My family (2 parents/2 18-year old girls) are flying into Osaka, arriving June 8 at 6:20pm and depart out of Narita on June 16 at 10pm. We'd like to buy 7-day rail pass for our travels to cities and places including: Osaka (1 day); Kyoto (2-3 days including Bamboo Grove, Nara, Kyoto Castle, Monkey Park, Todaiji; Hakone (1-2 days for Mt. Fuji, Lake Ashi & Ropeway) and Tokyo (3-4 days). Questions below:
1) This will be my daughters' first int'l flight and they may be tired after the long flight. Is it good idea to overnight upon arrival in Osaka on June 8 or to travel onto Kyoto and make that our base for side trips?
2) If traveling onto Kyoto, will we need to activate rail pass on 8th?
3) As rail pass is only good for 7-days, what's best way to use this pass for our itinerary and when should we activate it?
4) For travel to Hakone from Kyoto, what is travel time via Shinkansen?
5) What is your recommendation for itinerary given the above cities & sites we want to visit? Do we have time to see Hiroshima too? I want this to be a relaxing trip also so don't want to have to check in and out of too many hotels.
Thank you thank you for all your suggestions/tips!