Is it ridiculous to go to Japan for a week?

The first day was obviously entirely given over to the flight. There is no avoiding this. We flew with Finnair, the Finnish national airline, which celebrates its centenary this year and was one of the first European airlines to fly regular direct flights to multiple Japanese cities. It’s just relaunched its flights to Osaka, and though we’re now looking at 13-plus hours of flight time from Helsinki due to the current unavailability of Russian airspace, their routes do overfly the North Pole, which is very cool to look at and you get a certificate to say you did it!

Japan’s third biggest city Osaka is a bustling metropolis, surrounded by heavy industry and docklands. It’s a good place for the first (ie shortest) stop as it’s not as laden with setpiece tourist attractions, though if you really want to squeeze something in, Osaka Castle would be the obvious destination (it’s a recreation, but an impressive one).

Really, though, the first thing I wanted to do in Japan was soak up some neon-drenched metropolitan vibes: the Japan of legend! And in that respect, Osaka absolutely delivers. I was guilt-free about spending the first afternoon and evening in the country generally mooching around and calling it tourism, especially after dark, under the gloriously garish glow of the iconic advertising hoardings along the Dōtonbori River. 

What people really like to do in Osaka is go out and eat: we visited a traditional okonomiyaki restaurant, the well-regarded Okonomiyaki Dan on the Shinsaibashi-Suji shopping street, where we loaded up on hearty sharing dishes – including the titular grilled pancakes – at very affordable prices.

After, we roamed the centre looking for a late-night sake and to have a gander at the Hozenji Temple, a picturesque shrine located deep in the warren of shopping streets. It’s extremely atmospheric in the middle of the night, especially the moss-covered statue of Buddhist spirit Fudo Myo-o.

Where to stay in Osaka

We stayed at the stylishly designed Zentis, which opened during the pandemic. The rooms are nice, but the bar was the star, with its bold Western fusion cocktails – the wasabi smash is tremendous and pretty much burns away any jet lag.

Skyscrapers and neon lights are cool, but the mystique of rural Japan easily matches that of the country’s megacities. It would seem remiss to skip the countryside on any Japan visit. Fortunately, this itinerary has it covered.

After my first breakfast in Japan (I will never forget my first breakfast in Japan, which involved nine different dishes, many fish-based), it was time to wave Osaka farewell after a brief but bracing visit and head to the train station. We used the seven-day Japan rail pass, which was a pretty sound investment for this trip.

A two-and-a-half-hour train took us to the small but perfectly formed spa town of Kinosaki Onsen. Just staring out of the window offered a glimpse into the country beyond where we stopped: all those jagged, forested mountains and rice fields are essentially what the ‘real’ Japan looks like (roughly 70 percent of the country is mountainous).

Kinosaki Onsen is a small, serene place with a population of just a few thousand. It’s pleasant for a bit of relaxed shopping and eating, and the ropeway (cable car) to the top of Mount Daishi was very nice, with spectacular views and an impressive Buddhist temple. Really, though, there is only one game in town. Staying at a traditional ryokan, you’re issued with a pass for the town’s seven thermal baths. Don the traditional dress of clogs and robe and clip-clop into town, pick a bath to visit, and immerse yourself naked in extremely hot spring water. Yes, I felt a bit silly at first, but everyone else is doing it. There’s not a huge amount else to do in Kinosaki, which is kind of the point: rather than charge around trying to cram a million things in, it was very nice to give over a quarter of the trip to rural serenity and stewing in hot water.

Where to stay

The exquisitely traditional Nishimuraya Honkan was the perfect taster of old Japan, with its immaculately manicured garden, hot baths, formal service and lavish, multi-course dining. Rooms start from £275 ($349, €319), but that price covers you for breakfast, dinner, entry to all the town’s baths and those all-important traditional robes.

After a final, invigorating hot bath (some die-hards cram all seven pools into a single overnight visit), it was time to head to Kyoto, another train journey of around two and a half hours.

Japan’s ancient, storied city, Kyoto is very different to the country’s other big cities insofar as buildings here have a strict height limit, so you won’t see the same towering skyscrapers you would in Tokyo. It’s a very pleasant place, both bustling and relaxed. At dinner time we headed to the sublimely atmospheric Pontocho, essentially an alley that’s wall-to-wall restaurants and tiny drinking dens, like something out of a computer game. 

The big draw in Kyoto is its beautiful temples. Various wars plus the general pitfalls of building stuff out of wood have robbed Japan of many of its historical buildings, but Kyoto’s ancient shrines are mostly intact. The Zen Ryoanji Temple comprises a stunning, expansive set of grounds, including probably the world’s most famous rock garden. And Sanjūsangen-dō is unmissable, a twelfth-century temple famous for its 1,000 statues of the 1,000-armed goddess Kannon, some of which date back to the temple’s founding. The statues don’t literally have 1,000 arms, but they are beautiful works of ancient woodcraft.

Where to stay

A pandemic-era addition to Kyoto, Hotel Higashiyama is an airy, thoughtfully designed hotel smack bang in the most historic part of town.

There is in fact only so much shrine you can get into one afternoon, and we actually visited Sanjūsangen-dō in the morning before getting ready for the big one: Tokyo. And there’s only one way to cover the 450km journey to the west. The bullet train (or shinkansen) remains an astounding achievement, blasting through the countryside at a truly tremendous pace, pretty much as fast as most of us will ever travel on land.

There is no point in messing about anywhere else: we headed immediately to Shinjuku and just gawped in awe for a bit. It is the most magnificently Tokyo-looking bit of Tokyo, full of neon-drenched shops, stratosphere-kissing skyscrapers, world-famous landmarks (notably the Shibuya Crossing) and generally garish oddities (the giant Godzilla statue on the Hotel Gracery is… quite something). 

We didn’t try and go anywhere else, just immersed ourselves in Shinjuku, in particular the legendary nightlife of Kabukicho. It’s a truly remarkable place, largely revolving around beautifully ramshackle microscopic bars with around ten to 20 seats that would make no economic sense whatsoever in the rest of the world but somehow seem to be a goer in Tokyo. 

Where to stay

Having only just opened in May, the vast Bellustar Tokyo towers up to the forty-seventh floor of an enormous new skyscraper. It’s a grand, world-class business hotel in the heart of Shinjuku with views over the city that will blow your mind. If you’re looking for something a bit earthier, it has a sister hotel called Groove that opened at the same time. The rooms are smaller and lower down, but it has a lively energy and artistic sensibility that perfectly complements the neighbourhood. 

It was always abundantly clear that there was no prospect of ‘doing’ Tokyo in a little over a day, but Inside Japan picked a couple of small gems for the final morning that show off very different sides to the city.

The Tsukiji Outer Market used to be attached to the city’s wholefood fish market, which has since moved elsewhere. But the bit left behind is a chaotic wonderland of exotic vegetables and still-twitching sea life. Not too far away is the beautifully landscaped, watery expanse of Hamarikyu Garden, a tranquil corner of the city atmospherically hemmed in by skyscrapers.

The hipster hub of Harajuku was fun for a bite to eat. You can do some serious clothes shopping there, but I enjoyed gawping in bemusement at the more... unusual shops (which have names like ‘Lolita’ and sell babydoll dresses). There are all sorts of animal cafes there (cats, dogs, owls… penguins!) though the whole thing is a bit ethically dubious so I gave it a swerve.

We’d packed in so much by this stage that it was justifiably time to take a break from tourism, and I wandered off on my own to do a bit of shopping. Tokyo naturally has it all, from the abundant kawaii stores under the strikingly Victorian-looking Tokyo Station to Tomato, a sprawling collection of stores in the Nippori fabric district that sells all sorts of wild Japanese fabrics for knockdown prices.

Then it was time to fly home. Have I seen all of Japan? Obviously not. Have I got a really good feel for – and had a good time in! – four incredibly distinct bits of the country? Yes. The one-week holiday to Japan is possible: you just need to make sure you work for it.

Time Out visited Japan on a group press trip with Finnair. We were hosted by Inside Japan Tours. For information on our policies around editorial independence, reviews and recommendations, see our editorial guidelines.