Here’s my long-overdue assortment of notes & tips from a family trip last year. Unfortunately some of it is already too late for the 2025 season, but we did a few things that I hadn’t seen extensive coverage on, so I hope to add some new information to the conversation for future travellers.

This follows on from the previous part and starts at Setouchi; I had to split the posts as I exceeded the character limit!

Setouchi

28 November – 2 December

Hiroshima

• Without minimising its significance, I’m not convinced that the Peace Memorial Park should be the automatic recommendation that it tends to be. It’s a heavy experience and you’ll want to be in the right headspace for it. Look out for special exhibitions that may be running on the day; we caught one on the Akatsuki Corps. The park wasn’t overly crowded while we were there.
• Several okonomiyaki restaurants around the city are closed on Thursdays, so we ended up in Okonomi-mura. It was lacking some ambience outside of peak times, but on the plus side, we were seated immediately and the food was plenty good for what it is.
• I was looking forward to the etSETOra sightseeing train, but I mistimed the ticket availability and ended up missing out.

Ōkunoshima

• This island felt like Setouchi in a bottle. There is a path circumnavigating the island, but you can also take some routes inland to the summit for stunning views of the inland sea. There’s enough here to fill 4 hours if you’re up for a hike.
• While there weren’t hordes of rabbits, we bumped into a fair number of them scattered across the island. They appeared to be generally well-fed by foot traffic, with a mix of pellets, hay, and fresh vegetables.
• There’s plentiful parking at Tadanōmi Port, and it wasn't too busy outside of a tour bus and school excursion. I was initially hoping we could continue onward to Sakari Port, but I couldn’t find any bus routes running through that port, GO did not service the area, and our hotel in Hiroshima wasn’t willing to organise a taxi in a different prefecture (Ehime). I only realised after leaving that DiDi was available nearby, so maybe the connection is doable.
• We ended up renting a car for peace of mind, and it turned out to be almost essential to cover the 40-minute walk between our accommodation and the coin laundry, konbini, port, and restaurants in Setoda.

Shimanami Kaidō

• We split Onomichi → Setoda and Setoda → Imabari across two days. This pacing worked well and allowed us to indulge in longer breaks for food and scenery. Despite initial concerns with the sections of the route that ran along roads, I never felt unsafe in practice; I imagine drivers in the area are highly cognisant of cyclists.
• We took a ferry from Setoda Port to Onomichi to begin. The initial 7:50am flight of the Lazuli was 15 minutes late, with no announcements nor ways to track its whereabouts that I could figure out. The subsequent ferry connection from Onomichi to Mukaishima was far more punctual, running every 12 minutes.
• Shimanami Japan has a network of rental stations conveniently plotted along the blue line on this map. I can corroborate prior recommendations of their electric assist bikes: they were perfectly sufficient for the route and the front-mounted baskets were handy to store belongings and souvenirs. We had one e-bike on the first day, and it didn’t feel worth the price hike and lack of storage.
• I overcomplicated our reservations by switching to new bikes on the second day; you can reserve the electric assists across multiple days and swap out their batteries where required at the rental stations. I ended up covering the blue line and Mt Kiro on the equivalent of a single charge anyway. The mountain is a legit incline even with the electric assist, so you’ll want to reserve some energy for it.
• The sights of the archipelago alone may have been enough, but when you mix in the cycling infrastructure spanning bridges, citrus-stuffed mochi and Hiroshima okonomiyaki, this was the undisputed highlight of our trip.
• While on the theme of food, quality was high across the board in the region. The seafood in particular was outstanding, from kaki fry to ebi croquettes. A lot of restaurants around Setoda close earlier than their advertised opening hours, but we were still lucky to find a soba & sake restaurant at 8pm on a Sunday.

Okayama

• Kōrakuen looks picture-perfect with Okayama Castle as a backdrop. It’s well worth taking a stroll around the garden and a break at one of its teahouses.
• As a general word of warning, limited-time items you may see promoted on websites like SoraNews24 are likely to turn over quickly in favour of new seasonals. We were on the hunt for Starbucks Bizen mugs but none of the four stores around Okayama Station had them anymore.

Skipped

• Towel Museum: I was eyeing the Peter Rabbit exhibition running at the time, but given we arrived at Imabari at 4:30pm, this wasn’t worth rushing for.
• Seto Ohashi Bridge: we didn’t end up driving through Shikoku so it no longer made much sense.

Tōkyō

2–7 December

Tōkyō

• Starbucks is easy to hate, but the Roastery here—one of only three outside of America—is truly special. There are four floors and multiple menus to explore, and between tea, cocktails, and seasonal items, you don’t have to care for their coffee to have a great experience. We were able to walk in without any wait in the evening.
• Tower Records Shibuya is a tribute to physical media. I was taken aback by its sheer scale and the signed artist areas scattered around the store. If you have at least a passing interest in Japanese media, you’ll love this.
• I was hit by a wave of nostalgia entering Pokémon Center DX, but with the 25th anniversary merch that released not even two weeks prior completely sold out, I ended up largely lost amongst the goods for newer generations.
• Shibuya Sky was a surprisingly solid experience. The peak hours approaching sunset sell out instantly, but we still had an enjoyable time heading up during a later timeslot. I had assumed it would be packed to the brim, but the crowds and capacity seem to be very deliberately controlled such that it never felt claustrophobic. By contrast, Shibuya Blue Cave Illumination at Yoyogi Park was underwhelming.
• My two memorable dining experiences in the city were at a My Melody collab cafe, where a neighbouring table spent 45 minutes straight photographing their afternoon tea set, and walking to Sushizanmai after a long day out for some fresh, high-quality sushi past 2:00am. I also recommend checking out a family restaurant at least once.
• I mainly shopped around Tōkyō Station (Character Street), Shibuya, and Akihabara. While many have soured on the latter, it was my third time there and I still enjoyed hopping around the stores. That said, I wasn’t hunting for bargains nor specific collectables.
• collabo-cafe.com is a useful resource for limited-time cafes and pop-up shops. Note that the items listed on such sites may not be comprehensive; I went to a couple shops that had a much wider selection in person than was advertised, so prepare your wallet accordingly!
• FamilyMart seemed to carry the widest range of collaboration merchandise amongst the convenience store chains. It can be worth trying a few stores as stock levels tend to be limited.

Chichibu Night Festival

• The fifty two seats of happiness restaurant train typically runs a service ahead of the festival: an intriguing, albeit expensive transit option to pair with a stay in the area. If you aren’t sticking around afterward, I can vouch for reserved seats on the Laview for the return trip to Ikebukuro. Tickets opened on Smooz on 3 November, with the 10:24–11:47pm service selling out in under 30 minutes.
• Chichibu, Kyoto, and Takayama are home to the top three float festivals in Japan. The Chichibu rendition is held over two days, with information available on the festival site and Q&A. We arrived in Chichibu around 4:30pm on the second day, but if you’re primarily drawn by the floats and fireworks, you likely don’t need to be much earlier than 7:30pm. Nagano’s fireworks were far more technically impressive, but Chichibu’s floats and festival atmosphere made the overall experience feel a little grander.
• An extensive series of stalls lined the streets all the way to Chichibu Shrine, though they gave off more of a night market atmosphere and weren’t especially unique. Some paths and roads began to be barricaded off for crowd management as the evening progressed, so it was confusing at times to get around the area.
• There was a large gathering around the shrine where the floats begin their procession toward city hall, but they head off one by one, and you can catch a decent look at them along their journey. There’s an intersection where they approach from the west then change direction to the north, and a railway crossing where they cross the parallel road to the north. Refer to the official guide from 2024 or this interactive map I pulled together.
• The floats congregate outside city hall within a reserved section. I believe the seats here are listed and sell out online, and they require physical delivery. The floats are not easily seen by the general public once they reach this point outside of peeking through or over fencing.
• The tourism association set up a paid balcony area for fireworks viewing that partially overlooked the floats last year, but you should probably save your money: simply sit curbside nearby to enjoy the fireworks. Positioning yourself near city hall is convenient to board a train once the fireworks end around 9:55pm.

Enoshima

• Enoden trains were cute and reminded me of home. The line was congested around lunchtime on a weekday.
• Awanouta is a short walk up a slope from Shichirigahama Station and serves an array of boutique ramen varieties. I highly rate the tonkotsu bubble ramen, and Susuru’s ramen map as a resource.
• The black iron sand of Shichirigahama Beach is much starker in real life. I also stumbled upon the now-infamous Slam Dunk crossing, and while there was a crowd, I’m far more sympathetic to concerns around it disturbing locals than the safety hazard framing in the press.
• The Escar and its “Luminous Way” aren’t really attractions in themselves. Note that the Iwaya Caves are still a reasonable distance to walk beyond the top escalator. I found the caves to be unremarkable, but you can catch an awesome sunset view of Mt Fuji on the west coast of the island when the skies are clear.
• The garden illumination strictly switches on at 5:00pm despite sunset being closer to 4:30pm in early December, with an additional payment is levied based on exit time. It’s spectacular, though there are limited spots where you can get a really good view of the garden as a whole.

Odaiba

• We took a cruise on the futuristic Emeraldas from Asakusa to Odaiba after checking that the weather was clear a few days in advance. The top deck was opened 30 minutes in, though we had passed the Rainbow Bridge by the time its illuminations began.
• The Small Worlds museum is charming and features many more interactive elements than some contemporaries I’ve visited. Gallery B was rather small when I went, so don’t feel you have to rush through Gallery A.

Skipped

• Odaiba: I didn’t get around to the game hall nor Gundam statue.
• CoCo Ichibanya World: I have fond memories of CoCo from past trips but didn’t fit in a visit to this special store.
• Kamakura: I was mulling the Hōkokuji Bamboo Forest and Shōnan Monorail, but I had a late night and opted to head straight to Shichirigahama instead.

Hokkaidō

7–14 December

Tōkyō → Niseko

• GranClass on the Tohoku-Hokkaidō Shinkansen was exceptional. The full service included a light meal and beverage, with pound cake on request. The landscape out the window turned to white as we headed north.
• I feel comfortable broadly recommending the train connection to Sapporo, given the smoothness of the transfer at Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto. However, heading to Niseko first is a harder sell, at least until the full length of the Hokkaidō Shinkansen is completed. As it was, we got off at Oshamambe Station and had a private transfer by car organised to avoid us squeezing onto an infrequent local train with lots of luggage. Oshamambe itself has nothing but a series of steep staircases between platforms and the entrance.
• We threw in this last leg as we really wanted to experience the snow. Catching the end of shoulder season did grant us a cheaper and quieter stay overall, but at the cost of attractions that fall later in winter like the Sapporo Snow Festival.

Niseko

• We were in Niseko just to take it easy and take in the snow resort experience. Food options were understandably more limited and pricey, but we enjoyed our meals at méli mélo (French & Italian) and Afuri (yuzu shio ramen). Expect some service hiccups as early December tends to be a training period ahead of peak season.
• I was rather sceptical of tempura omakase going in, and unfortunately Tempura Araki didn’t convince me. Maybe I don’t appreciate great tempura, maybe the staff were thrown off by the girl group next to us that barely ate their food, but I feel there are any number of dishes that stand to benefit more from an elevated experience.
• The newly-opened Ace Gondola wasn’t too busy during this period so we had our own capsule up and down. We had also signed up for snowmobiling, and it was almost fun except for the guided tour insisting on going painfully slow.
• I got my days mixed up, so we ended up at Lupicia on one of its winter days off. Luckily, there was still a gelato vending machine operating outside. Takahashi Dairy Farm is an entire complex to try and buy your way through. Beyond the pizza and salad we had at Mandriano, we walked away with cream puffs, cheese tarts, chocolate bars, and Lupicia beer. Hakko Ginger was a hidden gem inspired by—and in my opinion, outdoing—Australian ginger beer.

Lake Tōya

• We splurged on a ryokan. While I knew of the meals, I still wasn’t prepared for 2½ hour-long kaiseki dinner, followed by a similarly massive breakfast spread.
• The public open-air onsen had an absolutely outrageous view overlooking the lake, and was made all the more magical as snow fell in the early hours of the morning.

Sapporo

• We kept a looser schedule to decompress at the end of our trip. There’s good food and no shortage of shops around Sapporo. Regular shoes with some tread were fine to navigate snowy paths on the surface, but I recommend exploring the expansive walkways underground to sidestep the slipperiness. I especially appreciated the stretch between Sapporo and Susukino, and its connections to neighbouring complexes.
• We didn’t pay for the tours around Shiroi Koibito Park and I felt it was better off as a quick stop for souvenirs anyway. We lost a lot more time to MEGA Don Quijote and department stores like Daimaru and Marui Imai; visit their lower/basement levels for a huge variety of snacks and omiyage.
• The Munich Christmas Market at Odori Park was a good vibe amongst the illuminations, but it’s ultimately a brief visit unless you stop to peruse each and every store. The Sapporo Beer Museum has tasting paddles and individual pours, including of their Kaitakushi brew, a recreation of the original 1876 recipe. Don’t miss the malted cheesecake while you’re here.
• We were rewarded for our long wait in queue for Sushi Toriton with the best sushi we had all trip. The sheer variety and value were astounding; even the various crab dishes were well priced.
• With Ramen Alley teeming with diners, we decided to check out New Ramen Street. I’d skip it in favour of standouts you can find elsewhere across the city, like the curry soup option at Karai Ramen 14. I was apprehensive of soup curry going in, but it’s worlds apart from S&B; there’s a proper exploration of spice, and plenty of variation between stores.
• The parfaits were extravagant, but expect to queue to be seated in the evenings.

Airports

• I didn’t have much time in New Chitose Airport, but the seafood rice bowl at Shima no Hito was an appropriate send-off for the region.
• I had a middling impression of Narita Internal Airport in past, but the experience felt markedly different with a daytime layover. While there’s not much of a view outside of the observation deck for plane spotting, it was unexpectedly peaceful and pleasant to navigate around. There were plentiful dining & shopping options—albeit with generous markups—and I loved the lobster ramen at Mugi to Olive.

Skipped

• Mount Usu: the snowfall on the day would’ve obscured sightseeing around these parts.
• Noboribetsu: we took a more direct driving route to Sapporo, especially given we had already been to hell’s valley in Yamanouchi.
• Otaru: we decided to take it easier around Sapporo rather than squeeze in another day trip.

Transport

Trains

• I found it relatively easy to reserve tickets online. While hardly necessary for most services, it was helpful for scenic trains that tend to book out, and to reserve specific seats or carriages, particularly for oversized baggage. For services (e.g. in Hokkaidō) not available online, just head to a JR station, and allow for some time in case there’s a queue at the ticket machines.
• I still had to collect paper tickets from an e5489 booth, but this allowed us to skip the queues at the regular ticket counters. For Shinkansen services that use smartEX, you can go a step further by associating your tickets with IC cards so you can simply walk up to the gate. Note that smartEX didn’t let me book services departing within the next few minutes, so don’t leave things to the last minute.
• Some stations (e.g. Kyōto Station) are sprawling; don’t blindly trust Google Maps routing, and leave enough of a buffer to find your way through to the appropriate platform. You can often find detailed station layouts online if you need to strictly time a connection.
• If you like trains, scout for scenic services along your trip. The joyful trains are particularly affordable options.

Taxis

• I didn’t use the taxi much, but came away unimpressed by the GO app. Outside of the biggest cities where a nearby vehicle is practically guaranteed, its aggressive limits on calling drivers from further away meant we had to at times walk 10 minutes in the direction of a roaming taxi in order to be picked up, which was nonsensical.
• As mentioned earlier, if you’re not finding any GO services in your current prefecture, it’s worth checking if there’s an alternative platform like DiDi available.

Rental cars

• This may be an unpopular opinion, but the 790km we travelled by road from Takayama to Nagano were far more scenic than the trains we took in the region. The infrastructure through these parts is spectacular, and I found a rental to be underrated for the convenience of storing your belongings and stashing purchases you pick up along the way, and fitting more varied activities into a day without having to stress over timetables and transit connections.
• Popping in to roadside stations for local specialties and seasonal produce added to the charm of the countryside. On highways, the Toyota satnav conveniently lists upcoming rest areas and stations, so there’s really no need to plan ahead.
• I reserved all our rentals online, given we were after one-way transfers that are subject to availability. Try to reserve an ETC card along with the car, or you’ll either have to avoid toll roads or carry some cash to pay at the toll gates. I recommend opting for newer vehicle model years where possible for improved built-in satnav software, but even still, I found the fastest way to select destinations was to search the location on my phone where I could easily enter romaji or kana, then roughly line up the spot on car’s map.
• I didn’t have issues arriving earlier than the specified reservation time—for example, the earliest I could book one JR Rent-A-Car was 11:00am, but we were served at 10:15am—but you should expect to burn 30 minutes on paperwork and process before you can head off.
• I mostly drove a minivan and didn’t have any issues even through tighter one-way roads. That said, I hail from a right-hand drive country and have driven overseas before, so your mileage may vary.
• I consistently pegged flow of local traffic at 20–30 km/h above the speed limit. I thought this may change with the icy roads of Hokkaidō, but the same seemed to hold there!

Luggage forwarding

• This trip was the first time we had used Yamato Transport, it was as good as it sounds for us. We left a full day buffer between the day we sent our luggage off and the day of receipt, and our items were waiting for us in our accommodation at the end of our Nagano → Kyoto and Kyoto → Setoda connections. Our final hotel was willing to accept deliveries two weeks in advance, so we also shipped some items that weren’t going to use during the trip from Kyoto → Sapporo.
• You’ll have a better time if your hotel handles the dispatch, or you have a local contact who can help you out. In Nagano, the closest konbini wouldn’t take our luggage based on a 25kg weight limit per item, even though we knew they were all comfortably under 20kg. Luckily, our Airbnb host helped us to the closest Yamato Center and with the paperwork.
• You aren’t limited to hotels as shipping destinations; we had luggage delivered to smaller boutique accommodation without issue, as long as there are staff available to accept the luggage. You can even specify the delivery timeframe to ensure it lines up with manned hours.

Highlights