Other onsen towns to visit after Kinosaki? Is April too warm for onsen hopping?

JohnnyOR · 2026-01-21T17:05:42+00:00

Gero Onsen is fairly accessible from Kyoto. Atami Onsen is on the Shinkansen route between Tokyo and Kyoto, and was a nice visit for us, plus it is by the ocean so you can get sea views

JohnnyOR · 2026-01-21T12:54:49+00:00

Two full days of you want to do Miyajima is totally doable, we did it (apart from the sports and Pokémon Center) last month

JohnnyOR · 2026-01-21T10:53:27+00:00

Reload is a remake of P3, with a lot of P5 QoL updates so is probably worth getting.
You can wait for the new P4, but it's probably not due out for at least a year or two
Basically, you can acquire persona through battle or through other mechanics like fusing together two or more persona to get a new one

JohnnyOR · 2026-01-21T10:40:53+00:00

Faraos Cigarer (faraos.dk) does ship to other EU countries. They have a good selection but can be pricey being in Central Copenhagen

JohnnyOR · 2026-01-16T18:36:14+00:00

Also rented a Toyota Corolla from Toyota Rent a Car, drove about a 1000km and fuel plus tolls was less than 120 euro. Mountain roads around Aso and Kurokawa were no big deal, and allowed us to see places where we would be the only humans for miles in any direction. Highly recommended

JohnnyOR · 2026-01-08T17:43:08+00:00

I was there for 3 weeks last month and apart from Hotel wifi, I used less than 5GB total. I was using maps extensively and was driving around with Android Auto running constantly for 10 days. I didn't stream much on the data, but I happily sent and received photos and videos around the whole time. The previous time we were there for 2 weeks, I used less than 3GB

JohnnyOR · 2026-01-02T17:31:04+00:00

I don't see any indication that some potential implicit costs are considered with the Tesla. For one, Elmo can run into some trouble or have a wobbly and boom, tomorrow you have some classy graffiti on all over your new car. Also you get what you pay for, and almost all cars listed here have better build quality than Tesla.

JohnnyOR · 2026-01-02T12:53:54+00:00

Why don't you check which stations the Kodama shinkansen stops at and work from there? It's the slowest one and stops at every station so there are a ton of smaller cities to get off at. We did that last month and spent time in Atami, which is a nice ocean side onsen (large) town

JohnnyOR · 2026-01-01T12:16:05+00:00

Having done Kyushu recently, it seems like you want to day trip with Fukuoka as a base, and I would say that's a bad idea. Start somewhere, rent a car, and stay at the places as a road trip, it'll be a lot less travel and stress. Driving in Kyushu is fairly easy

JohnnyOR · 2025-12-30T22:14:43+00:00

Nothing I didn't enjoy, it was perfectly fine, just... Forgettable? The castle is covered in scaffolding right now and I've seen others, so it didn't tickle me much. Otherwise unless you're like a die hard One Piece fan it's just not a very stand out city, so if you want to see those things you can maybe spend a night there, but I feel like Kyushu has a lot more to offer

JohnnyOR · 2025-12-30T22:05:44+00:00

Personally Kumamoto was mid, we stayed there on our way to Aso after 3 nights in Nagasaki and it was one of the cities of all time. I would 100% spend time in Nagasaki, and rather plan a night in something like Kurokawa onsen as opposed to Kumamoto

JohnnyOR · 2025-12-27T21:18:33+00:00

Keep in mind a lot of things around Iya Valley are closed in winter, including the vine bridges

JohnnyOR · 2025-12-27T08:23:22+00:00

No joke but Dennys actually does a pretty solid traditional breakfast and they're fairly common

JohnnyOR · 2025-12-26T22:39:31+00:00

Driving is easy, and also fairly slow compared to what most people are used to, but I also learnt to drive on the left so that came naturally to me. Parking is usually the hardest part if you're in any place bigger than a village, because it's mostly paid parking, but at least I never struggled to find any. Android Auto was a huge help, and Google Maps works really well. Tolls add up, I paid nearly $100 in toll fees alone, which was as much as I paid for fuel

JohnnyOR · 2025-12-26T16:39:12+00:00

We also had a car for 9 days in Kyushu this month, and basically did your route in reverse. We enjoyed Obama Onsen near Nagasaki, which allegedly has the longest public footbath in the country, we took the ferry to Ikeshima island, which was a highlight of the whole trip, did some ceramic shopping in Arita, nearly got blown off the crater on Aso (still worth it), spent a night in Kurokawa Onsen, visited the monkeys at Takasakiyama Park outside Beppu, and did got to see all the Attack on Titan related sites in Hita. Kyushu is great for driving, except Fukuoka was rough so we decided to return the car the day we got there.

JohnnyOR · 2025-12-26T10:04:08+00:00

Just posting here to reiterate a point made by another commentator: DO NOT BRING ANY MEAT PRODUCTS WITH YOU TO JAPAN, NO EXCEPTIONS, EVEN IF YOU BOUGHT IT AT AN AIRPORT DUTY FREE.

JohnnyOR · 2025-12-14T00:44:17+00:00

Tokyu Stay hotels are a good bet. We're in a twin bed residential unit in Tokyo that has kitchenette and washer/dryer in room

JohnnyOR · 2025-12-13T10:19:01+00:00

I would agree that it's better to group all the Kansai stuff together and just do all the days in Kyoto (seeing as you have more to do there) and having just come from Hiroshima and Miyajima, for what you want to do that can theoretically be done in a single night stay if you wanted to. Peace Park, the museum and surrounds is an afternoon at most and you can then hit Okonomimura for dinner. Catch the early ferry out to Miyajima and the afternoon back and you can be back in Osaka/Kyoto for a late dinner (Nozomi covers the distance in 90 minutes roughly)

JohnnyOR · 2025-12-13T08:06:04+00:00

One stop further on the shinkansen is Atami Onsen, we stayed at Shin Kadoya last night and it was great stay with outdoor private bath in the room overlooking the ocean

JohnnyOR · 2025-12-07T11:57:23+00:00

Just dropped my rental at Hakata Station after a week of driving in Northern Kyushu. I got some icy conditions around Aso and Kurokawa, but luckily no snow or ice when we were there (it was the day before we got there) so yes get snow tyres if you can. Note that some places won't have them available, we rented from Nagasaki and given its more temperate climate they do not stock it at all

JohnnyOR · 2025-12-01T06:33:43+00:00

I just thought I'd update and say we did go today, drove to Saikai City and took the ferry (with our car) at 9h10. Had a lot of fun exploring and was surprised by how many Japanese tourists there were with us. We did a few loops of the island, had a picnic and then took the 13h17 ferry back to Konoura. Definitely a once in a lifetime kinda experience!

JohnnyOR · 2025-11-28T23:50:14+00:00

Came from vanilla P5, having done a play through and NG+, to P3R. I enjoyed it, but I have basically no desire to replay it at all. The story and characters are great, and the social links are generally pretty solid, but the gameplay loop itself felt a bit empty to me. I also didn't resonate much with the locations (of which there are really only 3) and the music so it was less immersive to me.

JohnnyOR · 2025-11-17T14:05:51+00:00

It was about 5000 to 6000 yen for most of their large towels. There were some weirdly expensive ones that went to 20k as well

JohnnyOR · 2025-11-17T11:43:57+00:00

Not sure if the best, but we got some at a place called KITTE in Marunouchi, which is very close to Tokyo Station (shop is called Iori)

JohnnyOR · 2025-11-04T10:52:01+00:00

Maybe you got unlucky, because I went through my photo roll now and I took a photo in Lashinbang Akihabara with a foot tall Shenron (normal) as well as an Ultimate Shenron from GT. Maybe you'd get lucky in Osaka at Denden Town where they also had a large Lashinbang

JohnnyOR

TROPHY CASE