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@Zidargh Nara is absolutely gorgeous and I think one of my parents favourite memories of Japan. If you can get connected to the international centre there (tell them you're on a research project or something!) you can book the double room which has (private) landscaped garden views and basically an onsen in the bathroom. Stunning. The people are lovely, and after a few nights in neon cityscapes any short term visitors will love it there when night falls and there are just a few lights around the temples (which are stunning themselves) but otherwise it's countryside (away from the one main road). Just don't buy the food to feed the deer (only tourists do that and the Japanese watch on with great amusement as the whole herd attacks you)! I think the best place I ever visited in Japan (and I did all the 'big ones' on Honshu) was Hakone, again when my parents came. We spent two nights, which is perfect imo. It's very quiet, but you can't quite beat going to a Picasso/Henry Moore museum in the morning, taking a tram down the side of a mountain, a stunning cable car to get you down the rest, and then a pirate ship (only Japan!) across a lake with Mount Fuji in the background! I didn't mind Arashiyama much myself as it has no pretentions as being anything other than a tourist trap and I only went for a day out, so that was what I was expecting really. If you want an expensive rickshaw ride or want to see ladies pretending to be geisha then that's the place! I'm glad a poster had fantastic experiences with a few people in Kyoto, but you can't judge a whole area's historic reputation going back over a thousand years on that - in fact I would bet a decent amount on none of those folk being from Kyoto at all! |
#11855166, By kimchibaka Visiting Japan
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kimchibaka 223 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 12 years ago
