Hopefully going to Kyoto and Osaka too next year. I recently won the tickets and flights, and have to go pick them up from the tourist board place sometime this week. I don’t know when I’ll go though, because obviously they’re not going to be giving away peak season bookings, but they haven’t told me the date restrictions yet. I’m hoping the flights are fairly flexible so me & my friend can travel around a bit and see other places too, but I don’t know yet. I’m trying not to get excited until I have the tickets in my hand.
Get the tourist rail card you can only buy out of the country. Gives you unlimited journeys (including almost all trains) and saves loads of £££. Also best to reserve seats on trains in advance as they get very busy, easy to do at the big stations.
If you’re visiting Kyoto best to stay in Osaka. They’re only about 15 minutes apart by train and Kyoto is hella pricey for accommodation plus is a bit meagre on the nightlife front whereas Osaka is pretty cheap and has loads of great bars/clubs. Nara is also easily reachable from Osaka (about 30 minutes maybe) so its a good base.
I really liked Naoshima, an island with loads of amazing art on it. Definitely worth the trip.
Make sure you visit a proper Onsen in the mountains somewhere. Best thing in Japan.
Not long to go now. @littleblimps any decent gigs on at the start of March?
Also any J-pop gigs I could get to? @AQOS you been/back yet? Aaaaaarrrrgggghhhhh!
Also @anon45164313 I’ll be in Tokyo 2nd-5th and 19th-22nd march (rail ticket starts in the 6th)
For me -
Flights - £400
Accommodation is averaging about £60 a night… mix of cities, some ryokan (classic Japanese style) others standard hotels. So that’s about £1300 obviously hostels would be cheaper… didn’t bother with air bnb etc.
2 week train pass to go nationwide from city to city is about £300
Then spending money… I’ve hopefully got tickets for sumo £75, j league football is about £35… and a few other bits I’ve bought upfront.
I hope to have saved about £2k for fun - I may not spend it all… but should be able to do/eat/drink what I want within reason. Alot of the stuff will be free… waling round n that… then there’s booze and kit kats.
I just went to sumo for the first time and it was brilliant. I’ve heard that if you show up really early (like 7:30am) they let you in to see the really young kids doing it and the matches are longer and more intense. The top guys’ matches last about a maximum of 5 seconds. Also, 75 quid is a lot more than I paid, are you getting front row seats?