tkeppers

Hi, everyone,

My husband and I will be in Japan from October 6-14, arriving in HND crazy early in the morning on the 6th, and leaving just before midnight on the 14th. So we pretty much have 9 whole days to play with. I'm starting to make a list of things that sound interesting to us, and was hoping the experts on this board might be able to provide some additional guidance and insight.

We are planning to spend the 6th-9th in Tokyo (staying at IC Tokyo Bay) and the 9th - 14th in Kyoto (Westin Miyako Kyoto). We will have a JR Pass that we will activate on the 8th.

A little about us: We are both in our mid-thirties. We are both interested in Japanese culture, and can speak the language a bit on a very beginner level (think Japanese toddler), so we *might* be able to communicate some, but it certainly won't be eloquent. I'm interested in hiking (will probably post another thread about that) and my husband is interested in video games - particularly one called Final Fantasy.

Here's my tentative itinerary, as well as things we'd *like* to do, but that may not be feasible.

TOKYO:
* Day 1 (6th) - Won't be able to check into hotel until 3 (flight lands at 4:45am). Drop our bags at the hotel, and explore the area around there until check-in. Hopefully there will be a department store nearby that we can look around in. Not sure how exhausted/jet-lagged/culture-shocked we will be, so not planning anything specific.

* Day 2 ideas include possibly getting a local volunteer from freetokyoguides.com to show us around to the typical touristy "must-see" sights, and help us acclimate to the culture. I also noticed there is some kind of technology show in Tokyo - it's called CEATEC and appears to be free with pre-registration. The pictures show cool robots and interesting gadgets. Is this worth attending? Is it difficult for a couple of gaijin with lousy Japanese language skills to navigate?

* Day 3 - Husband really wants to go to the Square/Enix store (they make the Final Fantasy game he's into). There's also a Final Fantasy-themed cafe that looks cool, but it seems very difficult to get into so that may not be an option. Our JR passes should be active today, so we may explore a few different areas of the city.

Day 4 - Shinkansen to Kyoto

KYOTO - I don't have as much planning done for Kyoto.

* Do some hiking, visit a shrine or two. If I can get past my hang-up about being naked in public, possibly visit on onsen. Try as many Kit-Kat flavors as possible.

*On October 11th, there is something called an Ostu-Matsuri festival in a neighboring town. There's a free guide group called Sakura Volunteer Guides that's offering to take international tourists to this festival. Sounds like it might be fun. Is this worth doing?

* October 12th is Health-Sports day. I love physical activity and the outdoors, and wondered if Kyoto had some activities on this day that foreigners could participate in? My internet searches haven't turned up anything, though

* Is it common to have aikido demonstrations in Japan (I'm guessing no). One of my hobbies here in the U.S. is aikido, and I would love to watch a demonstration in Japan and compare it to what I learn at my dojo here.

I would gladly welcome any other suggestions or advice so we can get the most out of our trip.

pdxkankuu

My best recommendation regarding communication: assume your japanese will be complete garbage, assume that nobody can speak english, and you'll be quite happy when you invariably manage to communicate better than the folks who don't know any japanese at all. =D

You'll find out pretty quickly (or... not?) how to use your limited japanese most efficiently. Some is certainly better than none, even if you have to be a bit creative about getting around communication problems. =D

So... your husband will be visiting Akihabara in Tokyo. You'll see him again just before you leave for Kyoto. =D Even if he's only interested in the FF series, you can kill hours there looking at everything. The squenix store will be good, but there are also tons of other anime/gaming related stores that are good to check out -- Animate being a pretty big one. There are Animate stores in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka.

I haven't gone hiking in Japan yet (maybe someday), other than when I went bouldering (south of Kyoto), so unfortunately I can't help much there. I did see your other thread, so hopefully you'll get some good replies.

Just FYI, you'll be hard-pressed to find too many kit-kat flavours. Many are regional flavours, and many just aren't stocked in most stores. But the sakura matcha flavour is delicious.

I just took a quick glance at the otsu-matsuri website -- looks cool. If you can go with an international tour guide, that'd be convenient. If you aren't itching to do other things, I'd probably take a look at it.

My guess is that if anything like that is going on, it's all geared toward natives. Probably will have a hard time finding anything unless you read/speak japanese (ie: searching Yahoo Japan in jp).

I'm guessing no, also, but it's not something I've ever tried to search for.

I'm actually going to be arriving in Japan (Kansai area) again on 10 Oct. I'm much more familiar with Kansai than with Tokyo, since that's where I spend most of my time. If you haven't quite figured out what all you want to do while you're there, feel free to ping me before your trip starts.

evergrn

Can't answer a lot of these questions unfortunately... But as far as Health-Sports Day (Taiiku no hi) goes, I don't know that you're really going to come up with anything in terms of any exciting event you can participate in. To me, it's just a day off and the significance to a visitor would be to plan things accordingly (ie, certain attractions may be a lot more crowded than a typical Monday).

You'll find "gotouchi" kit-kats (kit-kat flavoured after something that's unique to that region) all around Jpn. But each place will only stock the gotouchi kit-kat specific to that area. However, NRT and TYO carry wide variety, so the airport may be the best places to buy as many flavours as possible in one setting.

lobsterdog

You actually can check into the hotel immediately if you want - you just have to pay for the previous night. I would recommend that, rather than wandering around in a jetlagged daze for nine hours before checking in.

The area around that hotel isn't really interesting for wandering around, especially for eight or nine hours. The nearest department store I can think of is a 30-minute walk, or two train rides, away.


It's a trade show - if you like trade shows it might be interesting. Personally I think it would be a waste to spend one of your three days in Tokyo there, but YMMV.

You should be able to explore different areas of the city even without a JR pass; typical train or subway fare from one point to another is around 200 yen, hardly noticeable compared to hotel and airfare. In fact you might look into the economics of skipping the JR pass entirely. If your only long-distance travel is between Tokyo and Kyoto, you really don't save much money (if any), and you're limited to slower Shinkansen trains.

There's a Kit-Kat specialty store in the basement of Daimaru Department Store in Tokyo, next to Tokyo Station - that might be a good place to start.

Personally I would spend more time in Tokyo and less in Kyoto - there's far more to see in Tokyo unless you're really, really interested in temples. I would skip the JR Pass. I would spring for the extra night's hotel when you arrive - you'll be able to sleep from 6am-1pm or so, then shower and have a fully refreshed afternoon and evening in Tokyo.

And finally, I would buy a guidebook.

Have a great trip!

lobsterdog

Ah, it's also worth mentioning that certain attractions like museums that are usually closed on Mondays will be open that day, and will instead be closed on Tuesday.

evergrn

+1. Not much in the immediate vicinity of IC Tokyo Bay. OP could go to Odaiba by Yurikamome, which is probably the easiest fun place to get to. A lot of things don't open till 10a or 11a in Odaiba, though. OP could go check out Tsukiji before that to kill time, or have a long breakfast at the hotel.

On those late-night TPAC flights that arrive super-early in Asia, I tend to sleep a fair amount even in Y. Of course everyone's different, but it's possible you'll arrive with enough energy to be able to have a full-go on your first day in Tokyo.

JBord

I would agree with all of this, unless you are able to sleep well on flights, then you may be ok when you get there.

Based on your interests, I think you'll find more you like to do in Tokyo.

However, I also think visiting "a shrine or two" in Kyoto would be missing out. There are a few beautiful temples to visit there. Do a little research and try to pick out the best if you don't want to do too many. There is also a really interesting market in Kyoto (I forget the name). It's worth walking the one really long street to see it.

As far as language, you'll probably find you only use about 4-5 words if you don't speak Japanese well, like me. It's polite to try a few words. But you'll have little trouble in Tokyo with English. Many people won't speak it or only a few words, but I've had no problems. Kyoto will be fewer English speakers.

My theory may be wrong, but I think perhaps Japanese people like to practice their English. Several times I've pulled out a map to get my bearings, and someone has walked up and asked in English if they could help me find something.

One trick I used in Kyoto, ask your hotel desk clerk to write the name and address of your hotel on a card in Japanese. Very useful if you need to get in a taxi, or otherwise need someone to point you in the right direction home.

ksandness

Sports Day is mostly school and community based.

It's a day when schools have intramural athletic meets and community groups put on activities for the locals.

I happened to be walking past a park on Sports Day 2013, and some community group was teaching seniors an exercise routine. That was it for non-school activities.

Otherwise, it's just a day off for office workers. The Japanese calendar is full of such arbitrary holidays (Greenery Day, Marine Day), although a couple of them, such as Culture Day and Showa Day, are the birthdays of former emperors. The current emperor's birthday is December 23.

tkeppers

This is definitely a good mindset to adopt. I'm not under any illusion that two semesters of college Japanese plus a steady diet of subtitled anime qualifies me to communicate on any sort of intelligent level .

I know several versions of "I'm sorry", "please", and "thank you", with varying levels of politeness, as well as a few dozen verbs and nouns. I anticipate sounding like a very well-mannered caveman.

tkeppers

Thanks for the heads-up about the Kit-Kats. We crunched the numbers and with the shinkansen between Tokyo and Kyoto (and back to Tokyo), plus the Yamanote line around Tokyo, transportation back to HND for the return trip, and whatever day trips from Tokyo/Kyoto we want to take, the JR pass should be worth it.

We did the 5 nights in Kyoto to take advantage of 5th night free award night at the Westin, but the trip is arranged such that we can spend an extra day or two in Tokyo if we like it better (my prediction is husband will prefer Tokyo, and I will favor Kyoto, but we'll see )

Thanks for the tips!

tkeppers

Thank you all so much for your advice and tips so far. I really appreciate it. However, I did come up with a couple more questions :

Do you have any suggestions for restaurants or restaurant chains? I'd like to try small portions of a variety of different foods, so I like the idea of a cheap to mid-range buffet-type restaurant where I can sample different dishes. My husband is not an adventurous eater at all, so a buffet with some American-style options also would be good.

Is there a way to tell from the outside what restaurants may not be foreigner friendly (e.g. no English-speaking staff, English menus, etc.)? Until we get our bearings and figure out how easy (or difficult) it will be to communicate, learn the customs, etc. I want to maximize the chances of things going smoothly.

Would it be worth it to kill a few hours at HND after landing, since we have so much time before we can check into the hotel? We're flying JL business class, so there may be an arrivals lounge we could access (last time I searched on it, the lounge seemed to be closed for renovation, but it might be open by October).

abmj-jr

With an extra day or two in Kyoto, plan to use your Rail Pass to get out of the city. Take a day trip to Nara or Himeji or both. If you get up early, you could even do a day trip down to Hiroshima. You are already considering a day trip to Lake Biwa for the matsuri (festival.)

I love Kyoto and can spend as long there as I have available but there are many very nice day trips from Kyoto and the Rail Pass plus shinkansen will really open up other, fairly close, locations that are very different from Tokyo and Kyoto.

lobsterdog

Among Tokyo buffet restaurants, I like Harvest in Ikebukuro and Daichi no Okurimono in Ueno. A lot of hotels also offer buffets.

evergrn

Shizenshoku buffets may be a good option for you. Shizenshoku means natural food, but it's not necessarily organic. The concept is a little bit difficult to explain. Lots of veggie stuff but some meat and seafood items also. These places will have a good mix of Japanese and Western style items (but more Japnaese). There'll be a lot of Japanese items that I'm sure you and possibly even your husband will enjoy. They'll have various veggie dishes, tempura, curry, pasta, noodles, meat/fish stuff, large selection of hot/cold teas, desserts. There're several chains that operate shizenshoku buffets and they're all over. There's one called Harvest in one of the complexes surrounding Kyoto Station.

Hotel breakfast buffets are a big thing in Jpn, and you should definitely consider trying that out at least once at each of your hotels. Standards tend to be higher and the variety definitely much more than breakfast buffets in US hotels. There'll be all the usual Western stuff (inc bacon/sausage, eggs, bread, cereals) plus all kinds of traditional Japanese stuff (one or two different kinds of grilled fish, natto, various pickled veggies, miso soup), salad bar, sometimes corn potage, sometimes curry or ratatouille, sometimes soba/udon.

You will manage fine at just about any establishment you set your foot into. Yeah there're some Kabukicho places that you'll need to stay away from, and occasionally you hear stories of racism at Jpn restaurants. But by and large, you can rest assured that you'll be served well and manage to get what you want, whether/not anyone speaks English. I know it's easy to overestimate the language barrier before you're there, but you'll be fine. But if you really want things to go without a hitch at all, then maybe go to department stores' restaurant arcade floors where all the restaurants have display windows of menu items in form of plastic models... or check with the staff at the entrance to see if they have English menu available. Just say "English menu?" and anyone will understand you.

lobsterdog

Unfortunately all the Harvest branches in Kyoto are closed. The closest alternative is a vegetable-centric place called Kamo, which is somewhat smaller and more cramped than Harvest.