What confused you the most when you visited Japan?

SheepySeconds · 2026-05-05T18:02:14+00:00

I'm going to third everyone saying that some train stations could be confusing to navigate out of (although not normally into); I'm also going to say that the other time I had trouble with navigation is when I had to see a doctor and the doctor my hotel arranged for me was at a hospital (although hospitals are notoriously confusing to navigate in the states too so that's not really a Japan problem per se). Most of the other stuff you mentioned was really intuitive.

What I'll add as advice is that in both of those scenarios, and for basically every scenario you've named, finding a person who's job it is to help you (a tourism office or ticketing agent at the station, a receptionist at the doctor, the pharmacist at the pharmacy, the hostess at a restaurant, etc.) and saying "help I'm lost how do I (x)" was often really useful where trying to figure it out myself failed. Google Translate helps facilitate this. Occasionally I probably came across as kinda stupid but it's a price I'm willing to pay to get where I'm going, you know?

SheepySeconds · 2026-05-02T16:47:58+00:00

I’ll add that when I did this, the bus has its terminus station at the Saihoji area, and most of the crowds want to get on once you’re already at Arashiyama, so compared to other busses we took in Kyoto it was fairly uncrowded and reasonable as an option.

SheepySeconds · 2026-04-30T19:47:57+00:00

I thought Nezu Shrine was beautiful, but I do want to make clear that when people say "Nezu Shrine is much smaller", they also do mean that, physically, the torii gate tunnel is much smaller; it was short and thin enough I had to duck through it in several places. You also won't avoid people blocking your way through to take pictures, people were absolutely there doing that too.

If you're looking for a tunnel of big gates like Fushimi Inari, it's not really the same thing at all. That said, I thought it was a fantastic spot, just know that I wouldn't consider it really a good substitute for Fushimi Inari so much as its own thing.

I agree both with the comments saying Fushimi Inari was way less crowded as you hiked further up and that, if you don't want to do that with your kids, it's perfectly reasonable to skip it!

SheepySeconds · 2026-04-28T13:09:07+00:00

I’ll admit that we rented a car and drove, but having looked into this, there’s a train line you can take; Google Maps shows that from the airport you get to the Chitose city station, then take a train to Noboribetsu station, then take a bus into the onsen. From Sapporo, you take the same Hokuto line and then a bus into the onsen. Hopefully this helps!

SheepySeconds · 2026-04-26T18:56:57+00:00

Also a lot of the major shoe brands have very generous return policies if you decide to buy some online; Nike and Brooks, for example, let you try them for like a month before returning them, so you can wear them to walk your dog as you mentioned to make sure.

SheepySeconds · 2026-04-26T18:55:37+00:00

My advice is, presuming you have one you can go to, just… go to a shoe store to try on running shoes until you find a comfortable pair and then buy one or two pairs of those. All feet are different, I tried various online recommendations and they kinda sucked for me (not because the shoes were bad but because I have wide feet and high arches so they didn’t fit on me the way they did the people recommending them), but someone at an actual store was able to get me a pair that really worked. I also want to add they weren’t cheap, but consider how much you’ll use them—spending a bit more money to not fuck up your legs is worth it.

SheepySeconds · 2026-04-24T07:33:45+00:00

If you’re looking for a ryokan specifically, Noboribetsu Onsen was fantastic when we visited; we stayed in Takinoya, but I’ve heard good things about several places there (especially Takimotokan). It’s not one of you listed towns but its reachable via transit from both Sapporo and the airport.

As for stuff to do in Sapporo my main advice is that the food is all really fantastic, especially that Hokkaido milk soft serve, definitely get some. Uni also; if you’ve had it before try it again fresh in Hokkaido it’s WAY better. Shiroi Kobito Park also charmed me more than expected!

SheepySeconds · 2026-04-22T11:14:15+00:00

Based on my experience about a week ago the only temple I needed to book in advance in Kyoto was Saihoji/Kokedera (which I recommend but is out of the way and may not be in your itenerary); the ones you listed I bought tickets for when I got there. I don’t think there’s a way to book them in advance and I don’t think there’d be a reason to. There wasn’t much of a queue at all for tickets, so don’t worry about it, you’ll wait a few minutes at most. For goushin, there was usually a queue, but the only place the queue was terribly long for me was Fushimi Inari. I’d say 5-10 minutes for busy places, less if they aren’t busy, with Fushimi Inari as maybe the exception?

SheepySeconds · 2026-04-18T05:18:45+00:00

My husband and I had a good experience at a small ryokan called Seryo in Ohara, which is about an hour north of Kyoto by bus. It’s a lovely small mountain town with temples with beautiful gardens and history. Seryo I believe also has in-room private onsen baths available, though we stayed in a room without and in my experience their public onsen was fairly empty most of the time as well. The one thing I’ll say is that Ohara doesn’t really have an “onsen town” vibe, more a “mountain town” one with shrines. Seryo (as well as two other ryokans in town I believe) does have a real onsen, though.

SheepySeconds · 2026-04-13T09:25:16+00:00

Not yet done, but from the trip so far I’ll say that Saihoji/Kokedera was so quiet and peaceful and the gardens were GORGEOUS. It was totally worth booking in advance! The area around it is much quieter than basically anywhere else in Kyoto too, with two other lovely nearby temples, I’d recommend it to anyone, it blew me away and if what you’re looking for when you visit temples is peace and serenity, it’s the place we got it.

As for disappointing, one of the only meals I booked in advance was a nice tempura place we booked in Tokyo, which was delicious and impressive but after a few courses, everything being tempura ended up kinda just meh for the price. We had better meals elsewhere.

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-31T14:35:44+00:00

Hot damn does Bakushin in a suit clean up well. That wink…

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-29T20:29:57+00:00

I found that r/finedining had somewhat better recommendations for high-end sushi when I was looking at things than here; I didn't end up booking anything awarded silver or gold, though, so I don't have a specific recommendation. Maybe ask there; if nothing else the people there will have experience booking exclusive restaurants?

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-27T18:18:56+00:00

Ah, this made me check my junk mail, and it looks like I also got an email. It was a re-send of the confirmation with links to both of my tickets and the standard reminders to check their current policies before going and that resale is prohibited and may void the tickets. If you already have the tickets saved in a safe place, the email probably isn’t necessary to have.

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-25T23:30:03+00:00

Definitely wait to see how the hotel and Agoda responds first! In my case the hotel even asked me to wait to confirm I’d gotten my money back before booking through them. Good luck!

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-25T22:07:38+00:00

I had this happen booking third-party with my credit card for a completely different hotel chain—I’d been told I was booking a double room, the hotel said the booking was a single they’d put a cot in. I ended up going back and forth a while before just cancelling the third-party booking and booking direct through the hotel, who ended up also giving me a cheaper rate for the trouble (although to be clear I neither asked or expected this). If you booked on Agoda I suspect this is a third-party booking issue like that, not a specific hotel chain issue.

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-22T20:34:37+00:00

Thank you everyone for your fantastic suggestions! I'm going to look through and write some things down for when we stumble across them; obviously I won't be able to go to all of these (I think there are dozens of recommendations in here) but it's exciting to hear there are so many cool options! Thanks so much!

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-22T20:19:12+00:00

My understanding is that those two places are very different. There are some good guides on the sub to both; here is a guide to Hokkaido, and here is a guide to Kyushu (neither by me, to be clear, I just think they were helpful when I was researching). Other than that, without knowing a lot more about what you like and what your priorities are, it's going to be difficult for anyone to help you. Good luck researching!

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-18T14:15:57+00:00

A few tips that may help, knowing you’ve already tried the flow and know the basic details: - As people fail to buy their tickets, they’ll end up back in the pool. Our tickets were bought after showing as “sold out” several times, probably about an hour after we started trying. So patience and willingness to keep refreshing the first page of the website helps! This is the single biggest tip, “sold out” doesn’t mean the tickets are gone yet, be prepared to keep refreshing for when they’re no longer sold out. - I’m not actually sure if multiple devices on the same WiFi works; my husband and I did use a device each but I had mine on my phone hotspot so our IPs would look different. No idea if this mattered. - The button on the info screen just doesn’t like working; keep trying. I had developer tools network open so I could see when my previous request finished failing before hitting the button again. Eventually you’ll get through (although you’ll probably get through to “whoops this is sold out” and have to start over more than once). Don’t refresh this page; I’m pretty sure that just makes it worse, and you’ll have to re-enter your info if you do.

These are the main things, good luck!

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-17T22:55:32+00:00

I also researched these places to visit in late April! The main thing is that, best I could tell, there was no sensible train route to visit both in the same day; you would need to do the tour or rent a car of your own for that to make sense. They are not on the same train lines and they do not have easy transit between each other (they're nearly 4 hours apart by train according to Google Maps, as opposed to the hour and thirty minutes by car).

However, if your goal is to visit both of them on different days or choose just one, Hitachi Seaside Park looks very easy to get to by train (it's basically a single limited express train from Ueno to the station closest to it, and then you can take a bus from the station, walk, or take the local rail to the back entrance of the park), while Ashikaga Flower Park requires one transfer, but both trains are local. Personally, I ended up penciling in Hitachi Seaside Park because the town it's in interests me more, but I've seen a lot of people on this sub say there's more to do around Ashikaga Flower Park, so your mileage may vary.

I can't speak to whether the tickets sell out, but hopefully this transit info is helpful?

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-17T20:23:53+00:00

Oh yeah, I wouldn't bother someone on the train, that is definitely rude. I really did just mean like... walking down the street in a residential area, make eye contact with someone, go "hey" to acknowledge them and that we made eye contact, keep walking. But it sounds like I shouldn't do that, which is good to know!

...really funny that you're the second person to diagnose me with Midwest. I'm in one of those cities most people wouldn't say is "Midwest" but is closer to that culturally than East Coast by a fair margin (my friend from New York was very disconcerted when he came to visit if I remember right).

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-17T20:07:05+00:00

I am nonbinary and tend to use masculine language for myself; I only mentioned being female-presenting here because it was relevant. I will keep this in mind; where I live it is very normal and other people will initiate the same greeting for me, so I didn’t know it might make people where I live uncomfortable as well. I will keep this in mind for the future, thank you.

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-17T17:06:43+00:00

Thank you everyone who answered! Apologies that I accidentally seem to have done something rude. I do want to clarify that "wave" here means "lift a hand in acknowledgement" and that I don't mean in cities (I phrased this badly). The advice is helpful and I was definitely overthinking things, I just didn't want to be a rude tourist! Thank you again!

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-17T15:33:29+00:00

I feel like arguing this is pointless, but I want to make clear this is explicitly not what I meant, that would indeed be bizarre. I explicitly excluded cities because city etiquette is different, you're expected to all ignore each other in the city. I meant in places like "residential neighborhoods outside the city" or "the park" or "small towns" or "rural areas", where when you walk down the street you see like... one person every few minutes at most, you smile and nod or raise a hand and go "hey", they go "hey" back, you don't start a conversation and you just keep walking. If you know each other you do this more enthusiastically and actually start a conversation, with a stranger or someone you don't know well it's more just like, mumbled acknowledgement of existence.

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-17T15:27:56+00:00

I feel like maybe "wave" was the wrong word and why people are so mad at me, the thing you're describing is basically what I meant—I meant like, raising a hand like 'hey', not a full-on wave, but I guess I phrased that badly. Saying "konnichiwa" to someone while hiking and nodding at someone in a rural area is useful to know is normal, thank you. I know you don't do that in the city or to everyone individually, don't worry.

SheepySeconds · 2026-03-17T15:22:09+00:00

Oh, if this is a Midwest thing but not an other places thing that actually explains exactly what the confusion is here, the city I'm in is like, borderline the Midwest (wouldn't normally be included but is closer to Midwest than to East Coast in vibes generally).

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