Photo Album

Tokyo

Takayama to Takahashi

Tomonoura to Hiroshima & Miyajima

Himeji to Kyoto

Kyoto and Nara

and a few more photos

General info

We used the Rough Guide as our main source of information for hotels and restaurants.

Booking accommodation online while there (we used Expedia mainly), saved us a great deal - the Hotel New Otani was about 1/2 the price quoted by their reception.

The website Japan Travel and Living Guide has a lot of useful information on driving, banking etc, including itineries.

We used Hyperdia to check train times. Once we had decided on a journey,we would print out the details and take it with us to book the tickets - nothing to lose in translation.

Highlights

Kyoto and Nara certainly lived up to their reputations - we could have done with more time in Kyoto.

Hiroshima - an unexpectedly vibrant city and with a small enough centre to wander around.

The restaurants - we didn't have a bad meal and were surprised at how cheap eating out was (mind you we're living in England, so anywhere else is cheap). By far the most expensive dinner we had (a Kaiseki-ryori meal) worked out at £35.00 per head; almost all the others were less than £10.00 each.
The atmosphere in the restaurants was also "fun", with shouted greetings and farewells in the Sushi houses and quieter, friendly service in the more formal places.

The trains - they also more than lived up their reputation. Not only were they fast and on-time, but the leg room was far more generous than on European trains.
We had a couple of 8 minute connections on our travels. In each case the staff on the earlier trains told us which platform the connecting train left from (another use for our printed itineries).

Problems

None - I can honestly say that we have never had such a relaxing touring holiday.