This is a report on a recent two-week visit to my son, who is spending his junior year of college at Waseda University in Tokyo. I was there at the end of March. We were joined by a neighbor and her daughter for most of the trip.

Arrival: I spent the first night at the Royal Park Hotel in Haneda airport. Comfortable, efficient service, perfectly convenient. Amazing use of space. I would definitely stay here again if needed. We had a casual dinner a couple of train stops away and then returned to the hotel for the night. This report is skipping a quick detour to Hong Kong; when we returned to Tokyo, we met our friends at a rental apartment in Itabashi Ward (found through booking.com). It was adequate and clean; we slept on futons. I might choose a different location next time based on things we wanted to see, but the train station was an easy walk, and it was nice to be in a quiet neighborhood at the end of the day.

Day 1. Our first full day began with an unexpected snowstorm that dumped a good inch-plus of fluffy, wet snow on our neighborhood (it was all gone by the time we returned that night). We left the apartment and headed for Senso-ji Temple, then walked around Asakusa. We got some cook-your-own food at a yakiniku-style tourist restaurant. Then we went to Ueno Park, where we spent some time at the Tokyo National Museum. The park was set up for the expected onslaught of cherry blossom viewers, but at that point only two trees were blooming, so it wasn’t very crowded.




At some point that day I bought a Welcome Suica card at the train station; our friends had downloaded the Suica app on their iPhones. The “Welcome Suica” is a limited card for tourists; I found it totally adequate, but it expires after 28 days, so for a longer trip it would be less convenient. Using Suica was super convenient; it gave us access to any train and could be used for snacks or beverages at convenience stores, too.

From Ueno we went to Tokyo Tower, getting there right at sunset, and were rewarded with a stunning sunset and views of Mt. Fuji. We found a nearby restaurant serving Abura Soba (noodles without broth) - Ganso aburado Kamiyacho – and had a delicious dinner there.


Leaving Ueno Park

Mt. Fuji from Tokyo Tower


Day 2. On our second day we visited Gōtokuji Temple (the cat temple) and got to ride the “cat train” afterwards. For the afternoon we split up; our friends spent an afternoon in Akihabara looking through endless amounts of manga, and my son and I took a train to Kashiwanoha. My ex, older son, and I spent a summer in Kashiwanoha the year my younger son was born, and he has been hearing about it his whole life. We met a friend there who took us out for tea and drove us past our old apartment, and then we walked around Kashiwanoha Koen. Not something most people would want to do, but it meant a lot to us. We returned to Tokyo in time for dinner at an all-you-can-eat and drink izakaya, and then indulged in karaoke at Big Echo, which has several different locations (I think we were in Shinjuki, but I wouldn’t swear to it).


Gotokuji


Day 3 started at the beautiful Meiji Jingu temple, where we got to see two different wedding processions. Instead of a fortune, as we saw at other temples, we shook a container full of sticks to get a number leading to a poem. My poem was:

Unknown to others

These thoughts within our hearts,

Both good and bad,

Are known by the deities

Of heaven and the earth.

This waka poem was composed, in the traditional 5-7-5-7-7 syllable form, by Empress Shoken, whose spirit is enshrined at Meiji Jingu.

We had tickets for Shibuya Sky at 12:40 and spent about an hour there before heading to the building next door to meet my son’s host mom at Kajitsuen, a fruit parlor with delicious fruit desserts and snacks. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Shibuya, doing some shopping and experiencing the “Shibuya Scramble.” We took pictures with Hachiko in the background but did not wait in the ridiculously long line to take our pictures next to him. We were planning to try some different sakes at the Kubota Sake Bar on the 1st basement floor of the Shibuya PARCO building, so we found some udon in the same building for dinner before getting the sake. (There was a highly recommended ramen bar across the hall, but the wait was too long; the udon restaurant didn’t serve beer and had no line.) Three of us took the “all you can drink in an hour” approach and I just had a flight (three small glasses). After that we walked around a little more enjoying the billboards and lights.


Shibuya Sky


Day 4 was Tokyo to Kyoto. We picked up bento boxes in the station. It was a beautiful day and we had an excellent view of Mt. Fuji from the train. We checked into a house in Kyoto managed by Expo Hostel and Cottage in the Nishijin Ori neighborhood, a traditional dyeing and weaving area. Although it was a little off the beaten path, I really liked the location — quiet, small streets (some just alleys), with several food options and a public bath nearby. The house was perfect for us; one bedroom had a queen bed and the other had two twins. The company manages other properties as well, and I highly recommend them. They were very pleasant to deal with. We left our bags and went to Kiyomizu-dera Temple, where we saw a stunning sunset, then walked into a festival with street food at Yasaka Shrine. We decided to eat at Kura Sushi, a chain “conveyor belt”-style sushi restaurant, and took a long and winding walk through some of the busiest parts of Kyoto only to find the wait at the closest branch was an hour and a half. We taxied to another location and only had to wait another half an hour. The sushi was tasty. Was it gourmet? Of course not, but then, I eat sushi from Publix when I’m at home. It was delicious and fresh and appeared as if by magic, and that was enough for me. After we had our fill of sushi (and beer) we returned to the house and took our first of several steaming baths at the local public bath.


Mt. Fuji from the train




Day 5 in Kyoto started with an assortment of pastries from a neighborhood bakery called, for reasons I do not know, Tom Sawyer. Then we took a train to Kurama, where we walked up to the Kurama-dera Temple. The monkeys in Kurama were unexpected. There is a tram, but it only cuts off part of the walk and it doesn’t have particularly nice views; we walked up and used the tram going back down. The town was touristy but not crowded and the mountain scenery was beautiful. We had a soak at the Kurama Onsen followed by food and drinks at the adjoining restaurant. We hopped on a train back to Kyoto and went straight to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. The crowds were heavy going through the torii gates, but as we continued to walk they thinned out a bit. After going back to the house two of us returned to the public bath (I couldn’t face walking another step). I think we walked over ten miles this day, most of it it up or down.



Kurama-dera

So many steps...

Fushimi-Inari


Day 6 included two pre-booked experiences we found on tripadvisor.com. We started with a cooking class at Manryo Cooking School, where we made two kinds of ramen (pork and soy), gyoza, and onigiri. The instructors were wonderful and we enjoyed both the class and the group (including a couple from Wales and a solo traveler from France). Then we did an e-bike tour (Tours and Tickets by Noru) that included a small geisha district, the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, the Genko-an Temple (one of six that contain blood-stained floors from Fushimi Castle), a tea shop owned continuously by the women in the Hasegawa family for over a thousand years, and a zen rock garden at the Zuiho-in Temple.

Genko-an Temple was one of my favorites. Here’s the description from the Kyoto City Official Travel Guide:

Genko-an Temple poses a riddle in wood. What is the difference between our ordinary way of looking at the world and the way of one who is enlightened? The answer is expressed in the form of two windows looking out over the temple's garden: one is square and is called "The Window of Confusion" while the other is round and is called "The Window of Enlightenment." Both look out over the same garden, yet the effect of looking through each window is quite different.

One of the things Genko-an is known for is its “bloody ceiling.” The ceiling uses blood-soaked floorboards from Fushimi Castle where a horrible and hopeless 16th-century battle led to the suicide (rather than surrender) of 200 soldiers loyal to the Shogun. He, in turn, was so moved that he had the floorboards taken up and used in six different temples around the country.

This tour was my first experience with an e-bike; it was really only necessary on one short stretch, but for that stretch I was very glad indeed to have the extra boost! The tour guide was an enthusiastic Nebraskan who has lived in Kyoto for many years. We enjoyed seeing temples that had very few other visitors.

After the tour we went back to the other side of town for a stroll along the beautiful Shirakawa Canal and Kama River. (We should have done this on Day 4, but we didn’t, and one member of our group really wanted to return.) For dinner we found a neighborhood restaurant, Sakaki, and had a blast, then returned to the local bath.



The blood-stained ceiling at Genko-an Temple

The "window of serenity" at Genko-an - supposed to be especially lovely in the fall


Day 7 was spent primarily on a day trip to Osaka but, before we left, we biked over to Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, which was not far from our airbnb. It was already crowded with tour groups, but I thought it would be a shame to be so close and not see it. Then we took the train to Osaka for the day. The Osaka day was the least planned and probably involved the most wasted time; the museum I wanted to visit was closed on the only day we could go (the Osaka Museum of Housing and Living) so we just walked around the Osaka Castle grounds instead. When we got off the train we plunged into a throng of young men in suits and young women in kimono, and realized we were there on graduation day for Osaka University. We wanted to do a little shopping, so we tried Tenjinbashi, one of the covered shopping streets, which was underwhelming. I did find a couple of gifts, but we could have used the time better. The real reason for going to Osaka was that one of our group had as a “must do” a ramen restaurant (Kuse ga Tsuyoi Menya Reiwa) where the owner is a huge fan of the JoJo manga series; we got there a little ahead of 7 PM (when it reopened for dinner) and had to wait through the first seating. It was entertaining but probably didn’t merit the wait unless you (or someone you love) is also a huge JoJo fan. After dinner we walked a bit, took a train to Dotonbori, and rode a Ferris wheel on the side of a giant Don Quijote store. We also went into the Don Quijote, which was like the tenth circle of hell. We made one of the last trains back to Kyoto.




Day 8. We traveled from Kyoto, to Hiroshima, to Miyajima, not without some glitches. My son could not pick up his reserved train ticket at the machine and could not get an explanation (it turned out he just needed my credit card, as I had paid for the ticket, but that wasn’t clear, and he had to go stand in a ticket line with 20 people ahead of him). We left him in Kyoto, knowing he would be able to get on another train, and got on our own train from Kyoto to Shin-Osaka, planning to transfer there to a shinkansen for Hiroshima. But when we got to Shin-Osaka the connection was impossible, given that we were schlepping our suitcases. We did our best, but we got to the platform for our 9:11 train at 9:12. I quickly put into google “where is the next Sakura train” and showed the translation to a conductor on the platform. He held up five fingers, pointed to the next track (of course, down and then up another flight of stairs), and said “Hurry up!” We did as instructed and found seats in one of the unreserved cars. My son messaged me that he was on a Nozomi (super high speed train) right behind us, so we all ended up getting to Hiroshima within a few minutes of each other. We put our bags into lockers at the train station (paying with our Suica cards) and took a bus to the Peace Museum and Park. The buses were well marked and there was a helpful person steering people in the right direction as well.

What can I say about Hiroshima? I had been to the Peace Museum 22 years ago and the exhibits have been thoroughly upgraded since then. It’s almost too much to take in, or at least it was for me, much like the Holocaust Museum. After walking through the exhibits we walked around the park and ended up sitting by the river contemplating the Genbaku Dome. As we sat there I heard a small voice, and then a growing chorus, of "hello, hello, hello." We looked behind us and a group of schoolchildren were looking down at us from the top of the bank. I had passed them a few minutes earlier at the eternal flame, which supposedly will burn until all nuclear weapons are eradicated. We waved and called "hello" and "konnichiwa" back to them. Even now I can't reconcile that lovely image with what happened on that river bank almost 70 years ago.


Walking towards the eternal flame in Peace Memorial Park

The top of the Children's monument, which is surrounded by paper cranes sent from all around the world


We returned to the station and took a local train to the Miyajima ferry. We had reserved a night at the Miyajima Seaside Hotel so that we could be there overnight and experience the island after the day trips all left. It was worth it! Our Japanese-style room was lovely and very comfortable, and dinner that night (in our yukata) was amazing. After dinner we went into town on the hotel shuttle for some picture-taking, and then returned for a soak in the bath at the hotel.





Day 9. We checked out, left our bags at the hotel, and took the shuttle back into town, where we rode the Miyajima Ropeway to Mt. Misen. The weather was not clear but it was clear enough to appreciate the views. However, threatened storms sent us back down fairly quickly. We got some street food outside the shrine, did some souvenir shopping, and then retrieved our bags (the hotel brought them to the ferry for us) for the trip back to Tokyo. Our friends are Hilton members and had booked the Conrad for the night, so I booked a room at the Park Hotel Tokyo, a five-minute covered walk away. We had drinks at the Conrad and enjoyed the city views.

Day 10. On our final day we decided to try to find some cherry blossoms, as the reports all indicated the trees were starting to flower in Tokyo. My son and I had some shopping to do, so we had breakfast at the City Bakery Tokyu Plaza, in Ginza, and then met our friends at the Imperial Palace Gardens (we didn’t have time to go all the way to Ueno, which is probably where we would have seen more trees in bloom). We left the gardens and walked to the adjacent and very lovely Hibiya Park, where we found the object of our quest. And then it was time to taxi to the airport. We were leaving from Haneda, and the train would have been convenient from where we were staying, as well.




The trip home…well, no one ever said the flight is the best part of going to Japan. Our friends were on American and had to wait over an hour just to drop off their bags at the “self service” bag drop at Haneda. Delta’s bag drop was much more efficient. I said goodbye to my son while our friends were still waiting, and headed through security. Everything on my trip went like clockwork until I got to LAX, where we ran into delays that caused many missed connections. I have had many fine experiences with Delta employees. But sometimes I think the airport staff at Atlanta have received special training in how to make a frustrating situation even more unpleasant. (I did have to laugh on the airport train when the recording announced “the next stop is Terminal A. A, as in…” and the man next to me said “Absolutely missing my connection.”)

General thoughts:

1. I needed cash in a few places but for the most part could get along with a combination of my credit card and my Suica card (I bought the “limited” one for tourists). It was easy to find ATMs and to recharge the Suica. Some of the food shops (NOT the souvenir shops) inside the airport accepted Suica, so I was able to use up my balance in the airport.

2. We decided to get seven-day Japan Rail passes. The price was roughly equivalent to the price of the individual tickets we wanted, and so we went with the convenience of having a single pass. We didn’t activate them until we left for Kyoto, so they lasted for the rest of the trip. On the one occasion we missed the shinkansen we had reserved, we just hopped on the next one and found seats in the unreserved car. We were also able to use our pass on JR trains within Tokyo and Osaka, which lowered the amount I had to load into my Suica card, and on the Miyajima ferry.

3. Given that we were not staying centrally in either Tokyo or Kyoto, I wish I had spent a little more time studying the local transportation options. But I enjoyed staying in quieter, smaller neighborhoods, especially in Kyoto.

4. On that note, our rental in Kyoto came with bikes, and I think we could have used them more. I’m pretty sure we could have parked them near a bus and/or train stop that we used several times, and it would have cut down on the time we spent walking back and forth. None of the routes we took to get the train or bus involved hills.

5. We left a lot of things on the table, partly because we were a group of four who weren’t always on the same page. But we still had fun. I think part of group travel is just accepting at the beginning that not everyone will get to see everything they want, and that’s OK.

6. When you re-check your luggage after you re-enter the country, always put the alcohol you bought at the duty-free shop into your suitcase before you re-check your suitcase. It may seem like everything is going smoothly, but when a truck decides to park behind your plane at the airport and causes you to sit on the tarmac for an extra 45 minutes, something that Delta wants us all to be sure to understand is Not Delta's Fault, and when your flight is thereby so delayed that you and several other people cannot make connections, again, Not Delta's Fault, and when you thereby are forced to spend a night in a hotel in Atlanta and fly home the next morning, you will not be able to take your lovingly selected Japanese Craft Gin on the plane with you. I opted to leave it with the desk clerk in the hotel, and I hope he enjoys the six unique Japanese botanicals.

Great photos and descriptions of your trip. I’m amazed at the energy you had and how much you were able to see and do. Arigato gozaimashita!

Thanks for the delighful trip report and from a different perspective, too. There's always more than one way to travel or one set of priorities. It was fun to read about.t.

Great photos, and an entertaining read. Thanks very much for sharing. I think I will avoid the Don Quijote 10th circle of hell! Curious about it I googled the Kyoto e-bike tour company to see if there was an itinerary that included the places you visited but didn't see one so I wondered, was it a private tour?

Barbara, thanks for the trip report!

Francebound, it wasn't a private tour. It was the e-bike tour described here: noru.cc

Our guide gave us a choice of going to the Golden Pavilion or one of the less-crowded temples, and our group chose the less-crowded alternative. We were a random group of 8.

I really enjoyed your report and photos. Japan is so popular these days. Lots of people from Fodors have gone recently, and we have friends who are there now. Not sure if we will make it to Japan so I enjoy reading everyone's reports. I especially love your photo of Mt. Fuji! And the Golden Temple! So beautiful!