**Background info**
Me and my wife have just returned home from a fantastic 2 week trip to Japan in early March. We were first timers but spent a lot of time researching so hopefully this post will help others plan their trips as well. Planning for us wasn’t about squeezing in as much as physicaly possible but rather to help us avoid wasting time getting lost or having to backtrack. You will spend a lot of time getting from point A to point B so having efficient routes will make a big difference.
We tried to get a balance of shopping, eating, sightseeing and themeparks and found that 2 weeks was the perfect amount of time for this. We were helped out by good weather with only 2 days of significant rain over the 2 weeks.
**General tips**
– Eat at weird times to reduce queue times at popular/well-reviewed places. If you are going at a busy time of year (like March) then you probably can’t avoid queueing competely but you can at least reduce the queue times. 2-4pm seems to be best.
– Use an app like google maps or wanderlog to give yourself a choice of places to eat at each location you visit. I had pre-researched and saved a load of recommendations in each area. It then became easy to pull up the map and pick somewhere each meal depending on what we fancied eating at the time. For Tokyo at least we avoided reserving restaurants to give ourselves flexibility in the itinerary, but if you are looking for fine dining then you absolutely should book ahead.
– Shops and many restaurants open late in Japan (many open 10-11am). Therefore most mornings you may want to schedule sightseeing at a spot that doesn’t require employees to be present (Senso-ji, Meiji Jingu, Fushimi Inari, Kiyomizu-dera all fit this bill) and save your visits to manned locations later in the day. Check opening times for everywhere you plan to visit beforehand.
– It is not an exaggeration to say that some Tokyo metro stations (e.g Tokyo, Shinjuku) are laid out like an international airport with multiple terminals each. They are HUGE and getting from one side to the other can easily take 30 minutes+ and it is very easy to get lost on the way as signage is not always very clear. Rarely you will find some parts of some stations to be entirely disconnected from the rest of the station and can only be reached via street level. Plan transfer and travel times accordingly.
– Ship your luggage between hotels if you have large or multiple large suitcases. You do not want to be carrying a lot of luggage around on Japanese public transport. *Especially* during rush hour.
– More than once several stores were out of stock of something we wanted to buy and we had to resort to using Amazon.jp. The reception staff at the various hotels we stayed at were more than happy to take deliveries (although I did email them beforehand to check). Amazon prices also tended to be cheaper but of course we wanted to support local business where we could.
– If you are looking for gaming/anime/gunpla/ghibli merch we found Osaka to be way easier to shop in. Tokyo at the moment is just flooded with tourists and places like Akihabara have been picked clean. Even the relatively unknown Gundam Specialty Store in Akihabara had very little left in the way of rare kits. Osaka stores were also just less crowded and stressful to shop in.
– Save your 100 yen coins where you can as these seem to be the most versatile. If you find a vending machine that takes copper coins take the opportunity to dump them all.
– Public toilets are everywhere in Japan. Check any large store, shopping centre, convenience store or station. They are clean and many have electric heated seats. I feel bad for Japanese tourists who come to the UK and encounter our public toilet situation for the first time.
– If you don’t have one I suggest getting a credit/ debit card that doesn’t have foreign transaction fees before you travel. We found that most stores apart from small eateries will accept plastic.
**Day 1, Tokyo**
– Landed 5:20pm at Narita. Took 50 minutes to get through customs with the QR code.
– Got cash from the ATM after baggage claim. If you have a card with no foreign fees then make sure you are paying **in yen** when given the choice and let your bank back at home do the conversion. DO NOT USE Dynamic Currency Conversion on the machine as the fees are significant.
– We then charged our IC cards (machines only accept cash for this)
– Took the N’ex to Shinjuku- makes sure you sit in the correct car on your ticket as the train often splits at tokyo station.
– Got to our hotel 8:20pm. Hotel was **Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku**. I’d rate it **8/10**. Amazing location right next to to a small branch of Shinjuku station with access to 2 metro lines. For the main Shinjuku station you will need to walk 5 minutes at street level. Small but clean rooms. If I were to nitpick there was no safe in room and they used 1 ply toilet paper which disintegrated instantly on contact with moisture. Toilet seats were also an uncomfortable narrow oval shape and the bathroom ceilings were low. However the front desk were amazing and were happy to sort our baggage transfers between hotels.
– Dinner at **Udon Shin** (tabelog 3.72)- **10/10**. This place apparently gets pretty long queues but we arrived about 40 minutes before closing and waited 15 minutes for seats. I got the hot udon soup with beef and shrimp tempura. Amazingly tasty yet light. Wife got the hot udon with black pepper, beef and raw egg yolk. Tasty but she found it a bit strong by the end. We shared a vegetable tempura set which was lovely.
– Went to 7/11 and bought snacks, desserts and drinks then crashed for the night.
**Day 2, Tokyo**
– Planned as a jetlag recovery/rest day
– Breakfast at the **Yoshinoya** chain in Keio mall (Tabelog 3.04), **7/10**. We got a beef short rib bowl and cheese beef bowl. Wife found the cheese bowl a bit too heavy for the morning. Saw lots of salarymen who come in to eat alone and then dash off even on a weekend morning.
– Walked by Sumida river
– Visited **Tokyo skytree**- there was a sakura tree blooming outside which was crowded with people taking photos
– **Tokyo Solamachi**- many stores over several floors but not much looked interesting. Bought some stuff at the Pokemon centre. Contains the largest Ghibli store in Tokyo which was packed with people.
– Dinner at **Kaiten sushi toriton** (tabelog 3.54) **9/10**. Sushi choices were a bit limited but really good quality and price. Great atmosphere as staff were fun and loud. Go earlier in the afternoon to get in the virtual queue. Ours took over 3 hours on a Saturday but thankfully you can just shop in Solamachi while checking the queue status online.
**Day 3, Tokyo**
– Breakfast at **Kamo to negi** (tabelog 3.75) **9/10**. Came for the famous duck ramen. Great flavour in the duck meat but the ramen and broth were more bland. Arrived just before opening and waited 40 minutes but it was worth the wait as this was high on my priority list pre-trip.
– Walked through **Ueno park**- had a few cherry blossom trees in early bloom. Pleasant walk on a really sunny and clear day.
– Visited **Ueno zoo**- busy but plenty of animals. We spent quite a few hours here as my wife loves pandas. 40 minute queue to see the panda cub twins but no queue at all for the adult pandas who we revisited several times.
– **Yamishiroya** huge toy shop next to Ueno station- extremely busy, high prices but good variety. We bought some Ghibli merch.
– **Ameyoko** shopping district, walked through and was absolutely heaving with both tourists and locals at this point
– **Rk540** artisan shopping arcade- disappointing as not much to see here which was reflected in how dead the area was
– **Akihabara**- On Sundays the roads become closed to cars. However every store was packed and it was difficult to walk down the aisles of any store. We went looking for a specific rare-ish gunpla kit and ghibli goods but many stores had no stock of anything in high demand.
– Dinner at **Tonkatsu Marugo** (Tabelog 3.76) **7/10** – 40 minute wait after arriving 10 minutes before they open at 5pm on a sunday. We both got the premium filet set. Pork was juicy and the batter was light. The pork came with a brown sauce that tasted a bit like HP sauce which neither of us particularly enjoyed. Ended up having the tonkatsu with salt alone which made it quite plain.
– Back to shopping in Akihabara but now it was getting late in the day and we didn’t have time to check every store before they closed at 8pm. We made a mental note to come back later in the week on the planned flex day.
**Day 4, Tokyo**
– **Harajuku**- takeshita street. Quick walk through, didn’t see anything that caught our fancy.
– Breakfast at **Eggs n things** (tabelog 3.45)- **4/10** cold eggs benedict and omelet with no flavour. Slow service. Avoid.
– Walked down Omotesando and shopped at **Kiddy land** – found some good Ghibli merch. Also spent 2 minutes walking through **Toy sapiens** which was neat.
– **Shibuya**, beelined to Parco- Pokemon, Jump, Nintendo, Capcom stores
– Muji, Loft (bought the mandatory nail clippers and umbrellas), Disney stores
– **Shibuya crossing** ended up doing this crossing like 5 times as our GPS went haywire and we couldn’t find our late lunch spot
– Finally arrived at **Katsumidori sushi** (tabelog 3.47) – **9/10**. 5 minute wait at 3:30pm. Embarrassingly kept forgetting to press the button to send the train away after it delivered our food and had to be reminded. Great sushi overall on a similar level and price point to Toriton on day 2.
– **Shibuya sky** 16:40 booking for sunset which I made a month beforehand. Was worth the effort as got great sunset views and the weather was really good as well.
– Hachiko statue
– Miyashita Park including the GBL store- not much to see here and a bit out of the way, wasn’t feel it was worth visiting
– Mandarake- weird underground store that feels like a fire code violation. Limited selection
– Jins/zoff- we had both planned to get new glasses in Japan but our prescriptions would take 7 days and Jins wouldn’t ship to Osaka and Zoff couldn’t guarantee delivery within 8 days to Osaka before we left Japan.
– Mega donki- absolutely packed, left after 2 minutes
– Back to Shinjuku for dinner at **Fuunji** (tabelog 3.77) **8/10**. Very flavourful tsukemen. Barely a wait at 8:30pm of 10 minutes. Wife didn’t like it as much as she found the flavours too strong so this is not for everyone.
**Day 5, Tokyo**
**Disneyland tokyo**- forecast for light morning rain but ended up being cold with heavy rain and wind nearly all day. This worked in our favour though as we managed to ride nearly everything and be out of the park by 7pm despite heavy crowds on park opening.
– Arrived 8:45 and park opened prompt at 9am
– Entered by 9:25 and got straight on the app for premier/40th anniversary passes. By now the earliest Beauty and the Beast slot was 12pm and Space mountain was 4pm which we took.
– Walked on **haunted mansion**
– Won club mouse beat lottery but lost magical music world
– 10:20 Queued for **Monsters Inc** for 70 minutes. This was our only queue of longer than 20 minutes all day
– Got anniversary pass for star tours
– Ordered food for 11:50 at hungry bear cafe
– Rode **Beauty and the beast** (which was amazing) and bought premier pass for splash mountain
– Rode **Pinocchio** after 15 minute queue
– Watched **Country bear jamboree**
– Watched parade **Harmony in colour**
– Rode **splash mountain** with pass
– Watched **Club mouse beat**
– Rode **Space mountain** with pass
– Rode **Star tours** with pass and got anniversary pass for astro blasters
– Rode **Astro blasters** with pass (queues were still over an hour long for this at this point)
– Rode **Small world** after 5 minute queue
– Walked on **Stitch tiki room**
– Rode **Pirates of the carribean** after 10 minute queue
– Got last snacks from various stands and rode few rides we had missed out, skipped the outdoor boat rides which were still running but we were too cold to sit on
– Visited Bon voyage store
Dinner- Heading back to Shinjuku from the park we had to change lines at Tokyo station, which gave us a chance to check out ramen alley. Ramen alley itself is not easy to find within the station so do look up how to get there. The original plan was to go to the famous Rokurinsha but given that my wife didn’t enjoy the tsukemen at Fuunji the day before we instead went to **Oreshiki Jun** (tabelog 3.56) **8/10**. I got their tonkotsu ramen with all toppings and the wife got teriyaki tonkotsu. The broth had this smoky flavour which was nice. We felt the teriyaki ramen had tastier meat but the topping variety made the other bowl a good choice too.
**Day 6, Tokyo**
– Woke up late and headed over to **Asakusa**. Got brunch at **Tempura daikokuya** (tabelog 3.49) **9/10**. Got their mixed tempura bowls and clear soup. Comes with 3 large tempura shrimp/meatballs with really thick tempura batter and absolutely doused in soy sauce. Was a bit salty but very tasty and filling.
– Walked through **Nakamise dori** street which was cool to experience but we didn’t buy anything
– **Senso ji**
– Short walk over to the famous **Kappabashi** street and bought a knife for a gift from kama-asa
– Visited Ginza karen asakusa and bought a very cheap large check in bag (6600yen!)
– Then headed over to **Ginza** where we bought way too much at the Uniqlo flagship store. Also visited muji. Stuck the suitcase we bought in a locker at the station so we wouldn’t have to drag it around Ginza.
– **Chun shui tang** (tabelog 3.13) **5/10**- random place we stumbled into for bubble tea and dessert (tofu fa). Super slow service and we found the desserts not sweet enough
– Dinner at **Ushigoro bambina ginza** (tabelog 3.51) **10/10**. This is a cheaper Uchigoro branch but still only serves A5 black wagyu for their yakiniku. Amazing service from the staff who cooked each set of beef in front of us and explained every cut as best as they could in English. We ordered a la carte rather than the set menu and got 7 recommendations for cuts of beef, along with rice, 3 marinated veg, oxtail soup and korean lettuce for a very reasonable price. Great experience.
**Day 7, Tokyo**
– This was our scheduled flex day and so we had nothing preplanned
– As we had seen almost none of **Shinjuku** despite staying there for a week we decided to do Shinjuku and finish off Ginza and Akihabara on this day
– Started off buying a jacket from the Mont Bell next to our hotel
– Breakfast at **Onigiri manma** (tabelog 3.48) **8/10**. You watch them make the onigiri at the counter seats. The service was slow as they had one guy making onigiris for 10 seats plus stocking their takeaway display. One onigiri each is plenty for breakfast, we got 2 each and were stuffed by the end and had to skip lunch.
– **Seikando** stationery store and bought some nice photo frames
– Walked through the Isetan department store
– Went through the large Disney flagship store which has 2 floors but not a huge range of goods
– Then checked out Lumine est shopping centre
– Went back to Ginza to visit one store we couldn’t fit in the day before. **Hakuhinkan**, which is a large toy store. Worth visiting and we bought a few things.
– Then headed back to Akihabara and back to finish off the **Radio kaikan** building
– Checked out Laox akiba but this is absolutely skippable as they don’t sell anything unique
– **Bic camera akiba**, we should have absolutely come here earlier. They have huge range of electronics as well as a huge toys floor on the top floor
– Similarly went to **Yodobashi akiba** and was stunned by the size and range of goods which was somehow even greater than Bic’s
– Dinner back in Shinjuku at **Shogun burger** (tabelog 3.69) **9/10**. We had doubts about having burgers in Japan but this place came highly recommended. We ordered cheeseburgers and a Nutella shake. We weren’t disappointed as the burgers were very juicy and had great flavour. Would recommend if you need a break from more traditional japanese foods.
– Dessert at **Takano fruit parlor** (tabelog 3.5) **8/10**- got their fruit cake. The fruits themselves are amazing but we found the cake average.
– **Kabukicho** was packed and we walked through it for the vibes
– Saw the Godzilla head light up do it’s thing at 8pm
– Quick stops at **Golden Gai** and **Omoide yokocho** for photos
– Back to our hotel and shipped our luggage to our next hotel in kyoto
**Day 8, Hakone**
– Bought paper hakone freepasses and conbini food from Shinjuku station. I believe the online freepass requires an animated 2D QR code so you need to have solid internet to use it (we didn’t want to risk it).
– Then took the Romancecar to **Hakone** and ate on the train. The Japanese metro is dead silent so the trains are a nice change of pace as everyone is laughing and talking loudly and generally having a great time.
Hakone in general is *beautiful* and was very well geared for English speaking tourists. The whole place is a well oiled machine that feeds tourists into one end of the Hakone loop and gets them smoothly out on the other side. Public announcements are often in English and a lot of staff including bus drivers and station staff speak some English also. When we arrived they had just had several days of snow and this was the first sunny day, so the views were extra spectacular as everything was covered in snow under clear sunny skies.
– We started off the loop from Hakone Yumoto and took the **Tozan railway** to Gora
– **Cable car** to Sounzan
– **Ropeway** to Owakudani and was stunned by the views at the top.
– At **Owakudani** we got lunch at the **Gokuraku tea shop** (no tabelog rating)- got the katsu cutlet curry and udon with tempura. Average tourist spot food **5/10**
– Due to scheduled maintenance work the second half of the ropeway was down. We took the replacement bus service to Togendai via the windy mountain roads.
– Took the **sightseeing pirateship cruise** which was honestly pretty underwhelming
– From the port we took a crowded bus to our ryokan. You both get on and off these buses at the front which is not easy when they are full. Highly recommend that you don’t bring large suitcases to Hakone if you might need to take the bus.
– Arrived at our ryokan **Matsuzakaya Honten**. Easy **10/10** rating. This ryokan has a rich history being several hundred years old and has served members of the Imperial family. They have a large mirror from the palace which the emperor himself used. We booked the Akashi room with a private outdoor onsen. They welcomed us with their homebrew green tea which my wife went crazy for, along with some Japanese sweets. Great experience wearing traditional yukatas and enjoyed their **kaiseki dinner**. The menu is seasonal but we loved the bluefin tuna and wagyu.
– The outdoor onsen bath on our patio was relaxing and we had a great night’s sleep.
**Day 9, Kyoto**
– Had breakfast at the ryokan – huge amount of food and traditional small dishes but the grilled fish, rice and tofu stood out.
– Took the bus to odawara which was thankfully not full
– Then took the **Hikari shinkansen** from odawara to kyoto station
– Lunch was **bentos from 7/11** at odawara station – highly recommend the hakone beef short ribs bento box **8/10**
– Took the metro to arrive at our hotel- **Cross Hotel kyoto**, which I’d rate **9/10**. Rooms were large and spacious with better toilet paper. There was a safe in the room. The only thing this hotel lacked was on-site coin laundry so they recommend you a place 2 minutes around the block. Not far but also not somewhere you can go while wearing your PJ’s so definitely less convenient.
– Got desserts at **Patisserie Rau** (tabelog 3.57) **9/10**. Recommend coming earlier in the day as their popular desserts do sell out. We still enjoyed our choices immensely.
– Checked out Kiddy land and Disney store along karawamachi dori- small and limited range of products compared to Tokyo stores
– Finally got time to browse a **Don Quijote** properly – bought lots of snacks to take home and as gifts
– Dinner at **Yakiniku Hiro Kiyamachi branch** (tabelog 3.57) **8.5/10**. We prebooked this before our trip as we were worried about dinners in Kyoto given the reported ‘over tourism’. Unfussy and affordable yakiniku, good quality beef. Ordered a la carte again including their prime cuts as well as rice, soup and veggies.
– Checked out the MoMA store inside uniqlo after dinner where we bought a shelf ornament
– Not much is open in Kyoto after 8pm so spent time in **Round 1 entertainment** playing on their claw machines and arcades
**Day 10, Kyoto**
– Breakfast from the bakery **Shinshindo** (tabelog 3.17). **7/10**. This was right outside our hotel so hard to resist coming here in the mornings to grab something quick to go.
– **Fushimi inari** including the secret bamboo grove. No idea how the bamboo grove remains a secret but we had the whole place to ourselves for photos. Meanwhile 100m away Fushimi Inari had shoulder to shoulder crowds.
– Lunch at **Vel rosier** (tabelog 3.86) **10/10**. Reservation through tablecheck a month before arrival. Probably the cheapest 2 michelin star meal I will have in my life. Flavours were amazing and we were both stuffed way before the last course. The waiter had to request for smaller portions for us by the end.
– **Nijo castle**- we walked off lunch here including the fascinating ninomaru palace with it’s famous nightingale floors.
– Bus to **Kinkaku ji** 45 minutes before closing. Mixed reviews on this online but we felt it was worth the detour. Takes about 20 minutes to walk through if you take a lot of photos.
– Went shopping for tea at **Lupicia**
– Dinner at **Onikai** (tabelog 3.6) **9/10**. Another reservation, this time through google. We got seats at the counter so got to watched the chefs cook. Really fun atmosphere, food was excellent.
**Day 11, Kyoto**
– **Kiyomizu dera**. Spent about 45 minutes here
– **Sannenzaka and ninnenzaka** streets- highlights were the two Ghibli stores, buying fruit honey from **Sugi bee honey**, and furikake from **Ochanoko SaiSai**
– The original plan for lunch was to eat at gion duck noodle or duck rice but both had long queues. So instead we headed towards Nishiki market and ended up walking past an empty **Ichiran Ramen** (tabelog 3.09). **7.5/10**. I’ve read a lot that ichiran is overrated but honestly I think they just cater very well to the western palate. Nothing mindblowing but we enjoyed the tonkotsu ramen here. Certainly wouldn’t queue for it but as a walk-in it’s worth trying.
– **Shinkyogoku street** and **Teramachi** shopping
– Street food at **Nishiki market**
– Desserts by the river at **Quil fait bon** (tabelog 3.5) **7/10**. Decent selection of fruit tarts which were fine but nothing special by European standards.
– **Takashimaya** inside of which are also a Nintendo store and a Mandarake
– **Daimaru** mainly because in the basement was an **ippodo** tea shop which we stocked up at
– Dinner at **Sushizanmai** (tabelog 3.08) **7/10**. We wanted one last sushi meal in Japan but there were huge queues at sushiro and kura sushi so we ended up here instead. The place had 2 seats left for us but otherwise had no one else waiting. Decent sushi but expensive for a chain restaurant.
– Shipped our luggage to Osaka with the help of the hotel reception desk
**Day 12, Osaka**
– The original plan today was to spend half a day in Nara enroute to Osaka but the forecast was for heavy rain day for most of the day. Not wanting to walk through hordes of wet deer and a slurry of deer poop we pivoted to spending the whole day at Osaka instead for some indoor shopping.
– Took the **keihan main line** from Sanjo right into Osaka which was very convenient
– Went to **Umeda** which has multiple shopping centres
– **Yodobashi Camera**, obviously not as large as the one in Akihabara but was way less crowded so we could browse comfortably
– Lunch at **shioya udon** (tabelog 3.49) **7/10**. Very cheap and basic shrimp tempura udon. Nothing special but I think the high tabelog rating comes from how cheap it is. Mixture of seats and standing counter spots to eat.
– **Kiddyland Donguri Kyowakoku** this ghibli store attached to a kiddyland had almost every bit of ghibli merch we had bought across the other 2 cities.
– **Yorkys creperie** (tabelog 3.42) **8/10**. Really decent crepes and we were both hungry from the very light udon lunch earlier.
– **Hep 5**- visited this famous shopping centre which contains a **Jump store**
– Then went to the Pokemon, Nintendo, capcom, doraemon and one piece stores in **Daimaru**
– Ghibli store in **Hankyu** department store. At this point we were just visiting the Ghibli stores for the photos
– Checked into **hotel hiyori osaka namba**. **8/10**. Really busy but small hotel which is right across the road from Nankai Namba station, where you get the Rapi:t train for the airport. Tatami mat flooring in the rooms and generally well equipped, but loses points because we never once could speak to the receptionist without a long queue. The double bed was also small in comparison to the size of the room we booked.
– **Okonomiyaki mizuno** (tabelog 3.68) **9/10**. Early dinner with a 10 minute wait at this really popular restaurant full of locals. We were seated upstairs where there is table seating and each table has it’s own grill top where they cook the okonomiyaki in front of you. You get to choose the levels of various sauces and toppings as they go. Really fantastic meal and experience.
– **Bic camera** back in Namba but this was disappointing given the large size of the store as the product range was more limited
– **Shinsaibashi parco**, checked out the capcom, one piece, and of course ghibli stores but don’t think we bought anything.
– Evening snack at **Mcdonalds**, tried their weird teriyaki burger and a better shrimp burger.
**Day 13, Osaka**
– **USJ** day
– We had already bought express pass 4 pre-trip. Pass 4 covered the Demon slayer ride whereas pass 7 did not, and having checked the app consistently beforehand the Demon slayer ride had the longest queues by far.
– Unfortunately we struggled to wake up this day so arrived way later than planned at 8:45 (listed opening time of 8am which meant park was open from 7am). The weather was lovely and the park was absolutely heaving with crowds.
– By the time we got into the park Super Nintendo entry requests were already down to 6pm and most queue times for rides were an hour or more.
– We queued 30 mins for **Jaws** which was the shortest queue of any ride after which every ride shot up to 90+ minutes. Demon slayer was at a whopping 260 minute wait.
– Got an early lunch at the monster hunter themed **seliana dining room**. By the time we got our food the queue to the resturant was out the door and into the street. There were significant queues to use the toilets. We then resolved to go and watch shows while waiting for our express pass times to come up.
– Watched **Sing on tour**, the parade **No limit** and **Universal Monsters live rock and roll show**
– Then used our express passes to ride **Harry Potter and the forbidden Journey**, **Flying Dinosaur**, **XR Demon Slayer Mugen train** and **Mario Kart Koopa’s challenge**
– The express passes are expensive but honestly completely salvaged this day for us. My advice is to either ensure you get to the park 90 minutes before official opening or otherwise fork out for express passes. The park is gorgeous and we loved both Harry Potter and Super Nintendo areas but the crowds just make the park tough to enjoy.
– **Kibitaki** (tabelog 3.63) **9/10**. Dinner at this yakitori place in shinsaibashi. Was expecting to be turned away without a reservation but to our surprise we walked in and got seats at the counter. Ordered a la carte yakitori and highly recommend the chicken wing and neck (seseri). Avoid the fried chicken (They call it KFC, Kibitaki fried chicken) as it was powdery and lacked flavour. The grilled green pepper was excellent. We asked for all our chicken well done rather than rare because salmonella is no joke and we had a long flight the next day.
**Day 14, Osaka**
– Our last day in Japan but we had a late night flight out of KIX so knew we had most of the day to use
– **Honke ootako** (tabelog 3.49) **8/10**- can’t visit Osaka without trying their takoyaki which we had at this unassuming looking shop. Also got their fried noodles which were somehow even better than the takoyaki. Their grapefruit juice was also good.
– **Den den town**- I still had some gunpla and hobby supplies on my to-buy list and thankfully den den town was a smash hit for this after a relatively underwhelming experience in Akihabara.
– **Joshin super kids land** really well stocked shop with a huge range of mecha stuff especially
– **Volks**- overpriced but lots of secondhand goods
– **Suragaya**- good prices but not much stock compared to Volks
– **Yellow submarine** stores x2 – good selection of hobby supplies
– **Jungle mecha**- really good selection of gunpla with a few rarer kits that I never saw in Tokyo
– **Osaka aquarium** – spent about 1hr 30 here and had a great time. Saw the whalesharks but were too late to buy backyard pass tickets to watch the tanks and feeding from above. The ringed seals exhibit was also down for construction so we didn’t get to see Yuki the seal.
– **Mother moon cafe** (tabelog 3.2) **6/10**. We were peckish after the aquarium and this place is right outside. We ordered a pistachio strawberry pancake to share. It was decent but forgettable.
– Headed back to the hotel to pick up our luggage. Got a last minute famichiki karaage from **family mart** as realised I hadn’t tried it all trip. It was worth the hype.
– Took the **rapi:t train** to KIX which was very fast
– Had **San marco curry** at the airport which was average. Bought some last minute goods at the duty free (they had tokyo banana and royce chocolates) but regret not buying more snacks outside the airport as the selection was very limited inside.
– Caught our 23:30 flight home
Overall amazing first trip to Japan. Now having to face unpacking several suitcases full to the brim with our shopping and snacks!
by Aries37