I can only comment on Nagoya HAHAHAHA. Its a pleasant city, so enjoy your shopping and sight seeing.

Shopping street - Osu Kanon (there's also a temple nearby)
Shopping district - Sakae area
Visit the Nagoya Castle

Sadly the Nabana no Sato night illumination no more ady in Kuwano. Otherwise really well worth going.

From this itinerary, I'm assuming you're the travel photographer type. Going to spend certain amount of time to get good shots at objects and landscapes
In that case, yes, spending more time in Kyoto is definitely the right move IMO. you will definitely spend time at bamboo forest since it's pretty darn hard to get a really good shot.. and people is not the cause why. Then again, I consider myself an amateur in photography.

Day 4 seems a bit packed. But if you're not really into food, you'll prolly wont spend much time at Nishiki..maybe.. There is a shopping district behind the market after all.
I'm assuming you'll travel to Nara in the morning, and Osaka around 3-4pm? People(like me) would say Nara is overated since there are no views there. Experience it yourself since you may find a gem there.
Regarding Arashiyama, there are 2 parks, Kameyama and Nakanoshima. Nakanoshima IMO has the better view.
That's the only comment I can give about Kyoto. The places you planned to visit got breathtaking views, so you're good there.

Osaka tho.. to me is a city of food and shopping. For pictures.. maybe Tsurumi Ryokuchi park? However just know that that park is HUGE. They even mapped out a 'Walking & jogging course" that is 2.25km. And that's only half of the park! I'll put the snap I took there.

Gosh you're right, its pork katsu. I kept thinking it's chicken because katsu.

Our trip was:
Nagoya (3 nights) -> Takayama (1 night) -> ShirakawaGo (1 night) -> Nagoya (2 nights)

While we didn't manage to do a lot of things, I think one of the best day trip we did was Kiso Valley (about an hour+ from Nagoya). It was quiet but the hike was interesting. Nature, history and appreciation for old town... I find that our trip had a good closure with the visit.

Yesssss 1 day is too limited. I had about 4 days in Nagoya and still not done exploring!

Shirakawa-Go is in the UNESCO World Heritage site it's one of the best place I've ever been. Definitely - the best season is Winter!!! In other times you can enjoy/ see different charm of the place, but without a doubt - Winter. Highly highly recommended.

Friends and I was there early Jan this year.

Day 1 - Shirakawa-Go. We arrived between 3-330pm and went out to play around 4pm after checking-in. It wasn't snowing. Whatever snow were there - a lot had been melted off by the locals to make it easy to walk.



Day 2 Pic 1- Went out of the gassho-zukuri/ minshuku between 8-830am (as breakfast was served at 7am, also took some time to pack up) and there was thick fog. It was snowing slightly, but the night before there were heavy snow and we were so happy & amazed by the scene before our eyes.



Day 2 Pic 2 - We stayed in the inner most part of ShirakawaGo village. Shirakawa-Go is huge and there are many different villages located in different parts of the 'mountain'/ area. Friend said this was the only place available as we did an adhoc trip, but I think we were lucky because it was so beautiful - beyond words. Staying at the innermost, although we had a long bus ride, was totally worth it.

We would see the mountain. And the snow were soft like cotton.



Day 2 Pic 3 - We must check out by 10am, and by 10, non-staying guests/ tourists will start to flood the place (rule is that, no tourists or guests from other area can come in before 10am), they can only access the village from 10am-3pm. Times other than those are reserved for the village's guests. It was sad that we had to leave so soon, as the enjoyment felt so short. I'll definitely return one day. If you ask why so short, only 1 night - it's because you can only stay 1 night in gassho zukuri. All these places are usually overbooked so in order to ensure no one hogs the accommodation, everyone is only allowed 1 night stay - unless you move to another minshuku/ village for another night.



Hope this inspires you to go one day

LOL, Nagoya took me 2 years to exploring it. Within this 2 year, Every Sat & Sun took train / Bus from Tokyo to Nagoya to complete my research.

yeap sure, i will do it this weekends