Japan ~ My 7th consecutive year there and his 1st trip. The idea to go there was planted early this year when he remarked that even though he has studied the Japanese language for almost 4 years, he has never been there. It's his dream to visit one day. So we started to plan for this major trip of the year. (Actually it's just me planning the trip since i'm more familiar with Japan.)
It was quite a headache planning the dates as we could only take leave before & after certain dates. When we finally fixed the dates, we booked our air-tickets directly at SIA website in August. Cost us S$776/pax (incl tax/fuel charge). Bought our JR Pass in Oct, cost us S$448/pax.
Our next challenge was to plan the travel route. I wanted to see autumn leaves while he wanted to see snow. How to have both autumn & winter at the same time? Go to Hokkaido lor! Domestic flights are cheap since we could use Airpass but it would add about S$400 to our expenses.So we settled for train rides instead, esp since we planned to use the JR Pass to travel from Kansai to Kanto, might as well fully utilize it and go to Hokkaido with it. The travelling time is a nightmare though ~ 9.5hrs from Tokyo to Sapporo with 2 change of trains. We opted to stop over at Hakodate for a night to break the 9.5 hrs into 6hrs + 3.5hrs. This way we could get some rest and also visit Hakodate.
Our route:
22/11 ~ S’pore to Osaka (Kansai)
23/11 ~ Kyoto
24/11 ~ Nara
25/11 ~ Osaka to Tokyo (Kanto)
26/11 ~ Tokyo to Hakodate (Hokkaido)
27/11 to 30/11 ~ Sapporo
1/12 ~ Hakodate to Tokyo
2/12 ~ Lake Kawaguchi
3/12 to 5/12 ~ Tokyo
6/12 ~ Tokyo to S’pore
The route seems very packed and tiring but in reality it was ok. We had at least 8hrs of sleep daily and took our time at each tourist spot. For Kansai region, we based ourselves at Osaka and took day trips out to Kyoto & Nara. This saved us the trouble of changing hotels daily. The 3+3 hours ride between Tokyo & Hakodate was long but bearable. We had our breakfast & lunch on the train & took short naps too. As we set off early in the morning, we still had time to sightsee by the time we reached our destination.
Our timing for the trip was just right. When we were in Kansai (Osaka/Kyoto/Nara), it was the best time to see the red autumn leaves. The streets were filled with lovely red leaves. On our 2nd day in Hokkaido, it snowed the whole day and we had lots of fun playing with snow. By the time we returned to Tokyo in early Dec, the red leaves had turned yellow. It rained on some days but we were very fortunate that it’s usually drizzling or after we’re done with our sightseeing.
The trip went as I had planned with some pleasant surprises thrown in, such as the unexpected snowfall. We also kept within our budget of S$3000/pax for air-fare, JR Pass, hotel, other transport & meals : )
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