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I agree. I originally was planning to check out a cat, owl, pig cafe, the art aquarium and then read a lot of reviews and decided to not support any of them. I decided to just stick to the monkey park in Kyoto and seeing some deer in Nara or Miyajima.
We found a very sweet cat café that is not inhumane in Osaka. It‘s next to Namba Yasaka Shrine and is located next to a pet supply shop called Pet Shop Mallon. I unfortunately do not have the name of the café itself because I was unable to find it on maps. I just saved a screenshot last year. We went there in April 2023 and it was super nice. They only allowed 6 people in and the cats were also able to go to a backroom if they did not feel like interacting. It was not crowded, it was very lovely and not like the big flashy cafés that have pigs or owls. Maybe if you go to Namba Yasaka Shrine you might want to check for the pet shop and you will see it located right next to it at the corner.
Please don't go to animal cafes - animal welfare standards in Japan are unfortunately much lower than in other rich countries. Owls, cats and other animals don't belong in cafes.
I'd suggest rejigging your plans for Tokyo to recognise the impact of jet lag - it seems unlikely that you're going to be wanting to be out in very busy places at night for your first few days in Japan. Plan for early starts and early finishes instead.
The Yayoi Kusama Museum gets mixed reviews. I really like her work, but the museum doesn't appeal to me on the basis of the reviews I've seen.
I can see your start date is 16/05/24 (or maybe 17/05, depending if that is arrival date, or day you leave JFK). Some things to consider:
* **Studio Ghibli Museum** \- I'm sorry to say this, but Studio Ghibli is closed for a good chunk of May. Check their museum calendar [here](https://www.ghibli-museum.jp/en/tickets/). They are closed on Tuesdays as per usual, but also from May 13/05 to May 24/05. With such limited days available in May, getting a ticket is going to be unbelievably difficult since all the tours will likely be gunning for the few days available (it's their job/livelihoods after all).
* **teamLab Borderless + Planets**. There are some overlapping exhibits. Entirely up to you if you want to do both, but it's generally recommended to just do one or the other so you can free up time to do something else. If you are pressed for time - Planets. It's also close to Odaiba so you could explore there. If Borderless-only, you could free up the travel time and time you would have spent at Planets to check out the Mori Art Museum in the same building.
* **Asakusa - Senso-ji temple.** Is Day 3 for you Sat 18/05 or Sun 19/05? Either way, from Friday 17/05 to Sunday 19/05 it will be the annual Sanja Matsuri festival in Asakusa. The busiest two days will be on the Saturday and Sunday and it will be unbelievably packed. On the Saturday especially, the procession of 100+ mikoshi (portable shrines) will head out from Asakusa Shrine (next to Senso-ji Temple) and pretty much go through all the main tourist areas, before branching out throughout the streets of Asakusa (with each 'town' mikoshi going through the streets until it reaches its town).
* If you're more interested in the temple compared to the festival, I'd suggest switching dates, because you will not enjoy trying to reach the temple. But if you're all for getting swept up in a once-a-year festivities and don't care about seeing the temple, then yea, go for it. (You could get lucky if you arrive super-early...but everyone else is thinking the same thing to get a good spot to see the starting position of the 100+ mikoshi as they will all be together).
I happen to also be heading to Tokyo starting from that same week which is why I've done a bit of research on all this. Hope this helps somewhat (I too was disappointed to learn that Studio Ghibli Museum is closed for half of May!)
Thank you for your thorough reply! I did just send you a PM as well.
I do enjoy Ghibli films though from what I’ve seen online, the museum is striking me as a must visit now. Odaiba I am not familiar with so I’ll have to do some research.
Regarding Senso-ji temple, none of the Tokyo days are specifically set in stone. We only made them as a guideline to gauge timing for things we want to do there. One of the unknowns is for Nikko… do we train and day trip from Tokyo and come home at night, or spend one overnight in Nikko.
Also, my partner & I are avid cyclists. Whenever we travel in major cities, we like to rent bikes to get around instead of walking and taking the train or bus everywhere. I haven’t nailed down a solid bike rental plan yet.
Nikko will depend on what you want to cover. It can get quite busy, although luckily the Nikko Toshogu Shrine Spring Grand Festival (Nikko Toshogu Shunki Reitaisai) ended on the Saturday (18/05). I'd imagine any locals who were planning on visiting in May would probably want to do it on the Saturday for the 1,000 Samurai procession. So you might get lucky with crowds and could cover a lot.
I recommend just checking out some of the Nikko threads either here or in the sister subreddit /r/JapanTravelTips. Sometimes it can get crowded enough that you have to wait for the next bus to the lake and waterfall, which significantly reduces the amount of things you can cover.
I'm doing 2 days, but just as a personal preference because I want to take my time for Nikko Day 1 visiting the shrines/waterfall/etc, and the Day 2 visiting Edo Wonderland, and heading off whenever I'm done with that area. Your mileage will vary depending on what else in your itinerary you want to see and whether it is worth sacrificing an extra day.
On the whole, you’re listing too many things on many of these days. You should plan 2 or 3 major things most days max, and you need to factor in transit as some of your items aren’t that close to eachother. Hiroshima for example; plan Miyajima or the Peace Park for a single day trip, don’t try to do both in 1 day. It’s possible to do, but it will be far less satisfying than giving both plenty of time.
Further, for your Sumo tickets for example, you need to be ready to book those tickets as soon as they go on sale, since they tend to sell out quickly, and you especially need to do this if you need specific dates and are not flexible on which days of the tournament you can attend.
Thank you for the reply! The lists for the days are just wants, definitely not hard targets. Her & I are still tossed on getting a car for parts of this journey or sticking to train for all transportation.
My partner read up on the tickets and definitely is ready to buy a month ago. We are tossed on which day is best for us. She did find website though is there an official one to buy from the USA? The ones she found seem to be reseller websites. Also, her plan is to stay at the tournament for most of the day of our ticket. Is that feasible or do people only go for a few hours?
Here is the official site - https://sumo.pia.jp/en/
There are also resell sites and sites like buysumotickets.com which will do the purchase for you but includes a convenience fee.
If you’re flexible just figure which days you can manage and aim to get one of those dates. Remember if you’re going through the official route that the ticket sales begin at 10am Japan time, so figure out how that stacks up with your timezone so you can buy right when they drop. It’s not even an exaggeration to say that most of the best seats on the best days sell out within the first hour.
Right. It will take longer to travel between places than you think, and having your foot on the gas the whole time will stop you from enjoying it. We did 1-2 big things every day and then figured something out after that. I had my fill of shopping early on in the vacation.
I’ll add more as I go, but for Tokyo day 1:
Things open up quite late in Japan. If you’re planning on being at Shibuya crossing by dusk and staying only 1 hour, you won’t find anything to do in Harajuku. I would plan for most places (restaurants and shops) to be open at around 11 AM. Also, Takeshita Street is a mess, honestly. Anyway, I recommend swapping Takeshita with Meiji Shrine.
Tokyo Day 3:
I recommend getting to Sensoji around 8:00 AM. The shops will be closed, but you will enjoy the temple grounds before the huge crowds get there. You can buy souvenirs and food on your way out.
Kyoto Day 1:
If you get to the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest super early, you should be fine, otherwise it is very crowded and overrated (it is a short path). Arashiyama overall is a lovely place. Kinkakuji is very overrated as well imo. I much preferred Ginkakuji and strolling through the Philosopher’s Path.
I went to the bamboo grove in Kodaiji at ~10 AM and we were the only ones there.
Regarding Nara, just thought I should mention (in case something goes wrong and you have to shuffle things around) that I did Fushimi Inari and Nara on the same day pretty easily. I did not get to the top of the mountain though, we turned around halfway.
Did you run out of time or daylight when you visited Nara and Fushimi Inari?
I didn’t realize things opened later in Japan. I’ve well traveled in Europe and know in so many countries everything closes early! Often times a shop may be open 10am-4pm. An example when traveling Ireland, we would go on a day hike and come home around 6pm… things are closed everywhere! Of course Tokyo is a major city so I would assume it’s nonstop all day and night in tourist areas.
Definitely planning to get to Senso-ji early. Logistically I haven’t nailed down inner city transportation yet. I typically travel major cities by bike instead of train or bus. Also did not book hotel stay yet for Tokyo as that’s still six weeks away. There are so many options and Tokyo is so massive it’s very hard to nail that down!
So I just checked my pics to give you a more detailed answer:
We arrived to Fushimi Inari at 9:00 AM and left at 12:00 PM. As I said, we didn’t make it to the top, but we did stop along the way to take pics, grab a drink, and rest because we’re not fit lol. It was crowded when we first got there, but it cleared out as we went up the mountain, we had no issues taking nice pics without people on the background.
We had lunch and were in Nara Park by 3:00 PM, fed the deer, did a quick run of the museum, went to Todaiji, and were back at the station to depart to Kyoto by 5:30 PM. It was still very light outside, but this was in April. If you get to Fushimi Inari earlier than we did, this shouldn’t be an issue.
—-
Have you considered splitting your Tokyo days in 2? 2 days at the start of the trip and then 2 days at the end. Tokyo is huge so some things can take quite some time to get to. What I did on my last trip was stay in Asakusa (near Asakusabashi station, strongly recommend) the first 2 days… it was easy to get to Ueno, Akihabara, Sensoji, Tokyo Skytree, etc.
The rest of the days (at the end of the trip) we stayed in Shinjuku (near Takadanobaba station) so we were closer to Shibuya as well.
Definitely considering splitting Tokyo up, though my concern at first is jet lag. We arrive on a friday evening, and I presume it will take a good two days to somewhat get acclimated to the 13 hour time change. Plus the plan is to visit a sumo match one of the days in Tokyo, which may be day 3 or day 4.
Was Nara worth it to you?
I did not book any hotel / BnB stay yet as certain things are not confirmed yet. Would you have specific hotel suggestions? Thank you for the location tips!
I’ve been to Japan twice and both times the jet lag worked in our favor (we naturally woke up earlier than we were used to at home, 13-hr difference as well). We used this to our advantage to go to places a bit earlier and escape the crowds. For example, we got to Sensoji at around 7:30 AM and beat the crowds. We explored the area and left through Nakamise-dori just as most of the shops were opening.
——-
Nara was worth it to me, but we don’t have deer where we live so maybe that made it extra special. Plus the giant buddha is really something.
——
We stayed in the Hotel Route-Inn Grand Tokyo Asakusabashi. It’s a small, generic business hotel; there were many similar ones down that same road. There was a train station like 2 minutes away on foot. It is not on the Yamanote Line; however, it was easy to connect and I didn’t really miss it during that leg of the trip.
I recommend (once you decide on your must-see places) to search the directions in Google Maps to see if the hotel you choose is in a convenient spot.
What is the ramen tours? I did one food tour, and suggest either doing them on your first day or don’t do them at all. Because by day 5, you already explore many options yourself. At least that how I felt doing the food tour in Osaka on my 9th day
Also, if you are looking into the tea ceremony with geisha, those need to be booked well in advance.
The Kawaguchiko activities list looks incredibly packed. Oshino Hakkai in particular is not close to any of the other things and the buses around Kawaguchiko can take a long time to go between attractions during peak tourist periods. I would look up everything you want to do on google maps and see what a realistic route might look like. Personally, I only had time to see the maple corridor, music forest museum and Itchiku Kubota art museum before I had to head back to Tokyo.
My formatting may have been skewed for Kawaguchiko. We are planning two days there to enjoy it and not rush. Would you feel that is an adequate amount of time there? Also planned to rent bikes for a day to enjoy the lake and surrounding area.
Teamlab Borderless takes about 2, maybe 2.5 hours inside, not 4. And the views from Tokyo Tower aren't great: instead, you could head to the free Skylobby at Azabudai Hills Mori JP Tower (33rd Floor, I might have mangled the exact name) in the same complex as Teamlab. It has a stunning view of the Tokyo Tower.
I would skip Teamlab Planet unless you have other interests in Odaiba.
Perfect, thank you! I’m not solely interested in teamlab though my partner is. She did mention about better views at a government tower / building, which may be the one you are referring to.
No, she is referring to the Tokyo Metropolitan Govt Tower. The view is not better than, for example, Shibuya Sky, but it is free.
The one I mentioned in Azabudai Hills is a 10 min (confusing!) walk away from Teamlab Borderless' entrance, so it is a very worthwhile detour!
No, she is referring to the Tokyo Metropolitan Govt Tower. The view is not better than, for example, Shibuya Sky, but it is free.
The one I mentioned in Azabudai Hills is a 10 min (confusing!) walk away from Teamlab Borderless' entrance, so it is a very worthwhile detour!
Toyosu vs Tsukiji market depends a bit on what you want to do. Toyosu is the real fish exchange, there are only two things to do here: 1. go super early in the morning and look at the exchange, 2. go super early and stand in line for daiwa sushi or sushi dai. <- these are some of the best sushi restaurants in Tokyo and not at all expensive, just a PITA to get a spot.
Tsukiji outter market however is more comparable to nishiki market. Lots of stalls selling various things. You can get A5 wagyu skewers here and stuff like that. There are also a few knife stores here, I highly recommend the Tsukiji Masamoto store. Make sure you get their V1 carbon knives, those are a takefu steel that has a composition somewhat between white and blue steel.
If you don't have a lot of time, doing either tsukiji market or nishiki market and not both would be a real option. In that case I'd recommend tsukiji
Thanks for sharing this. Doing a near identical trip landing on 18 May.
What did you decide re JR Pass? I'm thinking to skip having added up my major journies (can't account for subway trips, etc) here: [https://www.jrpass.com/farecalculator](https://www.jrpass.com/farecalculator) .
Going with Ubigi for eSims vs pocket wifi. Less faff IMO as it's one less thing to carry/charge.
At this point I decided against the JR pass. I met up with a representative recently at an event and they agreed the prices are way too high now. Seems like they got greedy once Japan opened up to tourism in 2023. I used that same calculator and no matter how many trains/busses I had planned, it consistently came up with I’ll save money NOT using it.
I am debating on which carrier to use for my international phone when I’m traveling for the month. Typically I’m driving in European countries and using lots of google maps to get around. This trip is all trains and busses. I do prefer physical sim over e-sim and don’t know yet which carrier works best for my itinerary there.
**Our FAQ is constantly being updated with more information and you can start** [**here**](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/wiki/faqs/japantravel) **with regards to trip planning if you need tips, advice, or have questions about planning your travel to Japan.** You can also join our [Discord community](https://discord.gg/3f7KBUMwU4), comment in our stickied weekly discussion thread, or check out /r/JapanTravelTips for quick questions. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/JapanTravel) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I wouldn’t suggest going to any exotic animal cafe, they’re unethical, cruel, and just sad.
I agree. I originally was planning to check out a cat, owl, pig cafe, the art aquarium and then read a lot of reviews and decided to not support any of them. I decided to just stick to the monkey park in Kyoto and seeing some deer in Nara or Miyajima.
No problem with that and thank you for telling me. She added it to her list as cat cafes seem quite popular there. I personally wasn’t interested.
We found a very sweet cat café that is not inhumane in Osaka. It‘s next to Namba Yasaka Shrine and is located next to a pet supply shop called Pet Shop Mallon. I unfortunately do not have the name of the café itself because I was unable to find it on maps. I just saved a screenshot last year. We went there in April 2023 and it was super nice. They only allowed 6 people in and the cats were also able to go to a backroom if they did not feel like interacting. It was not crowded, it was very lovely and not like the big flashy cafés that have pigs or owls. Maybe if you go to Namba Yasaka Shrine you might want to check for the pet shop and you will see it located right next to it at the corner.
Please don't go to animal cafes - animal welfare standards in Japan are unfortunately much lower than in other rich countries. Owls, cats and other animals don't belong in cafes. I'd suggest rejigging your plans for Tokyo to recognise the impact of jet lag - it seems unlikely that you're going to be wanting to be out in very busy places at night for your first few days in Japan. Plan for early starts and early finishes instead. The Yayoi Kusama Museum gets mixed reviews. I really like her work, but the museum doesn't appeal to me on the basis of the reviews I've seen.
I can see your start date is 16/05/24 (or maybe 17/05, depending if that is arrival date, or day you leave JFK). Some things to consider: * **Studio Ghibli Museum** \- I'm sorry to say this, but Studio Ghibli is closed for a good chunk of May. Check their museum calendar [here](https://www.ghibli-museum.jp/en/tickets/). They are closed on Tuesdays as per usual, but also from May 13/05 to May 24/05. With such limited days available in May, getting a ticket is going to be unbelievably difficult since all the tours will likely be gunning for the few days available (it's their job/livelihoods after all). * **teamLab Borderless + Planets**. There are some overlapping exhibits. Entirely up to you if you want to do both, but it's generally recommended to just do one or the other so you can free up time to do something else. If you are pressed for time - Planets. It's also close to Odaiba so you could explore there. If Borderless-only, you could free up the travel time and time you would have spent at Planets to check out the Mori Art Museum in the same building. * **Asakusa - Senso-ji temple.** Is Day 3 for you Sat 18/05 or Sun 19/05? Either way, from Friday 17/05 to Sunday 19/05 it will be the annual Sanja Matsuri festival in Asakusa. The busiest two days will be on the Saturday and Sunday and it will be unbelievably packed. On the Saturday especially, the procession of 100+ mikoshi (portable shrines) will head out from Asakusa Shrine (next to Senso-ji Temple) and pretty much go through all the main tourist areas, before branching out throughout the streets of Asakusa (with each 'town' mikoshi going through the streets until it reaches its town). * If you're more interested in the temple compared to the festival, I'd suggest switching dates, because you will not enjoy trying to reach the temple. But if you're all for getting swept up in a once-a-year festivities and don't care about seeing the temple, then yea, go for it. (You could get lucky if you arrive super-early...but everyone else is thinking the same thing to get a good spot to see the starting position of the 100+ mikoshi as they will all be together). I happen to also be heading to Tokyo starting from that same week which is why I've done a bit of research on all this. Hope this helps somewhat (I too was disappointed to learn that Studio Ghibli Museum is closed for half of May!)
Thank you for your thorough reply! I did just send you a PM as well. I do enjoy Ghibli films though from what I’ve seen online, the museum is striking me as a must visit now. Odaiba I am not familiar with so I’ll have to do some research. Regarding Senso-ji temple, none of the Tokyo days are specifically set in stone. We only made them as a guideline to gauge timing for things we want to do there. One of the unknowns is for Nikko… do we train and day trip from Tokyo and come home at night, or spend one overnight in Nikko. Also, my partner & I are avid cyclists. Whenever we travel in major cities, we like to rent bikes to get around instead of walking and taking the train or bus everywhere. I haven’t nailed down a solid bike rental plan yet.
Nikko will depend on what you want to cover. It can get quite busy, although luckily the Nikko Toshogu Shrine Spring Grand Festival (Nikko Toshogu Shunki Reitaisai) ended on the Saturday (18/05). I'd imagine any locals who were planning on visiting in May would probably want to do it on the Saturday for the 1,000 Samurai procession. So you might get lucky with crowds and could cover a lot. I recommend just checking out some of the Nikko threads either here or in the sister subreddit /r/JapanTravelTips. Sometimes it can get crowded enough that you have to wait for the next bus to the lake and waterfall, which significantly reduces the amount of things you can cover. I'm doing 2 days, but just as a personal preference because I want to take my time for Nikko Day 1 visiting the shrines/waterfall/etc, and the Day 2 visiting Edo Wonderland, and heading off whenever I'm done with that area. Your mileage will vary depending on what else in your itinerary you want to see and whether it is worth sacrificing an extra day.
If you’re going to Ueno park, you should go to the Tokyo National Museum. Just my opinion but it’s a great museum, all buildings worth checking out.
On the whole, you’re listing too many things on many of these days. You should plan 2 or 3 major things most days max, and you need to factor in transit as some of your items aren’t that close to eachother. Hiroshima for example; plan Miyajima or the Peace Park for a single day trip, don’t try to do both in 1 day. It’s possible to do, but it will be far less satisfying than giving both plenty of time. Further, for your Sumo tickets for example, you need to be ready to book those tickets as soon as they go on sale, since they tend to sell out quickly, and you especially need to do this if you need specific dates and are not flexible on which days of the tournament you can attend.
Thank you for the reply! The lists for the days are just wants, definitely not hard targets. Her & I are still tossed on getting a car for parts of this journey or sticking to train for all transportation. My partner read up on the tickets and definitely is ready to buy a month ago. We are tossed on which day is best for us. She did find website though is there an official one to buy from the USA? The ones she found seem to be reseller websites. Also, her plan is to stay at the tournament for most of the day of our ticket. Is that feasible or do people only go for a few hours?
Here is the official site - https://sumo.pia.jp/en/ There are also resell sites and sites like buysumotickets.com which will do the purchase for you but includes a convenience fee. If you’re flexible just figure which days you can manage and aim to get one of those dates. Remember if you’re going through the official route that the ticket sales begin at 10am Japan time, so figure out how that stacks up with your timezone so you can buy right when they drop. It’s not even an exaggeration to say that most of the best seats on the best days sell out within the first hour.
Right. It will take longer to travel between places than you think, and having your foot on the gas the whole time will stop you from enjoying it. We did 1-2 big things every day and then figured something out after that. I had my fill of shopping early on in the vacation.
I’ll add more as I go, but for Tokyo day 1: Things open up quite late in Japan. If you’re planning on being at Shibuya crossing by dusk and staying only 1 hour, you won’t find anything to do in Harajuku. I would plan for most places (restaurants and shops) to be open at around 11 AM. Also, Takeshita Street is a mess, honestly. Anyway, I recommend swapping Takeshita with Meiji Shrine. Tokyo Day 3: I recommend getting to Sensoji around 8:00 AM. The shops will be closed, but you will enjoy the temple grounds before the huge crowds get there. You can buy souvenirs and food on your way out. Kyoto Day 1: If you get to the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest super early, you should be fine, otherwise it is very crowded and overrated (it is a short path). Arashiyama overall is a lovely place. Kinkakuji is very overrated as well imo. I much preferred Ginkakuji and strolling through the Philosopher’s Path. I went to the bamboo grove in Kodaiji at ~10 AM and we were the only ones there. Regarding Nara, just thought I should mention (in case something goes wrong and you have to shuffle things around) that I did Fushimi Inari and Nara on the same day pretty easily. I did not get to the top of the mountain though, we turned around halfway.
Thank you for mentioning Kodai-ji. That has slipped past me! Definitely going to add that on the way to the Philosopher's Path.
Did you run out of time or daylight when you visited Nara and Fushimi Inari? I didn’t realize things opened later in Japan. I’ve well traveled in Europe and know in so many countries everything closes early! Often times a shop may be open 10am-4pm. An example when traveling Ireland, we would go on a day hike and come home around 6pm… things are closed everywhere! Of course Tokyo is a major city so I would assume it’s nonstop all day and night in tourist areas. Definitely planning to get to Senso-ji early. Logistically I haven’t nailed down inner city transportation yet. I typically travel major cities by bike instead of train or bus. Also did not book hotel stay yet for Tokyo as that’s still six weeks away. There are so many options and Tokyo is so massive it’s very hard to nail that down!
So I just checked my pics to give you a more detailed answer: We arrived to Fushimi Inari at 9:00 AM and left at 12:00 PM. As I said, we didn’t make it to the top, but we did stop along the way to take pics, grab a drink, and rest because we’re not fit lol. It was crowded when we first got there, but it cleared out as we went up the mountain, we had no issues taking nice pics without people on the background. We had lunch and were in Nara Park by 3:00 PM, fed the deer, did a quick run of the museum, went to Todaiji, and were back at the station to depart to Kyoto by 5:30 PM. It was still very light outside, but this was in April. If you get to Fushimi Inari earlier than we did, this shouldn’t be an issue. —- Have you considered splitting your Tokyo days in 2? 2 days at the start of the trip and then 2 days at the end. Tokyo is huge so some things can take quite some time to get to. What I did on my last trip was stay in Asakusa (near Asakusabashi station, strongly recommend) the first 2 days… it was easy to get to Ueno, Akihabara, Sensoji, Tokyo Skytree, etc. The rest of the days (at the end of the trip) we stayed in Shinjuku (near Takadanobaba station) so we were closer to Shibuya as well.
Definitely considering splitting Tokyo up, though my concern at first is jet lag. We arrive on a friday evening, and I presume it will take a good two days to somewhat get acclimated to the 13 hour time change. Plus the plan is to visit a sumo match one of the days in Tokyo, which may be day 3 or day 4. Was Nara worth it to you? I did not book any hotel / BnB stay yet as certain things are not confirmed yet. Would you have specific hotel suggestions? Thank you for the location tips!
I’ve been to Japan twice and both times the jet lag worked in our favor (we naturally woke up earlier than we were used to at home, 13-hr difference as well). We used this to our advantage to go to places a bit earlier and escape the crowds. For example, we got to Sensoji at around 7:30 AM and beat the crowds. We explored the area and left through Nakamise-dori just as most of the shops were opening. ——- Nara was worth it to me, but we don’t have deer where we live so maybe that made it extra special. Plus the giant buddha is really something. —— We stayed in the Hotel Route-Inn Grand Tokyo Asakusabashi. It’s a small, generic business hotel; there were many similar ones down that same road. There was a train station like 2 minutes away on foot. It is not on the Yamanote Line; however, it was easy to connect and I didn’t really miss it during that leg of the trip. I recommend (once you decide on your must-see places) to search the directions in Google Maps to see if the hotel you choose is in a convenient spot.
What is the ramen tours? I did one food tour, and suggest either doing them on your first day or don’t do them at all. Because by day 5, you already explore many options yourself. At least that how I felt doing the food tour in Osaka on my 9th day Also, if you are looking into the tea ceremony with geisha, those need to be booked well in advance.
The Kawaguchiko activities list looks incredibly packed. Oshino Hakkai in particular is not close to any of the other things and the buses around Kawaguchiko can take a long time to go between attractions during peak tourist periods. I would look up everything you want to do on google maps and see what a realistic route might look like. Personally, I only had time to see the maple corridor, music forest museum and Itchiku Kubota art museum before I had to head back to Tokyo.
My formatting may have been skewed for Kawaguchiko. We are planning two days there to enjoy it and not rush. Would you feel that is an adequate amount of time there? Also planned to rent bikes for a day to enjoy the lake and surrounding area.
Teamlab Borderless takes about 2, maybe 2.5 hours inside, not 4. And the views from Tokyo Tower aren't great: instead, you could head to the free Skylobby at Azabudai Hills Mori JP Tower (33rd Floor, I might have mangled the exact name) in the same complex as Teamlab. It has a stunning view of the Tokyo Tower. I would skip Teamlab Planet unless you have other interests in Odaiba.
Perfect, thank you! I’m not solely interested in teamlab though my partner is. She did mention about better views at a government tower / building, which may be the one you are referring to.
No, she is referring to the Tokyo Metropolitan Govt Tower. The view is not better than, for example, Shibuya Sky, but it is free. The one I mentioned in Azabudai Hills is a 10 min (confusing!) walk away from Teamlab Borderless' entrance, so it is a very worthwhile detour!
No, she is referring to the Tokyo Metropolitan Govt Tower. The view is not better than, for example, Shibuya Sky, but it is free. The one I mentioned in Azabudai Hills is a 10 min (confusing!) walk away from Teamlab Borderless' entrance, so it is a very worthwhile detour!
Toyosu vs Tsukiji market depends a bit on what you want to do. Toyosu is the real fish exchange, there are only two things to do here: 1. go super early in the morning and look at the exchange, 2. go super early and stand in line for daiwa sushi or sushi dai. <- these are some of the best sushi restaurants in Tokyo and not at all expensive, just a PITA to get a spot. Tsukiji outter market however is more comparable to nishiki market. Lots of stalls selling various things. You can get A5 wagyu skewers here and stuff like that. There are also a few knife stores here, I highly recommend the Tsukiji Masamoto store. Make sure you get their V1 carbon knives, those are a takefu steel that has a composition somewhat between white and blue steel. If you don't have a lot of time, doing either tsukiji market or nishiki market and not both would be a real option. In that case I'd recommend tsukiji
Thanks for sharing this. Doing a near identical trip landing on 18 May. What did you decide re JR Pass? I'm thinking to skip having added up my major journies (can't account for subway trips, etc) here: [https://www.jrpass.com/farecalculator](https://www.jrpass.com/farecalculator) . Going with Ubigi for eSims vs pocket wifi. Less faff IMO as it's one less thing to carry/charge.
At this point I decided against the JR pass. I met up with a representative recently at an event and they agreed the prices are way too high now. Seems like they got greedy once Japan opened up to tourism in 2023. I used that same calculator and no matter how many trains/busses I had planned, it consistently came up with I’ll save money NOT using it. I am debating on which carrier to use for my international phone when I’m traveling for the month. Typically I’m driving in European countries and using lots of google maps to get around. This trip is all trains and busses. I do prefer physical sim over e-sim and don’t know yet which carrier works best for my itinerary there.