We are on our way back from a 10 day trip that we enjoyed \*so\* much despite some surprise medical hiccups. This sub was so helpful to me in trying to research everything ahead of time; I know our itinerary is a pretty standard greatest hits list, but just in case it’s helpful for anyone else, I wanted to share. We traveled with my husband, myself, and our 10 and 6yo kids, and flew roundtrip from New York to Haneda.
**Shoutout to the Tokyo Station International Clinic:** Our flight to Haneda was about 14 hours, and midway through the flight, I realized my eldest was getting sick. She’d probably been coasting on adrenaline up until that point, as were we all, but I happened to look over at her and could just tell she had fever eyes. Within the next several hours, I became 90% sure she had strep – she gets it a lot, I know what it looks like on her. I bought $5 of WiFi, googled the nearest clinic to our hotel which was in Tokyo Station area, and easily made an appointment online as soon as we cleared immigration. (Thank god I also had some kids pain killers with me in my carry-on, because by the time we landed she was NOT feeling great.) The appointment was so fast, with a very helpful doctor who took one look at her throat and agreed it was strep, and they handed me a very clear map of how to walk to the nearest pharmacy. Within 30 minutes I had a first antibiotics dose in her. Honestly I don’t think I’ve ever gotten her treatment that quickly in the States.
And then, THREE DAYS LATER, my 6yo got a UTI. Back to Tokyo Station International Clinic we went, once again with a super easy online appointment, a very fast and helpful doctor (and mild chastising about teaching her better bidet skills, ahh Japan), and quick antibiotics. Obviously the hope is that this sort of thing doesn’t happen, but I am so deeply grateful that this stuff barely caused a blip in our plans.
**Day 1:** 10yo was still recovering, and we were all pretty zapped from the flight the day before, so we did a fairly relaxed day once she’d had three doses and was no longer contagious. Train to Kichijoji, stop at Petit Mura, wander around the neighborhood, eat some ramen, stroll through Inokashira Park. This was all gorgeous, and I loved that area of Tokyo so much. I’d love to go back and spend more time when we were less ragged. By later afternoon everyone was crashing, but I knew they had to stay awake for a few more hours to get onto the right time zone, so I deployed a method I would re-use multiple times this trip: PRE-DINNER FUN STORES. We headed back to Tokyo Station and strolled around character street, where they hit the Ghibli store and goggled at the crowds. Then fast konbini dinner and collapse.
**Day 2:** Many hours of sleep and enough more antibiotics later, 10yo was now bounced back and ready to go. We had morning tickets for TeamLab Planets, which the kids loved. We then had lunch in one of the big malls on Odaiba, and headed to the robotics and emerging sciences museum, Miraiken. This was one of my husband’s itinerary picks, and we really loved this stop: fewer tourists than a lot of the big typical sites, a great fun museum for kids, but also legitimately fascinating exhibits on human impacts on climate risk, aging, space, various interactive global maps. We were there for a few hours and could easily have stayed for another one at least. Then my late afternoon strategy again: Ginza for the Sanrio World store, the big Muji, and a swing through Itoya. Dinner at a Shabu Shabu place back by Tokyo Station.
**Day 3:** Senso-ji Temple, knife shopping in Kappabashi, and then early afternoon tickets for Tokyo Skytree. Was happy to get to Senso-ji early, because it was lovely and all the stalls were just opening up, but not that crowded yet. I bought goshuin books for me and the kids, which we ended up loving – the desire for more goshuin stamps helped propel the kids to more places as the trip went along, and we all loved how beautiful and distinctive they are. Tokyo Skytree was a lot of long lines, but my family just loves to go up a tall building and look down, and we enjoyed it. We then swung back to the hotel to drop off shopping and took a train to Ikebukuro for the Pikachu Sweets cafe and the big Pokemon Center (later afternoon kid shopping!). Could’ve gone to a more convenient Pokemon Center in downtown, but I knew it’d be fun to walk around Ikebukuro later in the evening, which had a lot of great anime mood and endless gashapon, which my kids were at this point deeply obsessed with. Kura Sushi for dinner and then back to the hotel.
**Day 4:** This was our second swing through the clinic in the morning, alas. Then Meiji-Jingu, wandering around Shibuya and Shinjuku, and then a very lovely long fancy dinner at our hotel that night.
**Day 5:** Tokyo to Hakone. One tip that I’d recommend if it’s convenient – you can catch the limited express romancecar a few times a day from Otemachi rather than having to battle through the enormous Shinjuku station. It was NOT easy to figure out what platform to catch it from, and I had to ask at our hotel before leaving, but once I knew that the Odakyu Railway connects through the Chiyoda line, this was so much easier for us. We shipped our luggage ahead to Kyoto as we were only in Hakone for one night. Arrived in Hakone, dropped things off at our hotel in Gora, and then just did a few legs of the loop (up to Owakudani, black eggs which improbably the kids ate?? and back) before checking into the ryokan for onsen. Kids LOVED the onsen. Loved it. Did three onsen in one day and then again in the morning before check out.
**Day 6:** Hakone to Odawara for the shinkansen, and then Odawara to Kyoto. It was pouring rain this day, which was totally fine because we really lucked out with the weather for the rest of the trip. Wandered around Nishiki Market a bit, and then dinner at a place in Pontocho near our hotel. The cherry blossoms were just coming into full bloom and although the kids were unimpressed with the rain, we were just giddy with how gorgeous it was.
**Day 7:** Nara day trip because the kids were INSISTENT on feeding deer, but also we convinced them to do quite a few of the shrines and temples in this area because they wanted to full up their goshuin! The deer were indeed pretty aggressive in the morning, but they chilled out later in the afternoon once they’d gorged on deer crackers from the hordes of tourists. Wandered around Nara the city a bit more, then headed back to Kyoto. Walked to Yasaka shrine and back, and then one of my very favorite meals of the trip at this tiny little obanzai hole in the wall in the Pontocho area. That fried mackerel… my god.
**Day 8:** Arashiyama Monkey Park, which I was worried would be more for the kids than for me, but we all loved the view from the top of the mountain, and it was fun to feed and watch all the monkeys while knowing they’re only semi-tame. Kids loved this, and it helped that it was a gorgeous day with sakura just going nuts at every turn. We then walked through some more temples in the area, especially Tenryu-ji, which has just stunning gardens. Could happily have just stayed there and stared at the gardens for quite a while, despite being quite crowded. Then had another big dinner in the Higashiyama area, and wandered around there for a bit in the evening. Kids stumbled across a Ghibli store, to their utter delight.
**Day 9:** While the kids chilled out at the hotel room until checkout, I wandered around a few more temples in Kyoto and just fully tried to absorb how lovely it was to be there at the height of sakura. Then an afternoon shinkansen to Tokyo, check into hotel, more kaiten sushi for dinner.
**Day 10:** Hopped by the Ueno Zoo to see the pandas before heading to Haneda for our flight home.
KID SPECIFIC TIPS:
\- I got them both coin purses, which they carried around in purses they bought at Tokyo Character Street on the first day. As I spent cash at temples and various stalls, I distributed many of the coins into both of their purses. This was their gashapon budget, which meant they knew exactly how much they had, were replenished occasionally, but were also entirely in charge of their own gashapon / other small purchase decisions. They looooooved this, because they got to make their own decisions about how to spend and when to save it for a better option later. There are also gashapon handily stationed at all kinds of kid waiting places: around malls and restaurants, train stations, stops along the Hakone loop. They could look and decide, entirely on them.
\- After a few days of swiping in and out, 10yo wanted to be in charge of her own Suica. (We used our apple wallets, but I got Suica cards for both of the kids, which was great because I could add the numbers to our Smart-Ex shinkansen reservations.) 10yo loved being entirely responsible for it, loved not having to wait for us to hand it out each time, in general loved the independence that public transit and a reasonable budget of yen allowed her to have.
\- My kids are notebook-y kids, so before we left I got them both blank spiral bound notebooks and brought along some scotch tape. As they collected things (ticket stubs, receipts, cool wrappers, stickers, maps, eki stamps, luggage tags), they took some time each night to tape things into their notebooks. This was probably my most smug parenting move, tbh – we collected so many pretty tickets and little bits and pieces as we wandered around, and it was so nice to have a way to save things and let the kids create a record of the trip for themselves without losing it all.
I could keep going forever (more about food! more about kids and onsen! more about transit!), but truly it was one of the best trips we’ve ever taken and the research helped so much. Hope this can help pay it forward!
by currer_bell