abmj-jr

Hour and a half on the shinkansen from Shin-Osaka Station. Another 20 minutes from Kyoto.

angra

another worthy diversion from that area: Koyasan

CrazyInteg

Would you recommend staying the night in Wakayama if going to Mt Koyasan?

OccasionalFlyerPerson

I would stay in Kyoto and visit the others. Plenty to do in Kyoto, but it might get a bit repetitive. It's not the most central, but I think the most interesting of those cities.

Nara is an ancient capital too. Though, Japan has more ancient capitals than any other country I know of. (I should count the ancient capitals of Iran to compare.) That's not too far away, and I think worth a visit.

One of the places I found most interesting to visit was Tenri city, that was near there. It's the centre of a 'new religion', Tenri-kyo. This was founded not long ago. I found that I was staying in a hostel run by the religion, and they took me to worship. After sitting in seiza for quite some time, we got to stand up and do this really strange little worship dance. This was very interesting, as I got to see a new religion up close, e.g. being told what sort of things the founder did (even though she died in 1887).

If you don't get invited to worship the city isn't that interesting. But, I found the whole thing fascinating.

I lived in Japan for three and a half years. I do think it's a very interesting country to visit. One where even normal things become interesting because they're different. See if you can eat a tiny little burger from a vending machine. Admire the infeasible number of bicycles in front of a train station.

Can you head up into the mountains and spend a night in ryokan in the mountains? If you can, I'd recommend it.

I've just been to Berlin. While it was interesting and I visited some interesting places (e.g. the Stasi museum), the city as a whole looked very much like the UK except that everything was in German. While I think Berlin has a lot of interesting places to visit, and in parks, museums, historic monument might beat London (Brandenberg Gate versus Marble Arch?), it doesn't have the interest of Japan.

Mcflyneo

If you can fly on an Award flight to Japan, things are just a fight away..

ksandness

No, I am convinced that spending the night in a temple is an essential part of the Koyasan experience.

The train ride is beautiful but if you didn't spend the night, you'd have a bit of the "is that all there is?" feeling, especially if you didn't know a lot about Buddhism. It's the holy place of Shingon Buddhism, as the founder, Kobo Daishi, is buried there, and well-known people down to the present day have paid to be have their graves near his. (Be sure to see the strange tombstones in the modern part of the cemetery.)

Staying at one of the dozens of temples consists of two vegan meals (dinner and breakfast) and attendance at the 6:00AM service (you don't have to do anything). In between, you're staying in a room that is very much like a mid-level ryokan.

There's a small town nearby whose purpose seems to be to supply the temples. The meal servers at "my" temple were high school boys who did it as an after-school job. They laughed when I asked them if they planned to become monks.

However, I did see a very young monk in distinctive garb making the rounds of very sites and offering prayers at each one.

Your guidebook will tell you how to make reservations.

angra

...what ksandness said is 100% spot on.

I went one time as a daytrip from Kyoto and enjoyed it enough to go back.

Second trip was an overnighter and _much_ more enjoyable.

CrazyInteg

Several people have mentioned that it is a hassle to move to a different hotel/city. I don't quite understand, being that I've never been to Japan, but is there something unique about Japan that causes moving to be such a hassle?

abmj-jr

Many people don't enjoy packing and unpacking any more than absolutely necessary. In addition, hauling luggage on the trains, particularly the shinkansen or local trains, can be a pain. And most Japanese hotels are serious about check-in times. Having to wait until 3:00 pm can really cut into the day. Many will let you drop off luggage for them to hold but it still means making multiple trips to the hotel.

I just feel that moving from hotel to hotel within a small area simply wastes time I could better use seeing new places and things.

angra

For me, it's just a general preference - I find base moves to be the most significant contributing factor to overall trip fatigue. The elements that abmj-jr points out are true but are not (for me at least) dominant.

beep88

packing / unpacking.

laundry.

Spending time/$ to drop off luggage at next hotel, more or less = time/$ wasted.

codex57

Could you guys expand on that?

I'm going during a heavy tourist season (Sakura season) and so far, I'm finding the accommodations to be much easier/cheaper/better in Osaka. However, I'm not interested in much of Osaka during the day beyond about a day's worth. However, Osaka at night does seem much more interesting than Kyoto. I was originally going to do 2 nights in Osaka and 5ish in Kyoto, but now starting to rethink that.

I'm taking kids and have a large (for Japan) party of 5 so I'll probably do AirBnB. That means the luggage forwarding system isn't as great an option so I'd rather stay in as few locations as possible. Doing about a week in Tokyo after. Trying to figure out whether to spring for a JR Rail Pass has been a bit overwhelming.

CrazyInteg

OP here. I too was also overwhelmed, but if you start planning out your actual trip and look at the options to get from place to place, then you can start to determine if one of those passes is for you.

For me personally, since I want to stay in each of the cities, the Hankyu trains and just paying for each ticket separately (no pass) seems to be best for me.

CrazyInteg

The more I've researched, my original plan makes the most sense.

Flight would arrive to KIX at 4:30pm from the USA.
Take the train to Kyoto.
Stay 4 nights in Kyoto.
Stay 3 nights in Kobe.
Stay 5 nights in Osaka.
Fly out of KIX around 11am.


Thanks for your help everybody.

SQ319

A rail pass would be reasonable if you are doing a round trip for Tokyo - Kyoto at the minimum. If you are flying into KIX and out of NRT/HND, then not so much.

However, within Kansai itself you may look at some Kansai passes such as the Kansai Wide Area JR passes or the Kansai JR Pass.

Use Hyperdia to find the costs of your journeys and compare it against the cost of the pass.

http://www.hyperdia.com/en/