I will have four days in Tokyo in the early October when, I"m told, there is plenty of fall color to shoot.
Any suggestions for Kyoto for three days starting on October 25?
Thanks.
I was there Dec 1-5 last year and the foliage was astounding. Sounds like you're going to be quite early. But areas like Arashiama and Philosophers Path will be beautiful regardless. The area around Kiomizaderu was absurdly crowded, but the temple itself was gorgeous and worth the visit even in spite of the times-square like crowds.
Returned June 4th Tokyo..Kyoto..Himeji..Tokyo over three weeks. First, I think that fall is a much better time to visit, except for the crowds. Second, many tourist areas, in my opinion, are a waste of time.. like the golden temple, which for me was a small spray painted building. Lots of off the radar temples and shrines, so walking was a real gift. Also, research events during your visit. By chance, we stayed next to the Asakusa Shrine ( in Tokyo) during Sanja Matsuri festival, which attracts 1.5 to 2 million people over three days. All we knew was there were a lot of people in traditional dress with chanting and traditional music. I wish that I had known prior to the visit. I would have appreciated everything to a greater extent. It wasn’t until the last day of the festival that we figured out that this wasn’t a daily event.
Kyoto has so many shrines and temples that you really can’t go wrong, but early AM might better serve your purposes in popular locations. Transportation within Kyoto is handled by bus and train. You can put your IC card for transportation on your iPhone.. really easy and straight forward.
Lots of temples/shrines near the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest.
This was from the Toji Temple in off the chart color, right next to our Kyoto hotel and totally off our radar… We walked past it from the bus stop after visiting other more remote temples/shrines. It also had the tallest wooden pagoda in Japan..
Kyoto is wonderful, but the post-covid crowds have absolutely ruined it along with Tokyo and Osaka. Having lived in Japan off and on since 2003, I've been fortunate to visit these places before, during and after COVID. These days, avoid those 3 cities altogether, there's far better experiences to be had literally anywhere else in Japan.
Nagoya is just an "average midsized city" over here, but when we spent a week up there last year, my family loved it.
Beppu and Oita area is one of our favorite destinations, an endless amount of hotsprings and far smaller crowds.
Gujo-Hachiman is probably one of my favorite places in all of Japan, partially because it's a gateway to excellent wild trout fishing in the mountains, but the town itsel looks like something out of a fairytale.
It's not impossible to have nice experiences in Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto these days, but for me it's the exception to the norm- you have to go out of your way to avoid/survive the crowds, whereas it used to just be pleasant and easy to manage no matter the time of day or year.
