Originally Posted by
shuigao
To me, I would strongly recommend not bothering with Kansai (Kyoto/Osaka) at all, unless you're certain you won't re-visit Japan any more in the foreseeable future.
For your 7 day itinerary, I'd just spend 4-5 days in Tokyo and the rest doing short day or overnight trips to the nearby areas (Fuji five lakes, Nikko, Hakone for scenery, Kamakura for culture, maybe Kusatsu or somewhere around Nagano for onsen).
And then come back a second time for Kyoto/Osaka/Nara/Kobe.
Thanks everyone. We are a young couple - only 30 - and travel alot, so I am sure we will make it back to Japan a few times in our life. We love thriving cities, nightlife (not clubs, but finding fun bars/restaurants), exploring everything a city has to offer, etc. To compare to New York, we love lower manhatten (LES, SOHO, NOLITA, CHINATOWN, WEST VILLAGE, ETC). To be honest, temples, museums, etc. aren't our thing, but that being said, Kyoto area looks beautiful, and I know we would also enjoy it. We were most looking forward to renting bikes and riding around the city to explore. It sounds like it makes more sense to do Tokyo and area (day trips or closer overnight trips) for the entire trip. I have been focusing my research on tokyo and kyoto, but I think I will shift to some of the areas you suggested that are closer.