Japan trip of March 2023.

Japan | Mar 13 - Mar 27, 2023

Our recent trip in last two weeks of March 2023 entailed travels to Tokyo, Kanazawa, Takayama, Kyoto, and Osaka. The arrangement of the trip by our Guides Claudia, Xavier and Irish was superb in the form of being responsive to all our questions., queries and concerns. The selection of Hotels and their locations was great, well thought out, convenient and excellent. The itinerary was great. We did get to see a lot of Japan in variety of settings and it’s rich history and religious diversity and tolerance. The guides and people that we interacted were very helpful in all possible ways.

My only concern with the trip was that compared to travels around the world, travel in Japan entailed a lot of time was spent getting from point one to the next and I think about more than Thirty percent of stay involved in walking, finding the right train stations and connections. These train train stations are large and getting to the correct. Entrance point and exiting the correct exit was confusing at times and tiring to say the least. This cut down a lot of time that we could have spent on seeing things we were suppose to visit. The trains, train schedules, train stations and and exits were not just confusing for us but at times was also too much for the Local Guides who were accompanying us.

There is to be better way of getting around Japan than what we had encountered.

My last concern was getting back to Airport there was never any instructions about making reservations on Narita Express . Our assumption that we could get on the direct Narita Express from Tokyo made us almost miss our Flight. Trying to get to the JR Rail offices and getting reservation is almost exhausting and all the great fun and excitement of the trip kind of evaporated in the last hours.

This is not Kim Kim.s fault but I conclusion was that Japan after being shut off for three years is not ready for the onslaught of Tourists that seem to have converged during our visit. The staff at Japan Rail was significantly lacking in their knowledge to respond to the questions from Tourists not just us but people in front of us at all their offices or at Information centers was very obvious and added to the long queues.

Overall Thank you for making this great trip possible.

Kirti and Ila Patel