Most Inspirational Moment
It's impossible to single out a single moment; the whole trip was amazing, but the incredible cherry blossom and the pleasure it gives the Japanese is something we shall never forget.
Thoughts on Group Leader
Akemi Nozawa was a fantastic tour leader. She was friendly, helpful, had a good sense of humour and was incredibly organised in a way that was unobtrusive and appeared effortless. She really put in a lot of extra time and effort to make sure we all enjoyed the trip, e.g. helping group members with train times to/from the five lakes (to see Mt Fuji) on one of our free days and helping with tickets for the Kabuki theatre. At the start of our trip she gave us all a printed itinerary for the trip that included several optional activities she offered on our free days such as visiting the Tokyo fish market and other places that were not included on the standard trip itinerary, which was brilliant as it covered lots of things that we'd planned to do ourselves.
We've been on a lot of trips with different companies and Akemi stands out as one of the best tour leaders we've ever had.
Advice for Potential Travellers
Do it all: the food, the onsens, the trains – go with an open mind and try everything!
If this will be your first visit to Japan we recommend this trip. Not only does it offer a wide range of experiences, but on first acquaintance Japan, and in particular the Japanese railway system, is quite confusing and we were grateful to be in a guided group, but you soon get the hang of it and by the time we reached Tokyo all our group were zooming about very confidently.
Take comfortable walking shoes – you will need them. Be warned, the weather in Japan is as variable and fickle as it is in Britain. We visited during the first two weeks of April and the weather on our trip varied from shirtsleeves warm to snow! Take layers and expect chilly evenings and the possibility of some wet days (if it's wet you can borrow wellington boots at the Takayama ryokan).
There is quite a bit of free time on this trip and to make the best of it we recommend browsing through a few guidebooks before you go (the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet are both good). Think about the things you'd like to do on your free days (shopping, sightseeing, etc.) and plan ahead.
We are particularly interested in Japanese folk crafts and traditional buildings so on our free days we visited Kawai Kanjiro's house in Kyoto and the Japanese Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo (both highly recommended if you like that sort of thing). The Hida Takayama Museum of Art is a hidden treasure, it's only a five minute walk from the ryokan and has a London bus, an amazing collection of glassware, and a (pricey) café furnished like Glasgow's Willow Tea Rooms, in Charles Rennie Mackintosh style.
The Lonely Planet guidebook has some useful walks: in Kyoto we enjoyed the Southern Higashiyama walk and in Tokyo the walk around Yanaka (combine it with a visit to the National Museum).
We would strongly recommend visiting during Sakura (cherry blossom time) the blossom is amazing and it's a pleasure to see all the locals out admiring the blossom. It adds an extra dimension to your visit.
