My husband (41M) and I (45F), both Canadian, got back a few weeks ago from our 3-week trip to Japan over the New Year's period. This subreddit was helpful for me in planning everything, so I wanted to post a short review here.
Context
This was my 2nd trip to Japan, the first one having been way back in 2008, when I visited the main tourist circuit of Honshu. For my husband, it was his first trip. We divvied up our 3 weeks down the middle, half in Honshu so my husband could visit and I could revisit the main cities of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, and half in Hokkaido, which was new for both of us and so I could get some skiing in. For reference, I've previously been to Hakone/Fuji, Koya-san, and Hiroshima-Miyajima, none of which we did on this trip.
We knew travelling over the New Year's holiday was less than ideal, but it was the only time we could both get enough holiday time from work to make the trip happen, so we just took it into account when planning. We spent actual New Year's in Tokyo, which was fine 'cause plenty of things were open and it wasn't too crowded. And we booked our shinkansen tickets and hotels in advance to keep the costs manageable. I know there's a lot of scaremongering over "don't travel on new year's!" and whatnot, but honestly, if that's the time you have, it's really fine as long as you keep expectations reasonable.
Itinerary
Honshu: Flew into Narita. 6 nights Tokyo, 2 nights Kyoto, 2 nights Osaka. Travelled by public transit, trains, etc. Flew out of Osaka.
Hokkaido: Flew into New Chitose. 3 nights Niseko Annupuri, 1 night Noboribetsu, 2 nights Asahikawa, 3 nights Sapporo, flew home from New Chitose. Travelled by rental car.
Logistics
We stayed mostly in business chain hotels. Small double rooms are fine for a couple if you're okay with being in close quarters and not having a ton of space to walk around. We're both on the smaller side and found the doubles were OK for us, if a bit tight, but they make smart use of space and have a lot of amenities and conveniences. If you are taller/larger humans, you may prefer a "Hollywood twin" which is basically two single beds that may or may not be pushed together. In Niseko we stayed at a tradition ryokan-style hotel with beautiful outdoor onsen baths, which felt amazing after ski days. In Noboribetsu we stayed at a much larger onsen hotel that felt a bit overwhelming, kinda like a shopping mall. The baths were nice but I didn't enjoy them as much as Niseko, if I'm being honest.
In Tokyo, we stayed near Ueno Park for the central location and spent each day in Tokyo in a different neighbourhood — neighbourhoods in Tokyo are like cities — which made the most logical sense. We got Welcome Suica cards at the airport when we landed, and also each bought a 72-hour subway card since I did the math and saw it was cheaper than using Suica for some of where we wanted to go in Tokyo. (The Suica cards worked fine in Kyoto, Osaka, and Sapporo, too, and we only had to reload once).
I bought the shinkansen tickets we took between Tokyo and Kyoto in advance, since we were travelling during the busy New Year's period. I still miss the days when the JR passes were good value — I remember loving the freedom and spontaneity it offered on my first trip back in 2008 — but we only needed to take one shinkansen on this trip since local transport was fine everywhere else. Get seats on the right side of the train if you're going from Tokyo to Kansai; we lucked out and got crystal clear views of Fuji on the way there.
Sapporo, we rented our car from Budget Rental Car in New Chitose. It was very convenient, we got a 4WD Toyota Yaris that was perfect for our needs. Very easy to understand the process. They do push the extra insurance pretty hard, but I had a translation of my proof of insurance from my credit card provider to show them at the counter, and after that they waived the extra insurance without much argument. Note that you do need International Driver's Permits to drive in Japan with a Canadian license; we got ours from CAA before the trip.
Highlights
So many! Temples and shrines and food and food and food and oh, did I mention the food? We kinda ate our way through Japan. Food highlights included an incredible chicken ramen place in Ginza, a 7-course sushi birthday dinner for my husband in Kyoto, and amazing sashimin rice bowls in Otaru on a daytrip from Sapporo. Oh, and the buffet dinner at our onsen hotel in Noboribetsu was friggin' awesome. I also have an unapologetic love of Choco-cro croissants from St Marc's Cafe, which I ate as often as possible.
We didn't do a ton of typical "tourist" attractions, but we did book a few things in advance, including TeamLabs Borderless in Tokyo (well worth it), the Samurai Ninja Museum in Asakusa (touristy but fun if you're into such things, which my husband is), and Cabaret Asakusa Kaguwa (something to do on New Year's, interesting but REALLY touristy).
Most other things we did didn't require advance booking. A few standouts in Tokyo included the Sengakuji Temple, famous for the graveyard of the "47 Ronin", which was calm and not very busy and quite beautiful, the Meguru-gawa winter illuminations that look like cherry and plum blossoms along the riverfront, and Meiji Jingu on a gorgeous sunny day. In Kyoto, we visited both the Golden and Silver Pavillions, Fushimi Inari Shrine, the Gion district, and a bunch of smaller temples and shrines. Most were busy because of the New Year's period, but some were nice and calm and peaceful. Also quite liked Nishiki Market, though found the food there to be overpriced compared to elsewhere. Osaka is of course foodie paradise and some of our highlights there included Kuromon Market, an amazing vegan okonomiyaki restaurant in Nipponbashi, Melt Chocolate, a sake shop with a 75-year-old cellar, and craft beer tasting in the Tenma district.
We both really loved Hokkaido, which felt so different from Honshu and much more relaxed, open, peaceful, and chill. The skiing in Niseko was incredible, and made me want to visit Japan again. We stayed at a lovely onsen hotel in Annupuri, avoiding the tourist crush of Grand Hirafu, which was pretty ideal. My husband is a non-skier but he was happy to soak in the onsen and just relax. Noboribetsu is touristy with all the oni statues, but was nice for a night and a soak. Asahikawa felt less discovered by western tourists and more like a city where people live and work, which was really nice. We were also there during Coming of Age Day, which was cool to see as all the teens were dressed up registering for their ceremony at City Hall. The City Museum is great and has a lot of exhibits about Ainu history and culture. As for Sapporo, it's the most "Japanese big city" feel you'll get anywhere in Hokkaido. We liked exploring the main shopping area and different neighbourhoods, took the obligatory trip up the TV tower, and ate ramen — though I preferred the style in Asahikawa. We did a daytrip to Otaru, too, which was charming and had excellent sushi.
Lowlights
None, unless you count getting stuck in Toronto overnight on the way home to Montreal due to a snowstorm. But meh, that's just winter travel for you; it happens.
Weather and packing
Winter in Honshu is quite lovely weather-wise. I keep hearing horror stories from people who've chosen to travel in summer and suffer through the intense heat and humidity. In contrast, we had beautiful sunny weather and highs in the 10-12 degree range on most days, which was perfect for walking around and sightseeing. In Honshu I did well in just waterproof trail runners and a lighweight packable jacket.
Hokkaido was very snowy, of course, but that was kinda what we were there for as I was keen to ski on the beautiful Japanese powder snow, which did not disappoint. In Hokkaido I wore my winter boots and ski jacket most of the time, and my husband had his winter coat and boots too, and we both wore base layers for the wind and such. One thing I would take if I could do it over again is a pair of spikes or yak trax for my winter boots, since the sidewalks in Hokkaido (other than the heated ones in pedestrian zones) are not cleared from ice and snow like they are at home, so they can be really slippery. You can also buy these at most konbini when you're there.
On my previous trip I visited in November, which is probably the most ideal in terms of weather. January is colder, sure. But as Canadians, we weren't really put off by the winter weather at all. We saw some people from hot climates struggling a bit, and I wouldn't recommend driving in Hokkaido at that time of year unless you're really comfortable with winter driving. Luckily both of us have a lot of experience with it, so we were fine, but the road conditions can get a bit hairy at times.
We both packed carry-on only for Honshu, which is our habit for most trips. Just travelling with a small carry-on backpack is great, because you never have issues dragging suitcases around crowded streets or stations, looking for elevators, storing bags in small hotel rooms, or trying to book oversized luggage seats on shinkansen. It helped us resist the temptation to buy a lot of stuff we didn't need, too; for some reason, people tend to go shopping-crazy in Japan, but we didn't really feel any need to shop much. I also packed one checked bag with my ski gear (I rented my skis but took my boots, helmet, and other gear from home) and used Yamato Black Cat to forward it from Narita when we landed to our ryokan in Niseko on arrival. That worked super smoothly and the bag was waiting for us when we got to Hokkaido 10 days later, no problem. From there we just took it in the rental car around with us, and we were able to use it to carry home some liquids on the way back (I got some sake and my husband bought a bottle of whisky).
We just packed regular clothes to wear under the winter gear — jeans and sweaters and such. You don't need many options, and neutral colours are best since I found Japanese people don't really wear bright colours and you'll stand out if you do. I kinda regretted that my ski jacket is bright purple, since it didn't really blend in well in the cities. But I wasn't stressed enough to bother packing two jackets since that would've taken up needless extra bag weight and space.
Observations
Japan is definitely WAY more crowded with tourists than it was 17 years ago. The differences were super noticeable for me, especially when I'd compare side-by-side photos in exactly the same spot and see that formerly empty areas were now packed with tourists. On the other hand, it's much easier to get around now, with translation apps, Google Maps, and English signage on nearly everything in major cities. That definitely wasn't the case in 2008.
We didn't encounter any outright anti-tourist sentiment. We both tried to be as polite as possible in terms of cultural norms and to use our limited amount of Japanese to greet people politely. I'm sure we broke some unwritten rules but at least we tried to be aware of them, e.g. not eating and drinking while walking, not talking too loud or shouting, queuing and standing on the left (or, in Osaka, on the right; just follow what the locals do if you're unsure). I found that unlike 17 years ago when I kinda stood out, now, most people take western tourists in stride and we blended in pretty well. Some izakayas have signs saying "foreigners welcome"; in one such izakaya in Golden-Gai, we met some local Tokyo people there on purpose to meet foreigners to practice their English. The only place we had a few places refuse us entry was in Asahikawa, but I chalked that up to them simply being booked up with reservations or perhaps the staff was uncomfortable with English. It was never a big deal and we always found someplace else nearby to go that was just as good or better.
The exchange rate against the CAD was pretty similar this trip to what it was 17 years ago, around 110:1. Mentally we just used 100:1 as it was easier math to do in our heads, i.e. something that costs 1000 yen was around 10 bucks. Japan has definitely gotten more expensive than it was back then, especially for hotels and transportation and such. A lot of the people raving about how cheap it is are probably American. Our exchange rate isn't quite as favourable. Having said that, a lot of things are quite cheap. We found we tended to eat one larger restaurant meal a day and one konbini meal or snack since we weren't hungry enough for 3 big meals. Food is pretty inexpensive unless you're splurging on the fancy Michelin starred restaurants. Some things are relatively pricey, like fresh fruit in grocery stores (seriously eye-wateringly expensive!) or craft beer (we're both beer nerds so we indulged anyway). But most temples and shrines are free to visit or only cost a few dollars, and regular food at small restaurants, konbini food, and vending machine drinks are cheap as chips. One note is that Don Quijote isn't particularly good value for most shopping; a lot of things there are very overpriced compared to what you'd pay at other tax-free shops or convenience stores.
Overall, it was an amazing trip, with a good mix of history and culture, sightseeing, food and drink, scenery and nature, and downtime. I'd go back in a heartbeat!
by segacs2