Our trip seems so long ago now. Obviously pre-COVID-19, or at least pre-COVID-19 lockdown and travel restrictions. Our trip to Japan, with a few days in Seoul on the way home in February 2020, was definitely one of our best vacations ever. I thought what I would do is write a general overall post on our vacation, why we went in February, how we decided what cities to visit, where to stay, travel around the country, websites, blogs, apps we used on our trip. Everything (or at least a lot) of what you need to plan a trip to Japan. Then I will post separate more detailed posts on each of the cities/areas we stayed at with detail on the things we did and saw, places to eat, getting around, etc. Hopefully, at the end of the posts, you will have a really good idea of why we loved our trip so much as well as ideas on how to plan your own trip if you decide to travel to Japan.
This was our second trip to Japan. After our first trip in 2012, I decided that Japan was my favourite travel destination. I have always said that, as a single attraction, the most amazing thing I have experienced is the Great Wall of China. We spent two days hiking the Wall when we visited China in 2016. But as a country to visit, Japan is definitely my favourite and I feel more strongly about that after this second visit. Japan has this amazing combination of history and culture, big cities and beautiful countryside, people that are friendly and helpful, cities that are safe, so many attractions to see, amazing and diverse food and sooooo much more.
On our first trip, Teresa was attending an Ikebana course in Kyoto for a week. For the rest of the trip we were on a pre-arranged tour with the other Canadian attendees of the Ikebana course and their spouses. In many ways, this was a great way to visit Japan for the first time. We got to see Kyoto, Tokyo, Nagasaki, Osaka (I went for the day while Teresa was attending her course) and we toured Kyushu, the south island. All the transportation and most of the activities and meals were arranged and we had two tour guides with us most of the time. Japan is not an easy place to travel (language, signage, etc) so this allowed us to see lots without the worry of logistics. Although you give up some flexibility with group travel, again, I felt it was a great trip particularly for our first time to Japan.
Our second trip would be significantly different. We were traveling on our own, within cities and to cities, no tour, no support system. It would definitely be an adventure and we were really looking forward to it.
In case you are wondering, we didn't choose February as our travel month (yes it is cold in Japan in the winter!). Teresa was again attending an Ikebana course in Kyoto scheduled for February 2020 so we decided we would build our vacation around that. We began to plan for a month in Japan in February.
Teresa's course in Kyoto was February 17 - 20, so we knew we were going to be in Kyoto for those dates. On our first trip to Japan, she did not have the opportunity to see as much of Kyoto as she would have liked as she was in a class all day and only had one free day. (I, on the other hand, had 5 full days which I took full advantage of to see everything in Kyoto). So we decided we would stay in Kyoto February 16 - 23 to ensure Teresa got to see more of the city this trip (as it turned out, Teresa's Ikebana course was canceled due to COVID-19 so we had had lots of time in Kyoto).
I am the travel planner in our family and I like to plan big trips like this in advance. With February as our travel month, Japan our destination, Kyoto locked in I went to work, searching the internet for what we would do for the rest of the trip. I started planning in October 2019. My process is fairly simple and unsophisticated. I just start googling and following websites, blogs, links, accumulating information until I get a picture of what our trip could be. I think my first google search was "what to do in Japan in the winter". This turned out to be brilliant (smile) as it led to our first destination. There is a winter festival in Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido in the first week of February. Hokkaido is the northernmost island of Japan and as such is going to be cold and snowy in February. We quickly decided that, since we were traveling to Japan in February and we are from Canada (so understand winter) that we should experience winter in Japan. Hokkaido and the winter festival in Sapporo seemed the perfect destination. I then discovered that as the winter festival was ending in Sapporo the Festival of Lights would be beginning in Otaru, a small city about an hour train ride from Sapporo. Sounded like our second destination and we had the first week of our vacation planned in Hokkaido. We still had time before we needed to be in Kyoto so we decided our next destination would be Osaka. As I mentioned I went to Osaka for a day on our first trip but Teresa had never been. In addition, because of the amazing train services in Japan (both bullet and regular trains), we decided that we could stay in Osaka and take day trips to Kobe and Hiroshima, two cities we wanted to see. With Hokkaido and Osaka decided, we would then travel to Kyoto for the dates we had previously decided on.
After deciding on these three locations we then had a few options we considered for the last part of our trip. We looked at stopping in Hawaii on the way home from Japan to visit Ed, Namoi, and their children. Despite exhaustive searching on my part, the flights from Japan to Honolulu were ridiculously expensive. It was actually cheaper to fly home to Toronto and then fly back to Hawaii. It made no sense so we decided we would visit the Hawaiians another time. We then decided it was a choice between staying in Tokyo for a few days and then traveling home or traveling from Japan to Seoul and then home from there. We decided on Seoul as we had never been to South Korea and thought a short stop would give us a sense of the country so we could decide if we wanted to plan a longer trip in the future. I would say this was really the only logistical error of our trip.
Teresa and I both love to travel and we both seem to have an internal travel clock that times out after about one month of travel. While traveling we really don't miss home as we are able to keep in contact with the kids, however, once we have been away for a month and we are ready to head home, we want to get home. Unfortunately, I feel like our internal clock went off when we left Japan. We flew to Seoul but I felt like we were really not into it. Combined with our internal clock, COVID-19 was just starting to explode in South Korea. (They took our temperature each time we entered the hotel, and the day we left Seoul, South Korea had more positive cases of COVID-19 than China did). The weather was also crappy so for a combination of reasons I don't feel like we gave Seoul a chance for a positive travel experience. In retrospect, we should have stopped in Seoul first, then flew on to Japan and flew home from Japan. Oh well, live, and learn. We will know better next time. And there were still some things that we really enjoyed in Seoul.
With our basic itinerary laid out, Sapporo - Otaru - Osaka (with day trips to Kobe and Hiroshima) - Kyoto -Seoul I was ready to start booking travel, accommodations and searching for activities, restaurants, stuff to do.
Flights are fairly straight forward for us. I am a Million Mile member with Air Canada which provides some nice benefits (the nicest of which getting access to the first-class lounge) so I booked our flight Toronto to Sapporo (via Tokyo) and Seoul to Toronto on Air Canada. I then booked a flight from Sapporo to Osaka. The rest of our travel in Japan would be on trains, subways, and buses.
Teresa and I prefer to stay in an Airbnb versus a hotel when we travel. In many cases, it is the same cost (or less) than a hotel and you get more space. We like to find a place with a small kitchen so we can make our own coffee in the morning and have breakfast without going to a restaurant. We can buy beer and wine and have a drink at the end of a long day of sightseeing. It also turned out that Japanese grocery stores have amazing takeout food so when we were tired of eating out in restaurants we bought food from the grocery store had dinner at home with a beer or glass of wine, perfect!. I find the biggest challenge with deciding on an Airbnb in a big city is trying to pick a unit in the right (a good) location in the city. Perfect is if there is somewhere you know you want to be close to so you can look for a place there. This worked for us in both Sapporo and Kyoto. In Sapporo, we wanted to be near the park where the winter festival was, in Kyoto we wanted to be close to the Ikebana headquarters where Teresa would be taking classes. Otaru is a small city so most of the places seemed to be in the same area, relatively close to the canal and downtown. Osaka was more a challenge and although we liked the unit we stayed in and enjoyed the area, it is an understatement to say we were not in a tourist area (more on this in the Osaka post). One way to find a location is to look for where major hotels are, as they are normally in the center of the city (this doesn't always work). The only tip I would give for deciding on an Airbnb is to read all the reviews. So my first rule is no reviews- I won't stay there. Even if there are only a few reviews, I will look for an alternative. The reason I say to read all the reviews is that some of the positive reviews are just 5 stars and "it was good". It might have been good but it seems to me that not a lot of thought has gone into the review. If you keep reading you will normally find more detailed reviews that will give insights into what the place is like and information about things you may or may not like (first floor, high floor, no elevator, over a restaurant, noisy, in a dark dangerous area of the city, etc). I also find those small things that people say often show up in more than one review and are expanded on. You will pick up on details that will cause you to say, "This is the place!" (or not). Take the time to read all the reviews. It will help.
I will leave more of the websites and blogs I used to find attractions, restaurants, and activities to the specific posts but here are, in my view, a few must-haves if you want to travel around Japan (particularly if you are traveling on your own, not on a tour).
Pocket wi-fi - despite being a very technologically advanced country it is surprising how limited access to free wi-fi is. It was better this trip than in 2012, but many places (coffee shops as an example) limit or charge for wi-fi. Hotels often charge extra for wi-fi (all our Airbnbs included free wi-fi). In addition, while you are traveling around and don't have access to wi-fi you are not going to want to pay for data roaming with a Canadian telecom. Even voice and data packages are expensive for Asia. A pocket wi-fi is a small cellular router with unlimited data with which you can connect your phone (normally 5-7 separate devices). You pay a flat fee for the days you are in Japan and have access to the internet wherever you go. You can also use it in your hotel or Airbnb if free wi-fi is not included. Many of the packages include a portable battery charger to supplement the battery life of the pocket wi-fi device. You can pick up the device at the airport in Tokyo or if you are staying at a hotel most services will deliver the device there for your arrival. Just google "pocket wi-fi in Japan" and you will get lots of information, comparisons between services, promotions, etc. My one last tip is to ensure you have battery packs. You do not want your phone or pocket wi-fi to die on you when you need to use Google to get back to your hotel or Airbnb. In addition to the pocket wi-fi, which was our primary way to use the internet, I did purchase the basic travel package from Bell for Teresa and me. I did this primarily for texting so that if we got separated, we could get connected. It also gave some voice usage for phoning for reservations etc.
Hyperdia - this app is a necessity if you are planning on traveling by train in Japan. You type in where you are going (Osaka to Hiroshima as an example), the day and time, and it will bring up the options and routes. You cannot purchase train tickets on the app but you can save the route you want. When you get to the train station, you just show the agent the route, date, and time you have saved and indicate how many tickets you want. We found this very helpful as it allowed us to plan out our travel. In addition, many (most) ticket agents don't speak English, so rather than stumbling through your request (and potentially buying the wrong ticket) you just point to the app and they will know what you want. A definite must for independent travel in Japan. As an aside for most longer train rides you must buy a reserved seat. The Hyperdia app will highlight if this is required. You can buy your train ticket at a Japan Rail (JR) station in advance. This means you don't have to line up the day you are traveling potentially missing your train or finding out the train is full. We never did this but we were traveling in February. I am guessing during peak travel season, advance tickets would be a requirement.
Japan Rail pass - if you are doing a lot of travel around Japan the JR rail pass can be an amazing deal. You have to purchase it before you arrive in Japan but most of what you read is the great savings it provides (apparently Japanese residents wish they had access to it). You can google Japan Rail pass to find out more. You can also google JR rail pass calculator and the tool allows you to enter your itinerary. The tool will then show you the cost of train tickets without a pass and you can compare this to the cost of a pass. You need to remember that in most cases the JR pass only applies to Japan Rail (JR!) trains and is mostly for travel between cities (not subways and buses in cities). Because we flew from Sapporo to Osaka and then spent time in each location the pass was not a savings for us on this trip, but it is definitely something to check out.
Suica Card - this is a public transit card that you can use in most major cities on most public transit (there are a few exceptions). It makes it super easy for public transit particularly at unmonitored stations where if you don't have a card you cannot get it. The card can also be used at some stores (convenience type stores) although we never did that. The card is reloadable, so you can manage the amount of money you decide to put on the card.
Google Maps - I know this is going to likely sound kind of pathetic (but here goes anyway). I use google maps and Waze at home primarily for driving. I don't take a lot of public transit and when I do it is the Go train to Union Station or the Yonge subway line. No need for google maps. In my view, google maps is an essential tool for getting around in Japan. We were able to enter our destination and it gave us the walking route to the subway station, what subway entrance number to enter, what train on what track at what time. This is particularly important in Japan as many stations have multiple (lots!) of train lines. In addition, there are a large number of express trains that do not stop at every station. If you get on the wrong train it may not stop at your desired station. Google maps will then show you the stations you should be passing (assuming you are on the right train). This either gives you the knowledge that you are going the right way or lets you know it is time to abort and figure out where you are going. I know highlighting google maps as a key tool seems weak, but if you don't use it regularly like us, make sure you use it in Japan. It is key to getting around and it is essential to combine google maps on your phone with your rented pocket wifi so you have access wherever you are.
Trip Advisor - again, no big discovery or some incredibly sophisticated tool here. However, here is how I used it and it was very handy. While I was doing my research on each city I was constantly on the lookout for good restaurants. As I found them, I would create a trip for each city (eg. Sapporo) and then save the restaurant in that city trip. This allowed us to have a list of restaurants for each city (we would find more as we were walking around or by talking to people we met and getting their recommendations). By entering them into Trip Advisor, you can use the nearby feature to highlight not only restaurants in general that are close by but specifically those restaurants you have highlighted as a favorite. This way, whether it was when we were at our Airbnb or out site seeing and wanting to eat, I could see what restaurants I had already found and highlighted that were nearby. We used this quite often and were able to find some great places (that I had already researched). Again, not rocket science but very helpful.
French press travel mug - definitely a must if you are in an Airbnb and want coffee in the morning! Airbnb's in Japan do not have coffee makers. They do have a kettle and teapot but Teresa and I need coffee in the morning. So prior to leaving, I bought two french press travel coffee mugs. We brought ground coffee with us in the case we had a hard time finding some at first (we didn't). We were all set. Every morning we made two full travel mugs of delicious fresh brewed coffee to start our day (about two and a half coffee mugs). A definite must!
That's it for our overall planning. I will work to get the posts on each of the cities we visited up over the next couple of weeks. It will include many of the places we visited along with the websites and blogs that I found the best for information.
I hope this was helpful. Let me know any comments or questions at thethirdperiod.ca@gmail.com and I hope at some point you get to experience your own journey to Japan.
ps. The photo below is the Golden Pavilion, Kinkaku-ji, which I think is the single most spectacular attraction in Japan. I have seen it twice now and found it breathtaking both times. This trip we saw it on a beautiful clear sunny day with no crowds (which is amazing). A must-see when you are in Kyoto.
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