7 Day Tour of Japan

7 day quick trip to catch some of the major highlights of Japan.

Day 1 - Tokyo

Tokyo is planted squarely in the 21st century and modern in every respect. But delve deeper and you’ll find ancient sites and age-old traditions - a fascinating contrast which you’ll explore today. Your visit to the picturesque Imperial Palace Plaza offers insight into the private lives of Japan’s Imperial family. Later, stroll among the vendors of the bustling Nakamise Arcade to Asakusa Kannon Temple, the oldest in the city, and then visit the landscaped grounds of the Meiji Shrine. In the night visit Shinjuku for shopping and nightlife, including Tokyo’s largest red-light district Kabukicho.

Highlights

• Asakusa
• Meiji Shrine
• Shinjuku

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Bullet Train Japan by Kalleboo

The Japan Rail Pass (ジャパンレールパス, japan rēru pasu) is a railpass sold by the Japan Railways Group, and is good for travel on all major forms of transportation provided by the JR Group, with a few exceptions. The Rail Pass is designed to stimulate travel and tourism throughout the country.

Rail Pass

The Rail Pass comes in two varieties, one for each class of service, Standard Car (普通車, Futsūsha), and the first class car, Green Car (グリーン車, Gurīnsha). Furthermore, the pass is time limited based on the length of pass purchased. Three time periods are available: seven day, fourteen day and twenty-one day passes, which provide the user unlimited use of JR transportation services. The table below summarizes the prices for each pass. The amounts are listed in Japanese Yen. When purchasing the Exchange Order (see below), the purchaser will pay the appropriate amount in the purchaser’s home country currency based on the current exchange rate.

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Osaka (大阪市, Ōsaka-shi) is a city in Japan, located at the mouth of the Yodo River on Osaka Bay, in the Kansai region of the main island of Honshū.

The city is the capital of Osaka Prefecture. Often dubbed the second city of Japan, Osaka was historically the commercial capital of Japan, and to date the heart of Japan’s second largest(and the world’s ninth largest) metropolitan area of Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto, whose population is 17,220,000.

A unique title that the city of Osaka holds is the first place in Japan for day to night population ratio of 141% a depiction of Osaka’s economic- and commerce-centric character. While at night time the population ranks third place in the country at 2.6 million, in daytime it surges to 3.7 million, second only after Tokyo.

Osaka is traditionally considered the “nation’s kitchen” (天下の台所, tenka no daidokoro) or the gourmet food capital of Japan.

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Lanterns at Kasuga shrine by Paul Mannix

Nara (奈良市, Nara-shi) is the capital city of Nara Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. The city occupies the northern part of Nara Prefecture, directly bordering Kyoto Prefecture. Eight temples, shrines and ruins in Nara, specifically Tōdai-ji, Saidai-ji, Kōfuku-ji, Kasuga Shrine, Gangō-ji, Yakushi-ji, Tōshōdai-ji and Heijō Palace Remains, together with Kasugayama Primeval Forest, collectively form “Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara”, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Overshadowed by its more famous neighbor Kyoto, Nara is omitted from many a time-pressed tourist’s itinerary. However, Nara is home to many important scenic and historical sites, and today preserves its main sights much more attractively than Kyoto within Nara Park and neighborhoods like Naramachi.

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Kyoto (京都, Kyōto?) (IPA /kʲoːto / listen (help·info) is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.

Nestled among mountains in Western Honshu, Kyōto (京都) has a reputation worldwide as Japan’s most beautiful city. However, visitors may be surprised by how much work they will have to do to see its beautiful side. Most visitors’ first impressions will be of the urban sprawl of central Kyoto, around the ultra-modern glass-and-steel train station, which is itself an example of a city steeped in tradition colliding with the modern world.

Nonetheless, the persistent tourist will soon discover Kyoto’s hidden beauty in the temples and parks which ring the city center, and find that the city has much more than immediately meets the eye.

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Hakone Onsen by avlxyz

Hakone (箱根町, Hakone-machi?) is a town in Japan, in Kanagawa Prefecture, in Ashigarashimo District. Located on the eastern foot of Hakone Pass.  As of 2008, the town has an estimated population of 13,679 and a density of 147 persons per km². The total area is 92.82 km². The Ashigara Checkpoint at Hakone-juku on the historical Tōkaidō marks the beginning of Japan’s Kantō region. Since the Edo period, Ashigara Checkpoint has been renamed Hakone Checkpoint.

The annual Hakone Ekiden at the New Year runs from Tokyo to Hakone and back over two days, partly in commemoration of the Tōkaidō road. Like its close neighbors Odawara and Mishima, Hakone has many onsen (hot spring) resort areas (ja:箱根温泉).

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Mount Fuji Japan by robertpaulyoung

Mount Fuji (富士山, Fuji-san, IPA: [ɸɯʥisaɴ]) listen (help·info) is the highest mountain in Japan at 3,776 m (12,388 ft). An active volcano that last erupted in 1707–08, it straddles the boundary of Shizuoka and Yamanashi prefectures just west of Tokyo, from which it can be seen on a clear day. It is located near the Pacific coast of central Honshū. Three small cities surround it: Gotemba (east), Fujiyoshida (north) and Fujinomiya (southwest).

Mount Fuji’s exceptionally symmetrical cone is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.

Geography

Mt. Fuji stands at 3,776 m (12,388 ft) high and is surrounded by five lakes: Lake Kawaguchi, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Sai, Lake Motosu and Lake Shoji.[4] They, and nearby Lake Ashi, provide excellent views of the mountain. It is part of the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. It is also a stratovolcano. The climate is very cold due to the altitude and the cone is covered by snow for several months of the year. The lowest recorded temperature is −38.0 °C while on June 2008 the highest temperature was recorded at 17.8 °C.

It can be seen from Yokohama, Tokyo, and sometimes as far as Chiba when the sky is clear.

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Kabukicho Shinjuku by Miniluv_1984

(新宿区, Shinjuku-ku) is one of the 23 Special wards of Tokyo, Japan. It is a major commercial and administrative center, housing the busiest train station in the world (Shinjuku Station), and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, the administration center for the government of Tokyo.

Surrounding Shinjuku Station are department stores, specialist electronic and camera shops, cinemas, restaurants and bars. Many international hotels are located here.

As of 2008, the ward has an estimated population of 312,418 and a density of 17,140 persons per km². The total area is 18.23 km².

Shinjuku has the highest numbers of registered foreign nationals of any community in Tokyo. As of October 1, 2005, 29,353 non-Japanese with 107 different nationalities were registered in Shinjuku.

The east side of Shinjuku is devoted to shopping and nightlife, including Tokyo’s largest red-light district Kabukicho (歌舞伎町) and gay nightlife central Shinjuku ni-chome (新宿２丁目).

Nearby Ōkubo (大久保), one stop west of Shinjuku on the Chuo line (also Shin-Ōkubo, on the Yamanote), has many Korean-owned restaurants and grocery stores. Takadanobaba　(高田馬場), another stop past Shin-Okubo, is popular with students from nearby Waseda University.

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Tokyo (東京, Tōkyō?), officially Tokyo Metropolis (東京都, Tōkyō-to?), is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū. The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, cover the area that was once the city of Tokyo in the eastern part of the prefecture, and total over 8 million people. The population of the prefecture exceeds 12 million.

Tokyo is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family. The name “Tōkyō” literally means eastern capital.

Name

Tokyo was originally known as Edo, meaning estuary. Its name was changed to Tokyo (Tōkyō: tō (east) + kyō (capital)) when it became the imperial capital in 1868. During the early Meiji period, the city was also called “Tōkei”, an alternative pronunciation for the same Chinese characters representing “Tokyo”. Some surviving official English documents use the spelling “Tokei”. This pronunciation is now obsolete.

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Tokyo Photo gallery

Marunouchi	Tokyo Station	Shin Marunouchi	Nissay Building	Meiji Yasuda Building
Mitsui Building	Mitsukoshi	Wako Store	Wako Store	Christian Dior Store

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