Cannot agree more 🤣.

How was pickled sea cucumber?

Better than expected for certain. I wouldn�t rush to choose it but equally I say the same about caviar!!

Matsumoto was another good choice of places to stay. I don�t think it�s on many peoples lists yet our bus had a group of 10 Europeans on it and when we checked into the hotel there was a massive tour group of Germanic origin.

We had a cultural day. The castle was the most interesting one we saw. Partly we think because the queues through it must be long when it�s busy as the stairways up the castle are very narrow and very very steep. So there are lots of exhibits and info boards






And then a meander through the streets to an art gallery. An interesting place for sure. It was the birthplace of the artist who did a lot of the big sculptures on Naoshima








and they also had a special exhibition on the birth of Kawaii - cartoons where you love the characters. (I think I�ve got that right).







Lastly fried chicken is the local specialty. A bargain but definitely not refined!

Another day and another train. This was from Matsumoto to Tokyo and a limited stop express (branded Azuma). 2 hours to Shinjuku then a local train to our hotel.





Fuller by the time we got close to Tokyo

Quite a busy station (shinjuku)

Local train for four stops

We�d booked the hotel on a bit of whim during Black Friday. Essentially because we wanted somewhere a little special plus it was �conveniently located near four train lines�.

Wow, what a place. Apparently in James Bond in 1967. And a very nice room.




A few goodies never go amiss, do they?

It would seem we had an upgrade to a special floor. Nice.

The New Otani The Main is very impressive. Seven restaurants, its own Japanese garden, lovely decor and it�s managed to keep enough 1960s stuff yet be modern. It was built for the 964 olympics. We�re going to do a proper hotel tour later so may do some photos then.

But the order of the day is a modern art installation. Borderless by Team Labs. Followed by a special dinner prebooked months ago.

Borderless was sublime. A very clever installation of video art and electronic based trickery. Completely immersive and one where photos simply can�t capture the moment. But here are a few�

Dinner. The back story here is that we had planned to come to Japan in 2020. We were intending to take Mrs STs parents and with that in mind,�we booked a very typical small
japanese restaurant, that had Michelin type food and that catered to tourists. We found Ise Sueyoshi. A small (seven places only) owner run place not far from Roppongi. It required full payment up front. So no outlaws going back on the booking!! And then Covid.

six years later we made it. delightfully
pleased. It�s a bit of a show and a bit foodie and really hit the mark. Our ten course? Dinner included puffer fish and sea urchin. We appear to have survived the former!


Hard to find entrance (unless you watched the video on their website)

A not at all salubrious tiny lift to floor 3

The restaurant. We were first .. prompt at 7.45�for an 800pm start

The chefs at work

Our dinner

The puffer fish course in prep

The deadly stuff (the bright white piece at the back)

Everything beautifully presented

The young chap next to me went for the sake pairing. 10 of them!

Highly recommended and a great way to (nearly)
end travels.

A near final post whilst in Japan - our hotel. Annoyingly the hotel�s design doesn�t really get captured by photographs but for me it�s lovely to stay somewhere with character. We�re really pleased with the choice after the rather vanilla chains we�ve been in.


The flower arrangement as you enter the lobby

The garden terrace restaurant (one of many, there are more than seven as listed)

The Japanese gardens which are something of a tourist destination in their own right (in fact there were mainly Japanese visitors)



And given the lovely view, we decided to have brunch there. An amazing spread. It was really busy as we later found out it is a public holiday today (20 March), celebrating the spring vernal equinox and the start of Sakura.



Special strawberry spring menu

Impressive flowers (again)


Plenty of food (not just cakes, honest).

It�s getting close to packing time. Very sad.

Packed and off. Yet again, the delights of OLCI and IT that works remain a surprise (LX compared to BA, of course). It would appear that I�ve remained a SEN for one last journey (as technically I dropped to FTL on 1 March).

Goodbye lovely hotel (our comparison is still Tiny Room in Hakata).


A very quiet Saturday morning at the nearest station to our hotel.

A very local train to the airport despite the �express� billing

We arrived just as the desks were opening


A JR train plus one change to get us to NRT. I�m genuinely perplexed as to the variety of ways of getting to NRT. From our hotel location Google offered us about six different options. We selected the most convenient and reasonably price. The broad choice appears to be Y2600 for �Skykiner� and �Keisei Express� vs Y1250-1550 for normal routes. We chose the latter which was still a limited express but took an hour from central TYO. All fine and easy enough - which has been a feature of all our domestic travel here.

Oh and thanks to Google telling us the price, when we used our SUICA card to leave the station at NRT, we had a very pleasing Y0 balance. ((You can�t refund an Apple wallet credit from a SUICA card.))

And into the ANA lounge, which is a tad disappointing if I�m honest. Having become used to the hotel buffets offering at least 20 items of Japan�s food items for breakfast, it�s a let down to have a limited choice and fairly westernised to boot.




Pretty limited drinks (ok it is 10am here)

As I�ve often said about lounges, they aren�t all they are said to be. It�s perfectly fine but it has the ambience of a waiting room. Which is what it is, of course. I just expected more from ANAs home.

But the main course is still to come and we don�t yet know if our 14 hour LX flight on a 9-year okd 777 in the mini J cabin is a polar express or not.

The Golden Temple in Kyoto is the desktop picture on my work laptop. It's a picture I took a very long time ago almost identical to yours. What you can't see in the picture is the hoards of other tourists just behind me as I took the shot

Loved your trip report. There are a lot of places there I would like to visit and I may well add a few of them on to my next trip. I have 'done' Kyoto and Hiroshima and probably seen all I need to in Osaka and environs. But there are plenty of other places north, south and west of Tokyo that I want to visit and lots still left in the Capital for me as well.

Glad you enjoyed the ekiben
Your impression of the aesthetic of things in Japan is something I very much relate to, and the art hotel reminds me of Museum San in South Korea, so I would definitely enjoy that.
How did you handle dining in places that had no English menu like the basement place with the �10 sashimi menu? Did you just try English and hope? They can be a little intimidating to me, but I guess the worst that can happen is they shrug and you just leave.

It will probably be about 2028 or 29 when I next go, hopefully not as long as a wait as you had.
A few more pics of your flight back and I will need to find another TR to follow along

The polar express it was.

Crikey it felt like a very long flight though as we left at 12.30 (midday) and landed at ZRH at 7pm (ish). The polar routing also played havoc with the body clock as it went dark for some hours too.


A mid flight shot of the routing.

But I got ahead of myself.

Lounge .. fine but not more and we realised we should have done a crawl (United plus TK) just to check them out. None of them were particularly close to the gate. But like the good people we are when it said �go to gate� we did (about 1120 for a 1210 flight). Alas Japanese origination plus Swiss efficiency failed to overcome the human beast.

Delayed boarding (by all of 20 minutes) brought out the lemmings and a long aggregation of people just happened. Eventually a very quietly spoken lady sorted the line into Group 1 (six people?), assistance (three families and an elderly person), group 2 (felt like hundreds) and group 3 (about 20). As you can tell, I just wanted to get on the plane.





our bird landing on arrival

Great queuing skills

Standard LX B777 2-2-1 seating but this time Mrs ST was happy not having a window seat at the pairing in the middle is SO much better than the windows one where two people are squashed into the same space as one on the opposite side (Senator throne seats).

I got a nice �welcome back� SEN greeting from the IFM and asked him to swap my headphones. He did it .. same problem. Seems like they loaded the wrong 777 headphones! But there were enough of the right ones. phew. 14 hours without entertainment would have been purgatory.




Spot the error

Whilst long the food options were excellent. Again, in the BA bubble, one expects a meal (on take off), some packed snacks, often hoovered up before you get hungry, and a warmed sandwich type �before landing� non-meal meal. Much better in LX.

The Japanese meal was a bit of a let down but it was followed by cheese and desert (and port). The basket of goodies was constantly refreshed and included fresh fruit!, there was a mid flight ice cream, mid flight sandwiches (rolls), a warmed vegetable curry � and finally your second meal choice. Plenty of cabin crew interaction although Mrs ST�s wasn�t at all warm.


Starters

main

Dessert

Mid flight snack

Second meal

And four films (very good choice) and some dozing and we landed into ZRH

We had a slightly odd transfer experience - screening immediately on landing and again in the D area. About 20 minutes in the not-at-all loveable D lounge and then boarding. Or not, as LX insist on a pre-flight document check process for which you get a stamped blank boarding card. We even had transfer passengers boarded who had to get off and get stamped and get on. Anyway, we left of time and landed early.

Typical LHR experience. Got off. Couldn�t get though the gates at the top of the bridge. But it was fine a chap opened them up after five minutes or so. No queue at passport and priority bags delivery meant they were on the belt before us.

Home 27 hours after leaving our hotel. A very long day but an exceptionally easy journey all the way.

I�ll try to do a final, reflective, post in a day or two but much of what you say about places to go, maps my sense too. There are sights that are must see but much of our enjoyment came from small places that were unexpected and, frankly, less hyped. We will definitely be back to visit places north of Tokyo.

Restaurants were a little intimidating for sure. In cities they were often up a lift and into the place. Or in smaller towns, behind curtains. No hiding. But we did do a couple of �not for us� U turns and it was fine. Google often helped because even quite small establishments have an English menu - they just don�t advertise it and so fellow traveller menu photos are helpful. And Google translate. What a thing! Not only are the staff used to using it, the translations are a source of both amusement and of practical help too.

Like in many places pointing, smiling and politeness go a long way to getting you a good experience, even without verbal interaction. Just as an example, in our last hotel (a five star international place), we were super confused by how the buffet worked. We wanted to book a brunch spot for about 12.00 but somehow they made a big thing about finding us a table when very busy etc. But luckily me saying �I�m confused� made them get a phone out and within seconds, we sorted it. We suspect it was actually a cultural thing. If you turn up you are dealt with .. and we had broken the system by wanting a reservation not having one.

I easily see our experience being reflected in a different way online .. �the staff were rude, they didn�t do what we wanted and paying more to sit in the window was a rip off. �. So as much as we did rely on reviews when choosing eg the basement place, we saw them as �guidelines not rules�.

Three weeks in Japan. A long awaited trip - we expected to go in 2020 but we all know what happened then. Fast forward to 2023 and thanks to FT we got a bargain fare to australia and our journey with LHG/ Miles & More begins. With hindsight it was amazing how the stars aligned

• a stupid Booking.com offer
• A clever �RTW� ticket to NZ
• A ridiculously cheap SQ F trip to
• Earn enough miles for Mrs ST and I to do a long haul �somewhere�
• And last, two reward seats in J LHR to NRT (booked almost a year ago just before the move to dynamic pricing)

Our long term planning and luck was in. We are on our way. 21 days in Japan.



Reflections on those three weeks It was a fantastic trip, certainly meeting our expectations and more beyond. If anyone is thinking about Japan, go !



Air travel

Quite simply, long term planning wins. Slightly by luck and with slight adjustments to spend over a two year period, this was the second time we made it to Japan �on points�. If we hadn�t been strategic about moving from BAEC (somehow being prescient about tiermaggendon) this would never have happened.



What was surprising about this trip was the LCC trip NRT to FUK. Which was more than a delight. It was a great intro to Japanese travelling efficiency





Travel



Over the three weeks we found it remarkably easy to get around. We used a taxi only once because public transport is so good and so reliable.



The trains definitely divide into two. Low cost local trains (eg any trip in Tokyo was under �1) and medium priced Shinkansen and Express trains. We learned that reserving seats really wasn�t needed but doing so did make the journey less stressful.



The ease of using an IC card (suica in our case) was great. One tap and you are good to go. google was helpful in telling us the fare but long gone are the days of carrying pockets full of Y100 coins. You can even use the IC card for left luggage lockers (which are very useful, more so than the much vaunted luggage service, which we didn�t use because it just didn�t work out)



Hotels



Again, we saw a dichotomy. Japanese brands in cities were under �100 (Y20,000) for small rooms (�tiny room� in one case). But this often included breakfast, onsen (public baths), snacks, drinks, ramen, washing machines amd more and really were great value.



But when we went to ryokan or more obviously pricier hotels, the jump up in cost was noticeable (say �200) but so was the quality. Only one place did we feel we�d overpaid (dinner was included) and then it was close to �400 per night.



Food



Wow. From cheap to Michelin- level. We were never disappointed. Everything was fresh, the taste good and the quality excellent. That includes the times we bought dinner from a supermarket.



Restaurants

Probably the hardest thing to get right. We love our food and want to make the most of dinner as an activity. But it was clear that Japanese dining is more functional. It�s not a place to linger. We did more than ok. From fast food ordered from a machine to creatively curated dinner experiences.



Advice to future travelers. Be brave. Check out the reviews and try to be like the Japanese - small cooking in your face is the order of the day. Google reviews help but don�t be put off by reviews that are clearly set by wanting dinner to be like �home�. But if you don�t feel like braving the streets, go shopping. The department stores are a wonder to see; so many foods we just couldn�t work out, in beautiful packaging



People



As expected (and hoped), everyone was really friendly and helpful, yet reserved. Small talk is not a thing and whilst there is clearly a language barrier (written English is everywhere, spoken English far less); I�d be if the opinion that any issues are cultural not language. Be polite (and use Google translate) and you will enjoy the experience. Oh and follow the rules!!!



Culture/art/life



What a joyful place for art and design fanatics. From simple door handles to some of the most amazing art installations in the world. You can�t fail to be blown away. Museums and or temples are free or low cost and are worth every yen. As one guide at one house said �less is more�. And it�s true.



highlights?

Impossible to say but I think my major take away is the contrast between the busy-ness of Kyoto and Tokyo and the serenity of less visited places (Naoshima, Kurishaki and Kanazawa as examples). Get off the beaten track and you will be rewarded. That said, the major places are popular for a reason.



We will be back.

I've really enjoyed following your trip report. I've been lucky enough to visit Japan several times for work and my wife and I have also enjoyed holidays there. I suppose it is understandable that first time visitors want to go to to Tokyo, Kyoto etc. but I very much agree with your observation that great experiences can be had in the lesser-known towns and cities. You have given us many ideas for our next trip!

I loved your trip report having been to Japan many times love to see some places you visited not yet been to .I just got back from last trip 3 weeks ago. Sorry your wife lost purse. I had very bad experience not last trip but one before in October got my wallet stolen in Haneda airport it really changed my trip plans as no cash so could not get bus many places had planned to visit wont take credit cards. The hotel Otani was it in Tokyo ? I used to live in Akasaka theres one there its stunning beautiful gardens it was my meeting place for an old boyfriend and I to meet .I went there last trip after many years to relive memories . I plan to visit a few places you went next trip near Takayama that area is stunning . I have been to Kyoto many times but last time only stayed few hours to many people . Thank you again wonderful report .

Thank you for reading and following. Yes the Otani was in Tokyo (and the gardens stunning).

One small regret was that we didn�t stay long in Takayama (it would be easy to base yourself there for a few days). On the other hand, just passing through meant we had the most delightful and unexpected stay at the Dormy Inn in Shirakawa-go; and a very special (albeit expensive) ryokan in Hirayu onsen. Choices! Wherever you go the mountains are a delightful area.