So, as mentioned previously, Kate and I are planning to go to Japan for the World SF Convention, and spend a couple of weeks doing touristy stuff. We’re down for about a week in Kyoto, and a week in the Yokohama/Tokyo area (where the con is). Then, there are 3-4 days at the end of the trip that we haven’t decided what to do with.
We’ve pretty much got it narrowed down to one of two options, as you might guess from the post title. We’re working on not much more than guidebooks and web sites, though, so input from anybody with actual experience of Japan would be more than welcome. The candidate sites:
Kanazawa. This is a moderate-sized city on the opposite coast from Tokyo, and has a really famous garden and some interesting-sounding historical stuff. One of our guidebooks waxes rhapsodic about the local cuisine.
Takayama. This is a small city up in the mountains, and is a little more rustic. They have a bunch of museums of folk crafts and that sort of thing, and more touristy stuff.
Really, they both sound pretty cool, and relatively low-key. Takayama is kind of attractive in that it’s very different from any of the other places we’ll be, but Kanazawa sounds pretty cool, too. They’re both four-ish hours from the Tokyo area by train, so travel time isn’t really a distinguishing factor, but the rail maps we’ve seen make it look like it wouldn’t quite be feasible to do both (particularly at the end of a long vacation, and right after Worldcon…
So, any thoughts?