Hi everyone! Today I will be talking about my Golden Week trip to Nagoya/Osaka/Kyoto. In Japan, there is a concept called Golden Week, which is a series of holidays during which many people go on trips (the same way that a lot of people in the US go on trips during the long Thanksgiving weekend). These holidays happened to fall on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, so we had a 5-day holiday! Knowing this ahead of time, my friends and I planned ahead and decided to go to Osaka and Kyoto. We also bought tickets to the Ghibli Park in Nagoya, which is really hard to get tickets for (to get tickets, you need to reserve it on the 10th of the month 3 months ahead of the date you want; so in this case, I reserved the May 3rd tickets on February 10th). We also got an Airbnb, which again was a great experience and was very reasonable!
To get to Nagoya and Osaka, we took the shinkansen. We went to the JR Ticket Office, then told them what time and day we wanted. We also got a student discount on the ticket price using our school certificates (there are vending machines you can get these certificates from; the school will usually tell you the location). Then, we also reserved our seats at the office, since the shinkansens are very busy during Golden Week (it’s not that much of a price difference from the unreserved seats). When you take the shinkansen on your trip days, make sure to get there early since you never know how busy it will be! One of my friends almost missed the shinkansen due to a train issue! It is also good to arrive early because there are bento stores on the platform (you can eat on the train on the way to your destination).
The shinkansen ride took a little over an hour from Tokyo Station to Nagoya Station. We then took a train to the Ghibli Park and spent the day there. After Ghibli Park, we took the shinkansen again to Osaka Station. After arriving, we used Google Maps to find our Airbnb and checked in. We were actually in a very popular area and had no problem finding places to eat. Fun fact: Google Maps will show different locations if you write what you’re looking for in Japanese (typing in “sushi” vs “すし”). Throughout the trip, we tried a lot of different foods, like kushikatsu (katsu of different foods on a stick), seafood, mochi, and more! We also took a train to Kyoto and went to Arashiyama, Fushimi Inari, and Kinkakuji. As much as we love to shop, seeing these famous historic destinations and their beautiful scenery was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Arashiyama, in particular, also had a small town that had Japanese craft items and food, so it was very fun exploring this town as well!
We really enjoyed this experience, and it was a great break in between our busy class schedules!