Japan Spring 2023 - Kamikochi

Kamikochi topped our favourites list in our 20 days in Japan. This is a beautiful trekking area with aquamarine rivers, very well maintained with proper walking paths hence you will not get your shoes muddy at all!

Some things to note:

1. This place is closed during winter around November and only reopens mid April with limited accommodation, please check their website and plan your trip accordingly. You can download the digital brochure from https://www.kamikochi.org/ which includes details like walking time, places of interest, etc :)

2. Please bring along water and windbreakers/heat packs as it an be quite cold (6-7 deg Celsius) and windy. We were there when they just reopened and there's still snow in some places along the walking paths. I felt just nice with a pair of  jeans and a TNF Ventrix Summit Hoddie with a TNF Resolve 2 shell, wife was similar but with another extra sweater. The little one was on Macpac down jacket (650 goose down).

3. We walked at least 10-12km just within Kamikochi itself. The walking paths are generally flat so walking is easy but they are very long. I don't the think following our below path is recommended for families with younger children unless they can really walk! You can do the first part like ours and have lunch and rest when you reach the restaurant area. You can still decide whether you want to proceed if not too exhausted. There are plenty of places to hang around in that area, take photos, have a cuppa, apple pies and chill :)

We took the 7:40am bus from Takayama and changed buses at Hirayu Onsen, this leg of the trip is about 60 mins. We waited about 10 mins for the connecting bus to Kamikochi and that another 25mins. We disembarked 2 stops prior to Kamikochi, at stop K-28 (Taisho Pond) and walked 1.7km to Kappa bridge, passing by Taisho Pond and Taishiro pond. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have an 8 year old with us hence it took us less than 90 mins to reach the bustling Kamikochi rest area where the main bus stop and restaurants are located.

There are a few restaurants and cafes in Kamikochi so you just need to stay hydrated as their trekking/walking paths are quite a distance. The food there is just for convenience so try not to have your hopes too high. 

After lunch we took the shorter 2.7km path to Myojin bridge, aside from the views from the nearby campsite plus an easier walk, there’s pretty much nothing to see. 
 
Note that there’s an entrance fee (cash only) to Myojin Pond, ¥400/adult and ¥200/child. Myojin pond gives you the opposite feeling of the rushing Azusa river, it’s serene and peaceful. We personally find the river views more spectacular.

For our returning trip to Kappa bridge, we took the longer 3.6km path, it’s more challenging but more views for picture taking. Note that most of the shops in the Kamikochi rest area starts winding down around 3pm the Kamikochi bus station is about 300m away from the rest area, do allow about 5-8mins walking time for that.

If we were able to find more info prior to this trip, we would have started the journey to Myojin bridge from the longer route, which is a small path about 50m from the restaurant which sells apple pies. Because it’s a long walk to Myojin bridge, coming back from Myojin bridge to Kappa bridge we wanted the walk to be short and direct as everyone was already tired, no one is interested in taking any more photos 

Japan Spring 2023 - Nagano Jigokudani koen (Snow monkey park)

This is another trip where information is not abundant on the internet and you cannot book this online as well. Not to worry, it’s pretty straight forward from Nagano, proceed to bus stop no 23 on the ground floor of Nagano train station. What we did was, we went to the bus stop after dinner to check the latest schedule in preparation for the next morning. 

The first bus to the Snow Monkey park is 9:10am. There weren’t that many people traveling on the same day with us, which was great! Note that the bus accepts cash only.

The bus’s final destination is Hotaru Onsen, you need to get off at S12 Snow monkey park, it’s about 42 mins from Nagano station, take note not to overshoot. 

When you reach, take a photo of the bus schedule so that you can plan what time you want/need to be leaving. 

It’s quite an uphill walk to the park, and this is the only place we were able to see the last of the Sakuras/Cherry blossoms in mid April! 

There’s a pretty good lunch spot called Enza Cafe on your way back to the bus stop. Their teriyaki pizza and apple pie is awesome! The spicy ramen is one of those better ramen we have had in the entire trip. 

 

Japan Spring 2023 - Tateyama Kurobe Alpine route

This is one of the highlights in our trip. Although the price is pretty steep and took us a full day, it was a very good experience, the views are beautiful :)

The reason we are writing this because we couldn’t find much information on the net as most people do a either a 1 way trip from Dentetsu Toyama to Ogizawa or Ogizawa to Dentetsu Toyama or a return trip from Dentetsu Toyama to Murodo (snow wall). We did a Dentetsu Toyama to Kurobeko return trip, unfortunately we missed the Migurika-Ike pond as it snowed heavily the night before and there was no path to walk on.

The tickets can be bought online via their web ticket website:

https://www.alpen-route.com/en/info/web_ticket.html

Do note that this is a very sought after side trip/day tour, especially between its opening on 15/4 and Japan’s Golden Week early May. Please register earlier and and logon when they announce the opening of the reservation. This is what I meant by well sought after:

 

When we booked ours, their website opened for bookings on 30/3 3pm JST, and it crashed immediately at 3pm! We refreshed and waited an hour before we could logon, select tickets and when we clicked payment, it crashed again! We persistently continued refreshing and an hour later we managed to make payment before the website when down again! When we checked again a couple of hours later, the whole of April was sold out. There’s a possibility that the company will open up more seats a week prior to your travel date. Not sure about previous years but in 2023, they opened up more bookings on 8/4 for 15/4 and will keep doing that every day, so please check the website’s announcements frequently 😊

Please be very careful when you select your tickets, it can be misleading/confusing. When selecting your tickets, you can pay from Dentetsu Toyama station but the TIME you are choosing is actually FROM TATEYAMA/OGIZAWA STATION. 

We bought return trip tickets from Dentetsu Toyama to Kurebeko at 7:20am. Meaning you need to be at Tateyama station before 7:20am to get on the cable car to Bijodaira. And Dentetsu Toyama is 65 mins away from Tateyama station. I.e. you need to get on the 6:05am train from Dentetsu Toyama. Don’t worry, There are hundreds of people waiting in queue there like you 😊  

Some useful pointers if you are taking the early train. 

1. Web ticket exchange - you can print your actual tickets from a machine in Dentetsu Toyama after 12pm the day before your trip. It’s very easy. Just scan your QR code and collect the printed tickets. Keep the tickets securely as all the transportation on that route is dependant on the QR code on the ticket, similar to a JR pass. Apologies as I didn’t have a photo of the ticket. The station master will collect the ticket at the end of your trip. 
2. Breakfast - you can either get bread and rice balls from convenience stores and bakery the day before or there’s a shop selling rice in Dentetsu Toyama just before the entrance gates at the station
3. The train from Dentetsu to Tateyama has non reserved seating and it stops every station in between to allow public to embark and disembark hence can get quite packed in the mornings 
4. Please wear weather proof shoes as it can get wet and slushy. Proper snow attire is recommended, maybe some heat packs as well because it can get very cold and windy. Plus sunglasses and sun screen on your face as the sun reflecting off the snow can get quite glaring. We wore a fleece sweater underneath a TNF Ventrix Summit Hoddie and a TNF Resolve 2 shell, long John with jeans worked well together with TNF Fast pack water resistant shoes. 
5. Take note of the last bus leaving Murodo, there are notice boards setup around the area. If you miss the bus, you will need to stay a night and only be able to get down the next morning

If you are able to go early, you get to spend more time in Murodo and the snow wall, the crowd will only get more and more. Take an early lunch and leave for the cable car to Daikanbo around 1pm. You can take pretty great photos at Kurobe dam, you can spend anywhere from 30-60 mins there. After that you can take all the transport back to Murodo. 

This trip is very weather dependent, so check back their website frequently before your trip. The evening before our trip, I heard of cancellations and possible delays or changes in schedule for our morning trip as well. We were very lucky the rain stopped near midnight and it was bright and sunny on our travel day. 

With the amount of people going for this trip, the queues and lines can be petty chaotic. Do not hesitate to ask the staffs there where you should be queuing, they are very helpful and can understand basic English when you show them your ticket. You don’t want to be waiting with a big tour group and delay your trip 😊

Japan Spring 2023 - Costing and Planning

View of Mt Fuji from the plane

The 3 most costly mandatory expenses for travellers are air tickets, food and lodge. Some personal guidelines that we used:

1. We book hotels which accommodates 2 adults and a child under 12 into a single room - averaging around ¥15000/night. 

2. Our daily food budget is ¥1500 for breakfast and lunch respectively and ¥3000 for dinner per day per pax - roughly ¥6000/day/pax - this can include food, snacks, mineral water, fruits, etc - e.g. if we had donburi (averages ¥3000-4000/bowl) at Tsukiji Market for breakfast, we will have soba in the afternoon which is less than ¥1000/bowl, adjust accordingly as not to burst the budget too much :)

Hotels we stayed in in this trip:

1. Tsukiji - Koko hotel - a bit of walk (10-15 mins) from the nearest station but the hotel is just next to Tsukiji market and walking distance to Ginza

2. Nagano - Tokyu Rei - very near station and food

3. Toyama - Comfort hotel - very near station and food

4. Takayama - Wat hotel - a bit of walk (10-15 mins) from the station but the route is mainly flat. Excellent buffet breakfast at ¥1000/pax!

5. Osaka - hotel Androoms Shin-Osaka - a bit of walk (10-15 mins) from the station, you might have trouble finding it the first time, it's located behind the station. Great fish broth ramen opposite the hotel! Plus you get a free bowl of soba from the hotel every night from 9pm-11pm 😊

6. Shinjuku - The KNOT - not recommend as it’s too far from Shinjuku station, at least 20 mins from Shinjuku station, takes a lot more time if you are dragging your luggage along. Rooms are not that clean and air-conditioning is not cold, we needed to request a standing fan from the reception, it's early-mid Spring by the way! Taxi from Shinjuku station to the hotel is around ¥800.

Below are some items which you can/must purchase prior to your trip:

1. JR Pass - there are many travel agencies selling this and their pricing differences is usually due to exchange rates and/or shipping. This must be bought prior your travel date, we bought it from Klook 2 months before:
7/14/21 Days Whole Japan Rail Pass - Klook Australia

This is a 3 step thing, first you buy an exchange voucher from a local travel agent/JTB authorized seller prior to your travel. Second, upon arrival, you use this voucher and your passport to redeem an actual ticket (with a QR code). The exchange can only be done in person at the major JR offices e.g Narita/Haneda airport, Tokyo/Shinjuku Station. This site has covered this extensively in Transforming Exchange Order | Information | Japan Rail Pass. Lastly, activation. You do not have to activate this immediately after redemption, you can activate any time within 30 days from redemption.

Note: Please ensure your name on the exchange voucher is as per your passport as this will be verified by the JR counter staff when you are in Japan. If you find out otherwise, you must contact the travel agency/seller immediately to sort it out. 

2. SIM card - we got the 21 days SIM direct from Sakura Mobile. Due to our early arrival time around 6am, we only had this option because the collection office is only closed between 12am-4am. Else you can go for Mobi, etc:
Travel SIM - Pocket WiFi & SIM Card Rental Japan - Sakura Mobile

Note: Most mobile companies apply the fair data usage policy. I.e. you only have 3GB worth of downloads per day. Anything more, you will be capped at KB speed and will only reset after 24 hours 

Some useful tips:

1. Vegetables and fruits are not cheap in Japan, try to look for supermarkets to buy those. Food halls located in Department stores like Isetan, Takashimaya, Keio, Aeon, etc usually have sales at the end of the day, somewhere after 6pm to clear food, fruits and vegetables. Water, snacks, etc are usually around 20% cheaper compared to combinis (7-11, FamilyMart, Lawson)

2. If you are using Wise card, we tried ATM cash withdrawals from Seven bank and e-Net without any issues. Although Wise doesn’t charge fees for withdrawals up to ¥30000/month, the local ATM charges ¥110 for withdrawals up to ¥10000 and ¥220 for withdrawals above ¥10000

3. IC card (Suica, Pasmo, etc) reloads only accept cash, please ensure you have enough. We topped up everyday when we were in Kyoto because the attractions were pretty scattered. 

4. Clearing your IC card before leaving Japan is commonly done at combinis. But bear in mind they can only do it with IC card+cash, NOT IC card+debit/credit card. Please share if you are able to find a shop which allows the latter 😊

5. Most shops or tourist areas accept credit/debit cards, only markets, shops or restaurants which are off the main road accepts cash only 

6. Always bring an umbrella with you, we learned the painful way as the cheapest umbrella we can find in Ginza when it was pouring cost ¥3000!

7. If you have an early trip the next day, you can buy sandwiches from combinis the night before

8. If you already have a full itinerary and you roughly know what time you will be leaving each city, you can actually reserve all Shinkansen seats from one JR office. It saves you the hassle of dragging your luggage to the JR office, queue and then drag the luggage up to the platform. We reserved Shinkansen seats from Tokyo-Nagano-Toyama-Takayama-Osaka in Tokyo JR office. For Osaka-Kyoto, we just hop on the non-reserve carriage, it's just a short ride anyway. Don't worry if you needed to change the timing after you make a seat reservation, you can do it in the JR office. We finished Takayama early hence we went to the JR office in Takayama to change the train timing to an hour earlier, no extra charges or issues.

9. Because we used the trains a lot (plus we were travelling with a child), we were all using lanyards with a card holders for the Suica card, it's much more convenient :) Do note that you need to keep your JR passes safe and always remember to retrieve it after you insert and pass the barriers. We had 1 person from each family to keep all the JR passes, distribute and keep them every time it's being used.

10. Google translate is your best friend. English is not widely used in Japan, hence some restaurants might not even have an English menu. You either need to hover the Google translate camera over the Japanese characters and/or type in English and translate your question to Japanese and show the waiter/waitress/staff. Quite a number of Japanese people speak on the phone and show them to you in English. It’s a funny way to communicate but it works 🤣 Also, a lot of ramen shops use vending machines to take orders, some don’t even have photos!

11. If you are staying more than a week, there will be a need to use the laundry service. Some hotels offer it though the machines are a hit/miss and usually there’s a long queue. Another option is going outside to a commercial 24x7 laundromat. We tried Earth Laundry (https://www.earth-laundry.jp/) at Tsukiji. It’s a bit more expensive at ¥1000 for 8kg of washing and drying but it’s more worth it than the hotel ones as hotel machines are usually smaller and they charge separately for washing and drying (usually ¥300-¥400 per 30 mins cycle. And of the 2 hotels we tried, we had to spend a couple of hours there at night because the clothes weren’t dry enough. Sweet spot is 4 tshirts and 2 pants and a couple of undergarments, anything more you will need additional drying cycles!

Our 20 day itinerary:

Date	No	Day	City	Event/Places	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
13/04	1	Thu	Tokyo	Arrive in Japan/Tokyo Skytree		Misokuma (ramen)	Hitsumabushi Bincho (unagi)
14/04	2	Fri	Tokyo	Shinjuku/Shibuya	Donburi Ichiba (donburi) 👍🏻	Kameya (soba)	Bonbori (yakiniku)
15/04	3	Sat	Tokyo	Makuhari -Mitsui outlet / AEON / Costco	bakery	Toritetsu (yakitori) 👍🏻	9th Keisuke (duck ramen) 👍🏻
16/04	4	Sun	Tokyo	Ginza / Itoiya / Incense / redeem JR Pass	bakery	Peppers café (pizza) 👍🏻	Ginza Kagari M1* (chicken ramen) 👍🏻
17/04	5	Mon	Tokyo-Nagano	Odaiba / Science Museum	bakery	Sukiya (ramen)	Asakusa Yukari Karage (fried chicken) / とんこつラーメン(stir fry)
18/04	6	Tue	Nagano-Toyama	Jigokudani Koen (Snow Monkey Park)	bakery	Enza Café (ramen/pizza) 👍🏻	やけるやんか (okonomiyaki/yakitori)
19/04	7	Wed	Toyama	Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route (Snow wall)	bakery	Hotel Tateyama (curry rice)	Joya (Izakaya) 👍🏻
20/04	8	Thu	Toyama-Takayama	Hida Village	Hotel buffet	Unnamed shop (soba)	Monjatei (okonomiyaki)
21/04	9	Fri	Takayama	Ainokura / Shirakawago	Hotel buffet	Hanamizuki Shirakawa (udon/dessert)	Matsuki Burger 👍🏻
22/04	10	Sat	Takayama	Kamikochi	Hotel buffet	Kamikochi Restaurant (various)	炒飯 花 (chinese)
23/04	11	Sun	Takayama-Osaka	Takayama old town	Hotel buffet	Hida (soba)	Maruya (unagi) - takeaway from Nagoya
24/04	12	Mon	Osaka	Osaka Aquarium / Namba	bakery	Okonomiyaki Okaru 👍🏻	Shabutei (shabu shabu)
25/04	13	Tue	Osaka	Nara park / Lalaport Expocity	Vie De France (bakery)	Mizuya Chaya (udon)	Mango tree café (thai)
26/04	14	Wed	Osaka	Fuji Daimaru / Higashiyama Jisho-ji / Fushimi Inari Taisha	bakery	Blue Leaf Café (western)	Ginpuku (fish rice box)
27/04	15	Thu	Osaka	Bamboo forest / Sagano train / Kinkaku-ji	bakery	Sushi Naritaya 👍🏻	Maru de Sankaku (fish ramen) 👍🏻
28/04	16	Fri	Osaka-Tokyo	Himeji castle	bakery	Memme (udon)	bento box/McD
29/04	17	Sat	Tokyo	Kawaguchiko	Fujiyama cafe (various)	Haostay Coffee (fried rice)	Tempura Shinjuku Tsunahachi Souhonten 👍🏻
30/04	18	Sun	Tokyo	Tokyo Disneyland	bakery	pizza	ramen
01/05	19	Mon	Tokyo	Shinjuku	bakery	Ichiran (ramen) 👍🏻	Morethan Grill (western)
02/05	20	Tue	Tokyo	Leave Japan	bakery

Attractions where we booked in advance online:

Item	Booking (days in advance)	Website
Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route	30	https://www.alpen-route.com/en/info/web_ticket.html https://tateyama-kurobe-webservice.jp/AlpenTour/html/VW001W0010.html
Fuji excursion	30	https://www.eki-net.com/en/jreast-train-I reservation/reserve/wb/RouteSearchConditionInputByStation/Index
Takayama-Shirakawago Nohi	30	https://www.nouhibus.co.jp/hida/bustrip/teikan-ainokura-en/ https://japanbusonline.com/en/Detail/11900040002/0/4212032/4162027/
Sagano romantic train Kyoto	30	https://www.sagano-kanko.co.jp/mobile/reserve_en.php
Museum of Emerging Science Odaiba (Miraikan)		About Online Booking & Ticketing | Miraikan – The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (jst.go.jp)
Osaka Aquarium	30	Tickets | Osaka Aquarium KAIYUKAN

Attractions where we cannot book online:

Item	Booking (days in advance)	Website
Jigokudani Koean (Snow monkey park)	NO	Our guide: Our first journey: Japan Spring 2023 - Nagano Jigokudani koen (Snow monkey park) (wlst-ourfirstjourney.blogspot.com)
Kamikochi	NO	https://www.snowmonkeyresorts.com/smr/matsumoto-kamikochi/how-to-get-to-kamikochi/ Our guide: Our first journey: Japan Spring 2023 - Kamikochi (wlst-ourfirstjourney.blogspot.com)