Japan: Osaka, Kyushu and Tokyo, Feb 2025

2. Yakushima (or so we thought)

Tuesday, 4 Feb

Woke up to a notification of potential weather issues for our flight to Yakushima. Hmm... We still went to Itami airport, proceeded to the boarding gate, and at the last minute, the flight was cancelled. A common occurrence, it seems. The ferries were cancelled too so going to Kagoshima to take one was not an option, and we were told that the next day's weather did not look good either, so rescheduling was not even offered.

Thus we decided to drop our 3 night stay altogether and find something else. It went...much more smoothly than expected:

• Japan Airlines swiftly agreed to refund not only the cancelled flight but also the next flight from Yakushima to Fukuoka, even though it was a separate booking (nice!).
• Nissan Rent a Car waived the 6600 yen cancellation charge.
• The hotel (Samana), booked through a third party, was the biggest stress...and incredibly, they offered to cancel the stay from their end so that the third party (Chase/Expedia) could process the refund without discussion! And to top it off, all the refunds were effectively processed within the week!

Safe with the knowledge that we'd have our money back, while still at Itami Airport we quickly thought about alternatives, and didn't mind splurging a little if needed.
An option was Nara, but the available hotels were not inspiring. We then had a look at Arima Onsen, and booked 3 nights there last minute at Negiya.

There was a bus to Arima Onsen one hour later: time for a quick (but good) airport lunch and we were on our way.

3. Arima Onsen

Tuesday, 4 Feb (cont'd)

We arrived at Negiya right for check-in time. At 50,000 yen/night without meals, it was frankly quite expensive, but at least the room was very comfortable, had a lovely view, the common spaces were very cosy, and the baths were great with varied outdoor and indoor options and interesting iron-rich water.

Wednesday, 5 Feb

We spent a lovely day hopping around the cute shops and quirky museums of Arima Onsen (loved the toy museum!) and enjoying the baths at the inn (those in town did not appeal). It is a charming town and, given the ease of access, I definitely recommend it to people wanting to try an onsen town without going too far off the usual tourist route.

Dinner was at an excellent okonomiyaki place in town, Ikkyu (better than day 1 okonomiyaki).

Thursday, 6 Feb

This was a day trip to Himeji and Kobe. We splurged for the Shinkansen which Google Maps did not even suggest: it was an excellent call. We shortened the trip from Arima Onsen to Himeji to 1 hour instead of 1:40, and thus arrived about 30 min after opening time, in a largely deserted castle against a bright blue sky. It was absolutely freezing inside (tip: wear warm socks, since you visit without shoes), but it was incredible nonetheless, and it was significantly busier by the time we left.

We moved on to the adjacent Koko-en gardens, which have a very good restaurant in a lovely setting. The gardens themselves were nice, if nothing special.

After coffee and a bit of shopping, we took the Shinkansen back to Shin-Kobe where we wanted to visit the Takenaka Carpentry Museum...and it was fantastic. Beautiful building, extremely informative and well-done exhibits, great gift store selection: again, recommended.

Having visited Kobe in the past myself (and not cared much for it), there was nothing else we wanted to do there so, a failed attempt at locating a bus stop later, we took the metro and commuter train back to Arima Onsen.

4. Nagasaki

Friday, 7 Feb

After a morning bath, mostly a travel day to go back to our initially planned route: Shinkansen to Hakata (treated ourselves to Green Car seats with the 3-day advance discount: worth it!) through a very snowy western Honshu leading to a slight delay, metro to Fukuoka Airport (where we would have arrived from Yakushima) to get the rental car, 2-hour drive to Nagasaki in light-to-moderate snow. Thankful for the winter tires on the car, I felt safer.

The hotel, Dormy Inn Nagasaki Station, was great with the exception of rock-hard pillows, with a cool top-floor public bath with an open-air section, and had on-site parking. Rates were unfortunately high (25,000/night) due to the ongoing Lantern Festival I guess.

Saturday, 8 Feb

We started with a somber and disappointing visit to the Atomic Bomb memorial area. Disappointing, because the Peace Park and surrounding memorials, while still moving, felt like a bit of an afterthought in their design. Unremarkable architecture, almost hidden from view (set aside from the main road), for me it was a far cry from Hiroshima where the equivalent area is much more solemn and grandiose.

We switfly moved towards the city center. Dejima was a real highlight, with great exhibits that really told a story. It was one of my main motivations behind going to Nagasaki, so I was really pleased! Sofukuji was also an enjoyable temple visit, and in between, we meandered from shop to shop through the charming downtown area.

There was little time to head to the Glover Garden area, and we had less interest in that area anyway, so we skipped it. Instead, we rested for a bit before heading out to the Lantern Festival, which was frankly impressive in scale and a fun atmosphere with stalls everywhere. We loved it. The "temple rally" in the former Chinese settlement was especially cool.

Sunday, 9 Feb

That day was a blast!

It started with the "treasure hunt" at Kouraku Kiln in Arita (a major center for porcelain manufacturing since the 1600s), where we filled a box of lovely porcelain for 6600 yen. Then, we had some very good curry at Gallery Arita, and proceeded to pick our own cup out of hundreds to have coffee there. The Kyushu Ceramic Musem next door was really worth the stop, too, as it was very informative about how Arita came to be synonymous with Japanese pottery in the west, and had some cool pieces on display.

Then we went to Okawachiyama Pottery Village, a very scenic village in its own right, with at least a dozen pottery shops, many of them excellent.

We ended the day with something completely unplanned: Huis ten Bosch! The unlikeliness of a Dutch-themed park, with windmills and tulips, in a far-flung corner of Japan was not lost on us, and we had a very good time walking around. The attractions/rides we attempted were...so-so, to be polite, but that wasn't the point of out visit anyway.

Monday, 10 Feb

This day was left open in case we wanted to see more of Nagasaki. We didn't really, so we went to the Shimabara peninsula instead, and we really liked it.

Started with Shimabara town, walking around the streets with koi carp swimming in streams running alongside, visiting the teahouse on that street (it was charming but unnecessary), eating great tempura at Tempura Yuushin and...spending an inordinate amount of time and money at one of the best hardware/kitchenware shops I have ever seen anyware, Inohara.

Then we drove to Unzen Onsen to walk around the hells/fumaroles (quite impressive, even having seen other fumaroles before), and back to Nagasaki via Obama Onsen (beautiful views).

5. Kurokawa Onsen

Tuesday, 11 Feb

Blessed by a near-perfect blue sky, we set out to Yutoku Inari Shrine as a first stop, and we were blown away. The pictures do not do it justice; besides the shrine itself, perched on stilts, there is a whole course of torii gates above it, passing by charming little shrines. It is very steep but really worth it, with coffee and magnificent views at the top.

Next stop was Hita town, where the Mamedamachi area is super charming with an old-world feel, some good stores, soy sauce and sake breweries...very interesting stop.

Being fans of the "Suzume" anime, we then swung by the Bungo Mori roundhouse which inspired a scene (gimmicky but just a 10-minute detour), and drove up to Kurokawa Onsen through the melting snow.

We stayed at Sanga Ryokan which was amazing throughout. Beautiful grounds, great baths, comfy bedding, delicious, varied and beautiful meat-free meals as per our request...can't fault it.

Wednesday, 12 Feb

We spent this very rainy day onsen-hopping and relaxing. A highlight of Kurokawa Onsen is the ability to use other ryokans' outdoor baths: we went to Yamamizuki (beautiful riverside setting), Shinmeikan (spooky cave bath, very pleasant cliff bath), and Senomoto Kogen the next day (onsen with Mt Aso view).

Thursday, 13 Feb

The sun came back to let us visit the Aso Volcano! We underestimated how bitingly cold it would be there (below 0°C with significant wind-chill), but we still had fun - especially the helicopter ride from near Kusasenri! Great experience, worth the 8-12k yen/person (depending on flight length) if you can afford it and aren't afraid - they use very small 3+1-seater helicopters.

Going to the edge of the crater comes with a 1,000 yen toll and lots of toxic gases that made us cough really bad. I don't think you have to go, since there are good views from elsewhere, but it was an experience for sure.

On our way back, we stopped at Daikanbo - great viewpoint for the caldera - and the baths at the Senomoto hotel.
The landscape behind the wheel was just incredible, by the way. Highway 11 was especially scenic going south towards Mt Aso.

6. Tokyo

Friday, 14 Feb

This was a travel day. After a beautiful drive along the northern section of highway 11, we spent the middle of the day in Yufuin. It had strange hints of a European mountain town, and it was quite charming despite the main street crowds. Worth going beyond that main street! Lots of great craft stores, too. We did not try the baths.
Then, it was time to drive back to Fukuoka airport for the flight to Tokyo, where we stayed at Hotel 1899. Comfortable rooms despite the hard beds, and relatively spacious for Tokyo. However, breakfast was so-so and it is a bit far from the metro (7 min to the not-so-useful (for tourists) Mita Line and 12-15 to Shimbashi). I am not sure I would stay there again.

Saturday, 15 Feb

Having been to Tokyo before, there was not much on our "list". We started the day at teamLab Planets: it was fun, pleasantly interactive, but expensive, and I preferred the art at Borderless (or maybe it was just that teamLab stuff no longer has the novelty effect for me?).
Then we just met up with some friends and did some shopping (the main Mitsukoshi store at Nihonbashi was magnificent!), ending the day with a nightly visit to Tokyo Tower - lovely night view from the main deck!

Sunday, 16 Feb

Trip fatigue started to take hold, so we took it really slow. The main thing we wanted to do was going to the Oedo Antique Market near Tokyo Station, and it was a great success! Found a few treasures to take back home. It is a large market and I recommend it.

Quick coffee at the Kitte Mall (great view of Tokyo Station from the roof garden), then headed over to Akihabara to try our luck at the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest cafés (no luck sadly, but still fun to see the merch and the plastic themed food display), had lunch in the area (vegan Kamakura restaurant in Chabara), browsed a store or two and headed to the lovely Hamarikyu gardens for a relaxing stroll and tea break on the lake teahouse. Lovely blooms, too (canola and early ume).

Then it was time for napping and packing.
Craving western food, we ate some pretty good pizza near the hotel (Pizza d'Oro), nothing to write home about but nice and not too expensive either.

Monday, 17 Feb

Departure day, out of Narita Airport. We took a cab to Keisei Ueno station (~4,000 yen), which was annoyingly busy but the line for the staffed counters moved quickly and we made it on the next Skyliner with minutes to spare. Narita airport T1 was very relaxed at ~11 AM, no line whatsoever - a nice end to a great trip!

balso, this is wonderful! It sounds like such an incredible trip, which I am definitely bookmarking for future reference! I loved your description of Arima Onsen, which sounds really lovely.

And the pottery village in Nagasaki definitely caught my eye. I love pottery and will always go out of my way for it.

Thanks so much for the report!

This is a fantastic report and might single-handedly send me back to Japan to check some of this out. I’m going to go back through this later and Google image a TON of the places you’ve listed. Thank you for posting!

Fantastic report! Thanks for taking the time to post.

Thanks for taking the time to write both trip reports.

I am just starting to think about a trip to Japan for 2027 thanks in part to all the enthusiasm on this thread:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/beyond-europe/japan-5af6c49f-5393-499f-b2aa-6cf6b4392ecb

My biggest hesitation is the language. I had a hard enough time in the French region of Switzerland. :-) It seems a bit rude to rely on a translation app, but maybe there is no way around that.

Your enthusiasm for Japan is inspiring, balso. I appreciate your honestly with Nagasaki and Osaka.

Great service from Japan Airlines!

My biggest hesitation is the language. I had a hard enough time in the French region of Switzerland. :-) It seems a bit rude to rely on a translation app, but maybe there is no way around that.

I really wouldn't worry about that. Locals are used to people using translation apps; most tourists there don't speak english or japanese! And the apples are vital when it comes to reading non-English menus, aircon remotes, parking lot instructions, interpretive boards, etc.

I have a few months' learning worth of broken, basic Japanese that is barely serviceable in scripted situations, but that's really it for now (I am currently learning), and I did not have any japanese at all besides hello/sorry/this please/thanks in my previous trips.

balso, do train stations typically have signs in English? I have this idea that I'll be standing in the middle of a crowded station with a million people streaming past me while I try to angle my phone with Google Lens on Japanese characters to see what platform to go to (I know I'm being silly...but...)

For Mary, who is concerned about reading train signs. Yes - you'll find them in English on timetables, in stations, and on the trains as you approach each station. Standing in a huge crowd as people flow by who know where they are going - yes, that happens. But standing still is a great way to get your bearings until you find a sign, an office, or someone to ask. Even without Japanese language, travelers who have done a bit of research about the culture can safely and comfortably navigate transportation in Japan.