lanval Wrote:Ok So I looked up distances, I guess it would be good to go in this order:
Fukui - Kyoto - Nara - Ise - back to Nara? - Osaka - side trip to Koyasan - back to Osaka - Kobe (do I have to see it?)

Does anybody know if there is a ticket for roundtrips like Osaka- Koyasan or Nara-Ise and back?

Keep in mind that Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, and Kobe are not far enough away from each other to really worry about. They're all about a half hour away from one another, and an hour for the farthest removed (Kyoto to Kobe or Nara to Kobe take about an hour). That's less than my commute to work everyday, which takes a bit over an hour.

Oh, if you want to travel between Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe, the Hankyu line is nearly half the price of JR, so keep that in mind.

Also, Kyoto has by far the most to do during the day. You can do all of Nara in a day, and Osaka has limited things to do during the day (aquarium? sun statue? a few museums? It's kind of what you make of it).

It's not so expensive to get to Koyasan or Ise as far as I can remember. You just take the Kintetsu to Ise (from Nara or Kyoto) and the Nankai (from Nanba) to Koyasan.

Thank you for the tipps concerning commuting, I havent really planned that yet but I guess I should, fast. Night busses are really popular, I might not even get a cheap one anymore. .
I thought about staying in Kyoto for 5 days, cause when I see how many temples, gardens and so on you can see, I dont think I'd be bored. I can imagine staying for 1-2 days in Nara and 2,3 in Osaka too, can't change city every day and its way easier to plan.

But I'm eally worried right now if I can even make this trip to the end. My leg has been hurting for over a week, but it's gotten a lot worse just by walking for 2,3hours. Now I cant walk without pain and the medicine I've taken hasn't helped I'd say.
Will get me some stronger meds and if that isnt enough I'll make another interesting experience of seeing a Japanese doc I suppose. *big sigh*

Btw, if anyone is interested, I will probably be at Eiheiji for a night, just have to send them a fax on the way and get a mobile phone. I will never understand why they can't just write down your data and be done with the signing up...

lanval Wrote:Thank you for the tipps concerning commuting

I used to do 2-3 week stays in kansai and you definitely can change cities every single day. Stay in Osaka, in general that's where you'll want to be at night anyway, and it's trivial to hit Kobe, Nara, and Kyoto from there. Tzadeck mentioned that Hankyu is cheaper but I always stayed in Umeda since you can catch one train to all of those cities straight from JR Shin-Osaka station. If you were staying in Tokyo you wouldn't move your home base around all of the time and the train time to get to the various Kansai cities isn't all that different.

Am in Kanazawa and cursing myself for only booking 2 nights, because 2 days is very little for this city. made good use of opening hours and went to three museums and Kenroku-en.
I'll have to do a lot tomorrow if I wanna cover the most popular spots.
But my hip has been hurting like crazy, so I'll go to a clinic tomorrow where they should know some English. I kinda don't wanna hear what they say... If they tell me I need to rest, maybe I'll try to manage at least until I've seen Kyoto, Nara and Ise - though that will be until christmas.
I'Ve got a horror vision of having to travel around just to stay in my room, and then go to Tokyo without having seen anything T___T

Btw, I went to an ATM at a postoffice today with my credit card and it exchanged my money at a course of 131 yen - its 141 at the moment, as far as I know - eh, wth? oO

lanval Wrote:Btw, I went to an ATM at a postoffice today with my credit card and it exchanged my money at a course of 131 yen - its 141 at the moment, as far as I know - eh, wth? oO

141 is the mid-market so its the average between the buy and the sell. Your bank will sell it to you at a bank daily rate plus about 3.5% profit for them.

ok I really could use some help now for the last few days! My problem is: I only found cheap hostels in Onomichi and Kobe, but nothing in other places nearby. There are some interesting towns like the art islands (Naoshima...), Matsue, Fukuyama, Takamatsu, but none have affordable places to stay... Shikoku seems so close too, but getting there will probably cost a lot and not be worth it for just 2,3 days... Any ideas what I could do?
(already seen Osaka, Kyoto, Nara)

28 Hiroshima
29 Miyajima (Ryokan)
30 Hiroshima
31 and 1 Okayama
1.1. (evening) and 2.1. Kurashiki ? or just go to another place on 2nd?
3 + 4 Onomichi ?
5 NO IDEA, Kobe?
6 see Kobe and take night bus, end of journey.

I've always wanted to go here:

http://shirakawa-go.org/
http://www.japaneseguesthouses.com/ryoka...irakawa-go

I want to see those thatched-roof houses in Gifu prefecture, but I dunno... that's like a day. (And a pain in the butt to get to.) But if it's snowy up there, it would be very pretty.

You might want to try ookunoshima which is a day trip from Hiroshima. I'm not sure how enjoyable it would be in winter though. More of a spring/summer place.

I didn't really enjoy kobe when I went there, and I had a native showing me around. Just seemed like a mostly normal place with nothing terribly interesting.

Why not spend the last days of your trip going back to a place that you enjoyed the most?

You could cycle to Shikoku - not joking. There's a cycling path that runs from Onomichi to ... some city in Shikoku anyway, and you can hire a bicycle and drop it off at the other end. It takes a day or two and there's supposedly accommodation along the way. I was going to do it but ran out of time. But then, I guess it's now the middle of winter so that might be miserable.
Matsue (and Izumo) are nice, but they're not that easy to get to or from/as close to the cities on the other side of the map as they look. One of my nicest internet cafe sleeping experiences was in Matsue, if that helps, and the hotel at Izumo wasn't all that expensive.
Onomichi is pretty small. You can probably do it in one full day.
Also, you should probably be going to Onomichi before or on the way to Okayama or you're backtracking. Onomichi is in Hiroshima prefecture.
And I don't think there's anything to see/do in Okayama for two days. It struck me as a pretty dull city, though I wasn't really there to tourist.

Onomichi can be done in a day. There are two trails there - one is unimpressive old temples, the other has literary quotes that were hard to read on stone. But the views of the Seto Inland Sea are pretty awesome. I stayed there at the Guest House Fujihostel, which was really good, apart from being a bit far from the train station.

Miyajima must be done. You can easily spend a day just looking at the O-Tori, though when there I did spend the afternoon hiking. If hiking isn't your thing, there's still a ropeway to take you up the mountain. There is at Onomichi, too, for that matter. I stayed at Backpackers Miyajima, which is just to the west of the ferry terminal on Honshu.

Hiroshima was a day for me, and is definitely worth the day, though I'd bring a pack (or three) of tissues. You can stay at Miyajima, or in town.

I stayed overnight in Kurashiki, because Bizen (shopping for yakimono, or pottery) didn't have any hostels. People say the Bikan Historical Area in Kurashiki is nice, but I wasn't all that impressed to be honest. U-RIN-AN was the hostel in Kurashiki - very friendly people, though it might be a bit cold since all the hallways and the kitchen are exposed to the exterior.

I stayed for 2 days in Matsue, and it was fun, but the hostel there (Young Inn Matsue - the only one in town) was horrible. I'd stay in a ryokan or even just a business hotel instead. Matsue has an original castle (largest except for Himeji, which is under renovation) and also beautiful sunsets. Izumo-taisha, a shrine for married people and those who want to be, is also nearby.

Kobe has some nice hiking just north of the shinkansen station, again if that's your thing. You can get a map (in Japanese) at the shinkansen station. There are buses and ropeways to go up there as well. I thought the Nunobiki Herb Garden was also pretty cool, and the ropeway for that is right by the shinkansen station.

I didn't go to Okayama, so I can't comment. Guidebooks say it doesn't have much to recommend itself.

I visited Hagi and Bizen, but unless you're interested in yakimono I wouldn't bother with either.

Tsuwano is west of Hiroshima, and north. You have to switch at Yamaguchi to the Yamaguchi Line to get there. It's a small town with a torn-down castle and a little Inari shrine. It was fun for a half-day, but probably wasn't worth the time to get there.

If you want to go further west, you could hit Fukuoka or Shimonoseki. I didn't go to the latter, but I did go to Fukuoka. I was just there in the evenings (went out to kilns during the day), but it was a very lively town with several attractions. I stayed at Guest House Kaine, which was excellent.

Good luck wherever you end up going! Sorry for the late reply...

If you want to go to Naoshima you can stay in Okayama and then take a ferry to Naoshima (at least, if I remember correctly it was Okayama). We stayed in a minshuku near the ferry stop when we went to Naoshima, and the guy was quite nice and it was cheap. The guy let us use bicycles from the minshuku to go around Naoshima--you can bring them on the ferry.

Naoshima was ridiculous amounts of awesome... but we went in the late spring and the island is beautiful that time of year, and bicycling around is a blast. I'm not sure the experience would be the same in the winter. We also went to Teshima, which was pretty interesting because so few foreigners had been to that island in recent years. A lot of the children on the island were reeeeeallly interested in us white folks, haha. One little girl showed us her cat and introduced us to her parents, it was so cute.

Ok I just decided after reading a bit in my Lonely Planet and trying to make things easier (no jumping around too much, staying at one hotel for a bit):

29 Miyajima (Mikuniya Ryokan)
30 Miyajima/Hiroshima (night at K's)
31 (half day) and 1 Okayama (mainly for Shrine Visit and New Year festivals on first)
1.1. (evening) until morning of 4th: Kurashiki Guest House Yurinan
2 Kurashiki (Canal area, Ohashi House) Bizen-yaki
3 Bitchutakahashi
4-6 Onomichi at Guesthouse Anago no Nedoko to see
4 Onomichi (Tempel Walk, Kosanji, Museum of Art?)
5 Fukuyama (Castle, Zoo?, Temples?)
6 go see Kobe (Museum, Kitano?) and take night bus

I know it's kinda stupid to travel back and fourth, but I will couchsurf in Okayama and I wanted to see this lion dance thing and those cranes on New Year...
Would have loved to go to Matsue and Izumo, but I don't see how, Tourist Info said I wouldn't have the time =( Well it's booked now... If you have any more tipps on side-trips that I forgot, please tell! But my health isn't the best right now with hurting hip and back and feet, I'm feeling like a grandma these days, just wanna have some peace and quiet xD

I know what you mean on being tired. I was in western Honshu (中国地方) and Kyushu for 23 days in November and December - mostly hiking and yakimono, though I did some traditional sightseeing as well. I was beat at the end of the day, but always seemed to bounce back the next.

Good luck in Bizen - that was probably the easiest place to shop for yakimono that I visited. All the shops are close to each other, with 30 or so right along the same street. You can get a map at the train station. The Japanese map, as always, has a lot more information than the English one, though realistically you can just walk along street just north of the main drag, and you'll find most of the main shops. The 名人 I ended up buying from was 小川秀蔵 (Ogawa Shuzo), though I also bought a nice 備前焼 leaf necklace at another store - which I believe turned out to be Ogawa-san's son-in-law's store.

My, Miyajima was one of the best places I've been to, especially the mountain view was fantastic! Took probably 100 pictures up there. I wanted to see some traditional craft and went to Machiya, but almost everything was closed there!

Update: changed my reservations at Tourist Info (man I'm grateful for them, even tho they didn't tell me that great art museum would be closed the next day so I missed it...).
2.1. So I saw a lot of temples today in Onomichi. I actually didn't find them boring at all, there were some very glamorous treasures that I wouldn't have expected here... The city itself is kinda pretty, but with shops closed there is not much more I can do but the film and history museums...
3.1. FUKUYAMA? Don't really feel like temples anymore... I think the toy museum and the folklore museum are open. Or Sensui island?
4. and 5 museum in onomichi, then KURASHIKI
6 Kobe