riverside villages/sights have been flooded and the inhabitants moved uphill/elsewhere, possibly to dull/functional concrete/cinderblock style apartment buildings, rather than their original 'classic' towns/villages...)
I'm wondering if I should add some other destination in place of the 3 day cruise.

Also, does anyone know if I could take a train from Yichang to Suzhou(near Shanghai), and how long that might be? Or, would I have to go from Yichang to Shanghai, then transfer to a train to Suzhou from there?

Xie Xie

rkkwan

WileyCoyote -

The 3 Gorges reservoir is only partially filled right now, and the level will go up some more later.

But yes, the scenery is different now than before the big dam was built, but even that was different from before the smaller Gezhou Dam was only completed in the 80's. And in the future, the scenery will change again. Whether it's still worthwhile to go, I can't decide for you and I've been there since the recent filling of the reservoir.

As for travel between Yichang and Suzhou/Shanghai - there's no direct trains. You need to connect at Xiangfan (which is about 3 hours north of Yichang). But any train that goes from North/Central China to Shanghai will stop at Suzhou, which is a major city just over an hour from Shanghai.

rkkwan

Sorry, I mean I HAVEN'T been to the 3 Gorges recently.