Hello! I recently went on a holiday to Japan, from 311223 to 120124 for a total of 12 nights, with the route Tokyo —> Hiroshima —> Kyoto —> Yokohama —> Tokyo
This is the first time I’ve planned a trip, and I did so with references to this reddit, so I would like to share my trip report back here!
Context:
I (19M) went on this trip with my sister (21F), and it was my 3rd time in Japan. I was coming from Singapore & my sister was coming from an American country. We are both still students so our trip here was kinda budget (especially the hotels). I have also recommended some restaurants for the respective areas we went to.
Itinerary:
Day 1 (311223):
\- Touchdown at Haneda Airport at 530pm
\- Queued & ate dinner (Godaime Hanayama Udon at the airport, I swear it was amazing)
\- Made our way to hotel, rest until next day
Day 2 (010124):
\- Morning to early afternoon: Shinkansen from Shinagawa to Hiroshima
\- Checked in at a hotel near Hiroshima station
\- Wanted this day to be chill (recovering from jetlag), so we only went to the Aeon mall for dinner & some light shopping
Day 3 (020124):
\- JR train to Miyagimuchi followed by a ferry to Miyajima (if you have JR pass this only costs 100yen for visitor tax)
\- Reached Miyajima around 1030am
\- Went to Mt Misen first (walked about 25mins to the ropeway, took the ropeway up, then hiked up for around 1+ hours, stayed there for a 20-30 minutes to explore the shrines & the scenery, then hiked down, & took the ropeway back) Whole process takes about 2-3 hours if you aren’t the fittest.
\- Had onigiris from convenience stores + street food at Miyajima for lunch, the street food here is very nice so no need to get a full meal
\- Bought quite a lot of souvenirs here too
\- Went to the floating shrine while it was high tide. Also went to the treasure hall where we saw old artefacts.
\- The Maple Leaf desserts (it’s more or less sold everywhere here) are good! Oysters are world class too.
\- Left before dinner, had dinner back at Hiroshima.
\- We had initially planned for Miyajima to be day 4, but we checked that rainy weather could come so we swapped the day plans.
Day 4 (030124):
\- Queued for 1hour for Okinomiyaki at Rei-chan, but was honestly a bit of a letdown. Maybe I didn’t like that it was too much vegetables, or that the sauce was too sweet. Granted, my expectations for it was really high.
\- Went to Atomic Dome & Peace Museum. Really sad watching how it all happened & the aftereffects.
\- Planned to catch the sunset at Atomic Dome to get a really nice picture but it was very cloudy that day
Day 5 (040124):
\- Shinkansen from Hiroshima to Kyoto, reached Kyoto at around 12pm
\- Left our luggage at the hotel (close to Nishiki Market), then had lunch at Nishiki Market (street food)
\- Took the bus to Kiyomizu Dera (Bus 207)
\- Sunset at Kiyomizu Dera is very nice with the light rays shining on you! Walked around the shops also. Only bad thing was the crowd but I felt that was fine.
\- Walked from Kiyomizu-Dera to Gion.
\- Dinner was at this nice ramen place called Musoshin Ramen (could have been a tourist trap but I liked it a lot, even as a Singaporean who has had good ramen before).
\- Gion itself (for me) was a bit underwhelming, but the shops along the whole street (around a whole 1 – 2km stretch) was really nice!
\- Had a shrimp burger at Japanese McDonalds for supper since we’ve never seen that in either of our countries. It was good!
Day 6 (050124):
\- Full day Arashiyama
\- I had planned & booked for the Hozugawa boat ride for 230pm, and monkey park in the morning with lunch in between, but while on the way to Arashiyama, I received a mail that the boat ride was cancelled due to low tides (I should have foreseen this), so we had to replan our whole day while on the subway XD.
\- Morning: went to Bamboo Grove & the Tenryuji garden. I understand that it’s a tourist trap but the garden walk around it was really nice with good sceneries! Bamboo Grove was obviously as expected, really short
\- Went for some short boat ride along the river (no idea exactly where it was LOL, but we stumbled across it & just went as a small compensation for having our main boat ride cancelled)
\- Went for lunch! Found a hidden gem somewhere on reddit (I can’t find it anymore but I read it somewhere) called Takara Sushi. It’s managed by an elderly couple and they sell 7 nigiri for 1000yen. The place is in a small neighbourhood a short walk away though.
\- Went to Monkey Park! Went all the way to the top, decently good scenery. Didn’t feel impressed by the monkeys though XD. Their faces were very red.
\- We had our afternoon to spare, so we walked to Senkoji temple. Quite a bit of a hike, and it’s very ulu (in the middle of nowhere), but the scenery up there is amazing. The vibes were very serene. Would definitely recommend this if you are in Arashiyama.
\- Walked around the shops, before going for our dinner at Itsuki Chaya. (This place has to be reserved quite a bit earlier, and you should reserve the seats by the river)
Day 7 (060124):
\- Woke up early to go to Fushimi Inari Shrine. We reached there at about 815am and it wasn’t too crowded. Hike up was a bit underwhelming as it only took around 45mins. Scenery along the way was good though. Shopped around a bit after we reached the bottom.
\- We had some spare time after, so we walked around Kyoto station.
\- Went for Wagashi (sweets) making class (about 1.5hours). Personally didn’t enjoy this because I have incredibly horrible artistic skills, but the other guys in the class were having fun.
\- Had dinner at Ichiran Ramen. Never a Japan trip without it!
\- Stayed the night at a Ryokan.
Day 8 (070124):
\- Breakfast at Ryokan (spent the previous night over). Very filling for a breakfast & it was good.
\- Shinkansen to Yokohama
\- Prior to the trip, I was unable to book tickets for the Cup Noodle Museum (didn’t know you had to book 3 months in advance), so went to the Red Brick Warehouse & the Gundam Factory
\- In all honesty, both were letdowns haha. Don’t understand the appeal of the Red Brick Warehouse and the Gundam Factory was a waste of money for me.
\- Walked around Chinatown for dinner & shopping after, which was quite good! Tried the hard sugar on fruits thing (tanghulu? idk how to spell), was quite good too.
\- Shinkansen back to Tokyo at night
\- Checked in to hotel (near Akihabara)
Day 9 (080124):
\- Day started late since the day before, we more or less checked in to hotel at around 11pm.
\- Went to a MIPIG cafe at Harujuku (it was a very fun time! The mini pigs were so cute haha and I always had 3 or 4 snuggling on my lap)
\- Lunch at Menchirashi. Queued for an hour but absolutely freaking worth it because it was cheap and they had very very good Udon!
\- Spent the day walking by Takeshi Street. We had initially planned to walk by Omotesando but I quickly realised the items were way too expensive X\_X. Spent the whole afternoon at Takeshi Street and personally I wasn’t too bothered by the crowd.
\- Had the tornado potato and it was good.
\- We also went to a pancake place called “A happy pancake”. The pancake was very fluffy & soft omg. Loved it!
\- Had dinner close to our hotel
Day 10 (090124):
\- Teamlab planets in the morning. Book for 9am, reached at 920am and had to queue for about 15 more minutes. We spent about 75mins in there. There were about 4-5 light exhibits which were quite photogenic, as well as some others which used computer programming for the designs. Honestly very cool.
\- Lunch at Katsudonya Zuicho. Fantastic Katsudon bruh but the waiting time was around 1hour?
\- Shopped at the mega donquijote a Shibuya as well as Uniqlo & Gu
\- Went for the 520pm slot for the Shibuya Sky. I had planned (way back) to go for the Roppongi observatory but I didn’t realise it was closed until like 3 weeks before, so I was too late to book the perfect time for Shibuya Sky. Eitherway, the view was still very good. Very worth it for the price! Managed to snap some nice pictures
Day 11 (100124):
\- Went to Ghibli Museum at the earliest slot (10am). They didn’t allow pictures in the museum itself, and there weren’t many exhibitions either. The limited exhibition one was cool, but the rest were quite underwhelming. The film they presented changes every month, and the one I watched kinda felt like ASMR.
\- Had lunch at Sushiroe (?). Honestly a little mid for Japanese standard, but the Salmon was really cheap and good.
\- Went to shop around Shinjuku, Disney Flagship store, Uniqlo & Gu, Takashimaya, as well as the Tokyu hands store.
Day 12 (110124):
\- Morning we went to Ameyoko! We bought some stuff & it was quite nice to walk around what felt like a legit shopping street/market. Didn’t know enough Japanese to feel comfortable to negotiate for prices though.
\- Had lunch at Sinsenan. There wasn’t a single tourist at the restaurant because it was a hidden gem I found ;). It’s the best soba i’ve had in my life till date.
\- Went to Tokyo station & collected some stamps as it was on the way back to Akihabara
\- Spent the majority of the afternoon at Akihabara. Bought some anime stuff hehe, not the biggest fan but I still watch stuff like hunterhunter & detective conan
\- Had dinner at Marugo. Again, another hidden gem I found :D. Legit the BEST katsudon I’ve had, their meat was so juicy omg everything was just amazing.
\- Walked around the malls along Akihabara after dinner.
Day 13 (120124):
\- Morning at Sensoji Temple. There were quite a few school trips here.
\- Lunch at Mendokoro Wakamusha. Good ramen with a generous amount of meat for a cheap price. Recommend!
\- Went to the Haneda airport, and took my flight back to Singapore
Granted that this is the first time I’ve planned a trip, I overloooked some stuff & made some mistakes.
Mistakes I’ve made:
\- My luggage was too big for the 160cm baggage criteria set for the Shinkansen. They still allow you to bring the luggage on board, but for me I had to keep it in front of my seat, which was kind of uncomfortable.
\- For the day trip to Yokohama, we had to store our luggage somewhere & I had planned to use the lockers at station. However I failed to consider that 1) large lockers were probably taken quite fast and 2) my luggage was bigger than the large luggage. Luckily we thought of this problem dURING the trip & managed to avoid this problem by using the Takkyubin luggage forwarding service.
\- There were a couple times I forgot that the subway has express, main, rapid, limited, etc, and I boarded the wrong train LOL & bc of that missed my stops 😅😅.
\- My itenarary planning had quite a bit of free time because I had a lot of buffer time to just “explore the place”. Perhaps I could have added in more things.
\- We initially had the digital suica card but there was a glitch where the trip didnt end & we couldn’t use the digital suica card anymore :(. Physical Suica/Pasmo/icoca card is way more reliable if you can get your hands on one
Tips:
\- Download the Japan Travel app. You can use it together with google maps because sometimes one recommends routes better than the other
\- I bought the JR pass (yes even after the price increase) because we crammed all our Shinkansen trips into 7 days which made it more worth it than buying the individual tickets.
\- For food, do use the tabelog website instead of looking at google reviews as google reviews is infested with tourists who tend to rate higher. Tabelog recommends the best food because it only has Japanese reviewers who are all very harsh & critical. Unironically the way to figure out if the food is good is if there’s only locals in the restaurant & no tourists. Contrary to most people’s advice I actually advice you to plan your meals (maybe not 1 month in advance, but perhaps 1-2 days before. I honestly think theres quite a big difference between the really good Japan restaurants and any other ordinary japanese restaurant.
\- Ghibli Museum tickets open on the 10th of every month, at 10am, for that month’s tickets. Usually there’s a queue for it but I managed to skip the queue haha. DM me if you are interested in the method I used!