Japan 2026 ✈ Part 4: Kyoto • Uji • Nintendo Museum

6 weeks. Countless train rides. Thousands of kilometers. One unforgettable journey across Japan. It has been hubby's bucket list to slow-travel all around Japan, and we are glad to finally make this a reality. From vibrant cities to quiet countryside, snow-covered mountains to coastal towns, ancient temples to modern skylines — we are grateful for the opportunity to experience and see so many different parts of this country. We were also fortunate to experience the cherry blossom season this time around. Arigato gozaimasu, Japan, for the wonderful experiences and memories, and for showing us again what a unique country you are, with amazing culture and people.

6-Weeks Around Japan
24 Feb - 2 Mar 2026: Tokyo
2-3 Mar 2026: Hakone
3-5 Mar 2026: Nagoya, Nakasendo Trail
5-8 Mar 2026: Kyoto, Uji
8-12 Mar 2026: Osaka
12-17 Mar 2026: Sapporo, Niseko, Hakodate
17-18 Mar 2026: Akita
18-22 Mar 2026: Sendai, Ginzan Onsen
22-25 Mar 2026: Kanazawa, Shirakawago
25- 29 Mar 2026: Hiroshima
29 Mar - 4 Apr 2026: Kokura, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Nagasaki
4-6 Apr 2026: Beppu
6-7 Apr 2026: Fukuoka

5 Mar 2026 (Thurs): Nagoya - Kyoto

Back to Nagoya station to catch the 3.49pm Shinkansen to Kyoto. Since this is a frequent route, we bought our tickets for this bullet train only about an hour before departure. The non-reserved seat ticket for this 35 minute ride costs 5,170 yen/pax ($33).

Arrived Kyoto station at 4.24pm. I stopped by the JR West office to pick up our Sanyo-San'in Northern Kyushu Pass (which we will be using later on our trip).

Took the 205 City Bus from Kyoto Station to Kawaramachi Gojo, the bus stop next to our hotel.

Made it to our hotel, Hotel Tavinos Kyoto at 5.15pm. 

Booked this 3-night stay with 8,778 Chase Ultimate Rewards points + $76 CapitalOne travel credit. This hotel's design is pretty funky with lots of dark colors. The room was comfortable and had everything we needed, including a mini-fridge.

The lounge area at the 3rd floor of the hotel is a nice place to hangout. Free coffee and tea, and miso soup were available all day. There was also microwave, water dispenser, and washing machines, which was useful.

It was conveniently located close to Kiyomizu-Gojo station and within 15 min walk to Teramachi Shopping Street. Hubby discovered a Surugaya on our way to dinner so we made a stop for video game hunting.

Decided to try Kura Sushi for dinner. Unlike Sushiro that has a big screen, Kura uses a tablet for ordering. 

Another fun part is that for every 5 plates of sushi that you 'deposit' into the slot on the table, you get to play a game on the tablet (by luck) and stand a chance to win a gachapon. We played 3 times and won 1...not bad!

Wrapped up our first night in Kyoto with a stroll along the Kamo river back to our hotel. 

This was my 3rd visit to Kyoto but the first time staying in Kyoto for the night. For my last 2 trips to Kyoto, we stayed in Osaka and took day trips to Kyoto.

Stopped by the 7-11 next to our hotel and unexpectedly managed to get tickets for the Hiroshima baseball game that we thought was already sold. Had to use Google Translate to navigate the entire ticket purchase process but we successfully completed the purchase using the kiosk, and got a receipt which we gave to the 7-11 staff who then printed the tickets for us.

6 Mar 2026 (Fri): Kyoto • Uji • Nintendo Museum

Early start for our first full day in Kyoto. Enjoyed free pastries and coffee at the hotel.

 Took the 7.20am train to our first stop for the day.

Arrived Fushimi Inari shrine at 7.30am after a short 10 min train ride from the hotel. That's the benefit of staying in Kyoto. 

This was my 3rd visit to Fushimi Inari but it was Brantyn and Anna's first visit. Of course we had to be kiasu and arrived early to avoid the crowds. 

Having been here before, I know the trick for getting photos of the Tori gates without people. 

Of course, being early helps but another trick is to quickly walk through the gates, don't linger or take photos yet, but turnaround quickly when you see the first opening and walk back on the return path before everyone gets on it. 

Most people will continue to climb higher on the route so being early and turning around quickly helps. 

We finished our sightseeing at Fushimi Inari 1.5 hours earlier than planned. We can see more tourists arriving when we left at 8.15am.

Since our entry ticket for Nintendo museum wasn't till 11am, we decided to make a detour to Uji first as it was on-the-way to Nintendo Museum. Uji is widely celebrated as the "Matcha Capital of the World". Uji matcha is world-famous because it is the historic birthplace of Japanese tea culture. 

We arrived Uji at 9am and our goal was to buy some matcha. I had shortlisted a few matcha shops in Uji based on my research, but a lot of them don't open till later so we headed straight to（資）松阪屋嘉八本店 (MATSUSAKAYA KAHATI) which opens at 9am. 

So glad we went to this shop first and skipped the other popular ones. This is a family run tea shop owned by very friendly elderly owners. The shop is not fancy but gives a cozy vibe of a classic mom and pop shop. They even grind the green tea fresh in the shop. 

We ordered 3 cans of matcha, and while we waited for the husband and wife to package our matcha nicely, the grandpa kindly made fresh matcha for us. He was so friendly and we certainly appreciated his effort to communicate with us in English. It was such a great, thoughtful touch. A total 10/10 experience! We were so glad to find local shop and experiences like this because it's getting rarer with overtourism in Japan. Strongly recommend this shop if anyone wants to buy matcha in Uji.

After a successful matcha detour in Uji, we arrived Nintendo Museum at 10.40am. 

Had to go through security screening to enter the building, no food/drinks allowed but they had paid lockers to store our stuffs. To mark the 40th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., visitors can choose the special limited 40th anniversary design play-ticket. How cute is the Pokemon manhole cover.

Tickets for Nintendo Museum are sold via a randomly selected drawing and must be purchased before your visit. We both entered for the drawing as soon as the drawing was open in January, and was lucky that both of us were selected to purchase the tickets in March. The tickets cost 3,300 yen /pax ($21). Nowadays you really have to plan ahead and buy tickets in advance to visit a lot of places in Japan. That's the unfortunate outcome of overtourism. 

There are 2 levels in Nintendo Museum. Level 1 is the interactive arcade floor. Each of us are given 10 digital coins on our entry play ticket to play various retro-inspired and virtual games. 

I'm not a gamer so I let hubby use most of my coins. The 3 gamers enjoyed their time here. Level 2 of the building had more exhibits but not photos allowed so I found a quiet spot to sit and took a nap while they browsed around. Btw, entrance into the museum are limited to our selected time slots for crowd control. But once we were in, we could stay as long as we wanted.

Hubby bought some souvenirs from the gift shop.

After spending about 3 hours in Nintendo museum, it was time to head back to Kyoto. Trains in Japan are always quiet, except when you have a group of kids who just finished school and are riding on the same train back home. Guess they were all excited for the weekend.

Rested a bit in the hotel before heading out for shopping and stumbled upon this 'interesting' store...lol!

Had Okonomiyaki for early dinner at this little mom and pop restaurant called Mr. Young Men.

The menu was all hand-drawn and hand-written...so cute.

7 Mar 2026 (Sat): Kyoto

Our last full day in Kyoto was a free and easy day. Did laundry in the morning, and had to figure out how to use the laundry machine at the hotel.

Walked to the supermarket across the street to buy lunch, and chilled for the rest of the afternoon.

Since I've never explored Kyoto at night during my last 2 trips, we decided to meet up with Brantyn and Anna at 7.30pm for an evening walk of Kyoto.

 Gion

Yasaka Shrine

Ninenzaka. It was so nice to walk around these quiet streets, which are always filled with tourists during the day.

Yasaka Pagoda

Stopped by the supermarket on our way back to pick up some discounted bentos after 8pm. Had to use Google Translate to figure out what some items were.

8 Mar 2026 (Sun): Kyoto - Osaka

After 3 nights in Kyoto, it was time to continue our journey. Checked out at 10.45am, had our supermarket bento for lunch, before taking the train to our next stop...Osaka. 

Japan 2026 ✈ Part 3: Nagoya • Nakasendo Trail

6 weeks. Countless train rides. Thousands of kilometers. One unforgettable journey across Japan. It has been hubby's bucket list to slow-travel all around Japan, and we are glad to finally make this a reality. From vibrant cities to quiet countryside, snow-covered mountains to coastal towns, ancient temples to modern skylines — we are grateful for the opportunity to experience and see so many different parts of this country. We were also fortunate to experience the cherry blossom season this time around. Arigato gozaimasu, Japan, for the wonderful experiences and memories, and for showing us again what a unique country you are, with amazing culture and people.

6-Weeks Around Japan
24 Feb - 2 Mar 2026: Tokyo
2-3 Mar 2026: Hakone
3-5 Mar 2026: Nagoya, Nakasendo Trail
5-8 Mar 2026: Kyoto, Uji
8-12 Mar 2026: Osaka
12-17 Mar 2026: Sapporo, Niseko, Hakodate
17-18 Mar 2026: Akita
18-22 Mar 2026: Sendai, Ginzan Onsen
22-25 Mar 2026: Kanazawa, Shirakawago
25- 29 Mar 2026: Hiroshima
29 Mar - 4 Apr 2026: Kokura, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Nagasaki
4-6 Apr 2026: Beppu
6-7 Apr 2026: Fukuoka

3 Mar 2026 (Tues): Hakone - Nagoya

Checked out of our hotel in Tokyo at 8.45am to catch the 9.04am train to Odawara station...

...then transfer to the 10.02am Tokaido Shinkansen to get to Nagoya. We bought our Shinkansen tickets on SmartEX website for 8,700yen/pax ($56) with reserved seats.

Since we were early, we bought some food from the konbini thinking we'd have time to eat before hopping on the Shinkansen but we ended up being too busy watching bullet trains zooming by the station. P.S. Odawara station is a good place to watch Shinkansen coz it's a smaller station and a lot of bullet train just pass by without stopping so you get to see them going by in high speed.

This was our first time ever traveling on a Shinkansen (bullet train) so we were excited to finally experience it.

The 2-hour bullet train ride from Odawara to Nagoya was quiet, smooth, and uneventful. Unfortunately still no signs of Mt. Fuji because the weather was crappy...oh well. 

Arrived Nagoya station at 12.06pm. Thankfully the rain stopped so we were able to walk to the hotel with our backpacks.

Our hotel - Comfort Hotel Nagoya Shinkansenguchi was conveniently located about 8 min walk from Nagoya station. We couldn't check in until 3pm but was able to store our luggage at the hotel. 

The hotel also had a nice lounge where we could get free drinks all day. 

Got this corner room which was more spacious than the normal standard Japanese hotel room. Booked this 2-night stay for 8,000 Choice points/night.

We had the afternoon free so hubby went to the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology (yes a Toyota museum) by himself while I went Uniqlo shopping at Nagoya station. It was raining so I borrowed an umbrella from the hotel. It's nice that hotels here just borrow umbrellas to guests without keeping any records, and trust that everyone would return them.

Withdrew some cash from the ATM using our Charles Schwab debiti card as we'd be needing some cash the next day. Even though we were able to use credit card and Suica most of the time in Japan, cash is still needed for transportation in the outskirts.

We met up with Brantyn and Anna at 6pm for dinner at Misokatsu Yabaton near Nagoya Station. 

Misokatsu Yabaton is a famous restaurant chain originating in Nagoya, specializing in miso katsu (deep-fried pork cutlets topped with a rich, savory red miso sauce).

Stopped by the supermarket to grab some snacks before heading back to the hotel.

Another hotel, another pajamas...lol! Snacks and Uniqlo haul.

4 Mar 2026 (Wed): Nakasendo Trail (Magomejuku & Tsumagojuku)

Early start for our day with free breakfast at the hotel at 6.40am. Comfort Hotel is a pretty good option to use points in Japan as it includes free breakfast.

Walked to Nagoya station to catch the 7.35am train to Nakatsugawa station.

Traveling around Japan using public transportation is nice because it makes you realize how civilized and courteous (有素质) Japanese are, even when it's busy/crowded. This 1.5 hour train ride cost 1,340 yen/pax ($8.54). We rode the entire line of this train and ended up having the entire car to ourselves after all the high school students got off at their school stop.

The 1.5 hour train ride took us to the outskirts of Japan with lots of farm land and nature.

After arriving Nakatsugawa Station, we hopped on the Magome bus to get to Magome. This 25 min bus ride costs 800 yen/pax ($5.11), cash only.

Magome-juku is a well-preserved post town from the Edo period. 

Situated on a slope, this town features a main street lined with traditional wooden buildings. 

There are waterways on either side of the street, and the fast-running water powers multiple waterwheels. 

We arrived at 9.40am and were surprised that the town was so quiet (no other tourists yet). 

We enjoyed the tranquil stroll accompanied by the sounds of water flowing on both sides.

This beautiful post town of Magome offers stunning views of the surrounding mountain scenery.

We weren't planning to hike the entire way so we stopped at Magome Jinbakami Observatory for some photos before turning around.

After spending about an hour in Magome, it was time to continue our journey to another famous post-town...Tsumago-juku. 

Magome-Tsumago is a popular hiking route (5.6mile/9km) on the Nakasendo trail but we do not like hiking so we took the bus instead. The bus from Magome to Tsumago only runs 5 times a day so we had to plan ahead and time our visit strategically to avoid getting stuck in the middle of nowhere. This 25 min old school bus ride costs another 800 yen/pax ($5.11), cash only.

Arrived Tsumago-juku at 11.20am. 

The town was so quiet it felt like we were the only tourists there. 

Tsumago-juku was the 42nd of the 69 post towns on the Nakasendo trail and remains one of the best-preserved post towns in Japan to this day. 

The charming town consists of inns, houses, and shops-many of which were built in the Edo era. 

We tried visiting some places that are off the beaten path on this trip to see more of Japan outside of the big cities.

Finished our sightseeing at Tsumago-juku in 30 min. Had to run and barely made it on the 11.50pm bus to Nagiso station. It was a short 10 min bus ride and we were the only ones on the bus. This area felt very remote with hardly anyone around.

Stopped by the local supermarket to grab lunch before catching the 12.30pm train back to Nakatsugawa station then another train to Nagoya. 

Nagiso station was so quiet there wasn't anyone working at the counter. Glad they had a note in English letting us know that we'd need to purchase a separate ticket for the first leg of the train ride.

It was time for another multi-transport 2.5 hours journey back to Nagoya.

Made it back to Nagoya at 2.45pm and took the subway to Nagoya castle. Unlike Osaka castle, we'd have to pay to enter the castle grounds so we decided to skip it. Was surprised to see some cherry blossoms blooming already even though it was still chilly in Nagoya.

We then spent the rest of the afternoon video game hunting and putting in a whole lot of steps.

Spotted this huge Misokatsu Yabaton piggy...lol!

What better way to wrap up a long day than a hot bowl of Ichiran? We've been lucky avoiding crowds and people all day, and the streak continues at Ichiran near Nagoya station.

Stopped by Uniqlo again on our way back to the hotel and this time it was hubby's turn for a shopping spree.

5 Mar 2026 (Thurs): Toyota Kaikan Museum

A not-so-early start for our last morning in Nagoya. Enjoyed free breakfast at the hotel before checking out at 9.15am. Dropped our bags in the hotel as we had one more place to go in the morning before leaving Nagoya. Took the 9.46am train and traveled 1.5 hours on 2 different trains then walked 20 min to our destination. Where are we going?

Japan has a lot of 'cute' vehicles...lol!

Yes we love Toyota so much that we traveled all the way out here to Toyota city to visit the Toyota Kaikan Museum....lol! Entrance is free. This museum is located next to the Toyota Motors Corporation Headquarters in Toyota City. 

And yes hubby visited 2 different Toyota museums in Nagoya. 

The Toyota Kaikan Museum is the company's showroom. 

Visitors can learn about Toyota's latest vehicles and its philosophy of "producing happiness for all".

After an hour in the museum, we left at 12.30pm to head back to Nagoya. Japan's train networks are highly accessible for wheelchair users. Station staff provide exceptional, free assistance by deploying portable boarding ramps and coordinating with the destination station to ensure staff are waiting to help them off the train. Google Maps have been super useful to navigate the public transportation system around Japan but we encountered our first canceled and delayed train (which was not shown on Google). Had to use Google Translate to read the train display... and it showed "A person entered the tracks, causing delays."

Made it back to our hotel at 3pm, had a quick late lunch, picked up our bags, and headed back to Nagoya station to catch the 3.49pm Shinkansen to Kyoto. 

Next stop...Kyoto.