Originally Posted by
ChocolateFactory
After doing some more research, I think that maybe doing only 2-3 days of Kyoto/Osake might be enough to get an impression of the area.
Instead of spending more time checking out smaller villages, maybe we should go to Okinawa or South Korea instead?
I prefer seeing many different places in a short period of time over visiting fewer places more thoroughly (during my first trip to NYC, I got bored after two days and felt like I had seen it all - which obviously wasn't true, but that's how it felt to me).
What do you think? Is Okinawa worth visiting? Or maybe Busan?
Would that be an alternative? Or is that a stupid idea?
Don't spread yourself too thin. I have not been to Okinawa, but South Korea is a trip in itself. I had only one night in Busan (after a hydrofoil trip from Fukuoka) and took a bus tour of the highlights of the city, but I wish I had scheduled at least another day in each of the cities I visited (Busan, Gyeongju, and Seoul) and visited other places as well.
Before I went to Japan, I was sure I would get bored in such a homogeneous country after living on the East Coast of the U.S., but in fact, Japan continues to surprise me even nearly forty years later.