Japan tour September 2025
Japan, a destination that promises the unique and the extraordinary with beauty, tranquility and enlightenment. A civilization that has civility and decorum built into its DNA, with a world view established over millennia in quiet contemplation of our race’s place on the planet.
The allure is strong and for a long time this trip has been on our bucket list since forever.
The reality of the dream started to come to fruition for us in February 2024 with a trip to the travel show at London Olympia. Pauline was still in recovery from her knee replacement operation so the mission to trawl the multitude of options presented by keen ‘I’ve personally been on this tour and it’s the best trip ever ever’ sales teams, was a little more testing than it should have been. We were east targets and in a state of weakness, we were beguiled by the Wendy Wo rep as he expertly led us to a credit card payment to secure a 20 day tour around the highlights of Japan. A group tour that promised authenticity and whistle stop coverage whilst enjoying the culinary delights that every luxury four star hotel had to offer.
Having narrowly avoided getting sucked into another trip to Costa Rica, we returned home in a calmer state of mind and realised the folly of our ways and started the process of getting back our £700 deposit.
Over the next few months we took a more careful look at what we might want to see in Japan, took advice from friends that had been there and considered the merits of group tours versus making our own way around.
My aversion to sharing precious traveling time with a group of randoms has been formed over previous experiences when various dumb arses have seemingly made it their mission to drag down the joy of where we have been and what we have seen. (Those of you that have been reading my blogs for a long time may remember Gerry the Strailian from the Mexico trip that proclaimed everything to be way better in Sydney and insisted on mispronouncing all of the places that we went to or that he had been to: ‘Mitchie Pitchie’ for Machu Picchu and ‘Oh Axe Arker’ for Oaxaca (Wa ha ka)) On the other hand, the coverage and efficiency achieved with a group tour is significantly higher than as a solo travel. There is also the fact that, in a new country with a new language, it is a hell of a lot easier to follow an umbrella wielding tour guide than an indecipherable train station destination board.
We debated at length the duration of our trip. Pauline preferring a total period of around three weeks and me favouring something nearer to two months for full cultural immersion experience. Five weeks was the middle ground with a good number of places to visit at a reasonable pace of two or three nights stay in each.
On recommendation, we approached Inside Japan to help build our trip and finally opted for a compromise of a two week guided tour to start following by three weeks of solo travel. I am hoping that the exclusive price and the title ‘Hidden Japan’ combine into a group of like minded travelers that aren’t looking for a budget all you can eat buffet or who are mostly interested in a SuperDry store or, worse still, Disneyland Tokyo!
For the three week solo traveling we were very much guided by the “I’ve lived in Japan” travel consultant and the route combines some obvious hotspots (literally in the places with hot spring Onsens), together with some more off route places such as Sendai in the North of the main island. We finish in Hakone National Park to the south of Tokyo for some distant glimpses of Mount Fuji before flying back home.
Eleven months out and we book our flights with Emirates. There are several reasons for this choice that include; good value, best in class for any cabin, flying from a Gatwick and dropping us at Osaka near to the start of our tour in Kyoto. We push the boat out for business class to make the start and finish of the trip as pleasurable as possible.
The only thing left to do in preparation is to learn a little Japanese and now, after a 126 day streak on Duolingo, I can confidently ask where the train station is (eki wa doku desu ka?) and inform anyone that might be interested that Mr Tanayaka lives in Kyoto and likes blue shoes. Hopefully the first phrase might come in handy at some point but I’m not sure that I’m equipped to understand any complex response in Japanese…
This trip that has for so long been something to look forward to is suddenly real and it is with a thrill of expectation that we now sit in the airport lounge waiting for our first flight leg to Dubai.
The A380 is a whole new flying experience with fancy food, bar and cosy flat bed cabins. The first flight would have been even better had it been without some beefcake behind us coughing for England for 6 hours solid
A two hour transfer then onto Osaka where a taxi awaits to take us onto Kyoto for a couple of days to acclimatise before the start of the tour.
I look forward to you joining us and I hope that you will find my travel blog entertaining and insightful as we journey around the land of the rising sun.