Hello!
This is my and my wife’s (both 31F) first trip to Japan, and we’re flying in from the east coast of the US. We think we’ve got the itinerary pretty well down (at least for now) but we’re open to potentially rearranging things as stuff comes up. If anyone has thoughts/suggestions to amend it, please let me know!
Context going in: We’re both into history, anime and currently all in on Touken Ranbu (which is a phone game/anime/movie/musical franchise specifically about famous Japanese swords). Our itinerary as a result has a bunch of…highly specific things on it. The things I bolded here are Sword Things that are not negotiable on whether or not they happen (maybe only the days can be shifted a little).
May 16th:
Land at Haneda at 3:25
Do all the necessary housekeeping (customs, pick up wifi, etc)
Go to hotel: Sakura Hotel Ikebukuro
Expecting to eat conbini food for dinner, maybe get some bromides from Lawsons (Sword Things) or wander around Ikebukuro
Probably crash early
May 17th:
I’m not sure how functional we’ll be. My wife has family in France, and whenever we travel there jet lag messes me up pretty badly for a couple days, so we tried to keep today light.
Hopefully we’re up stupidly early enough to make it over to Senso-ji before Sanja Matsuri really gets going and it becomes a crush. Then heading up to **Imado Shrine.**
After that, we’re planning on wandering around Sunshine City and stopping by the Pokemon Sweets Cafe (I’m all in on Pokemon but not willing to fight for the Pokemon Cafe).
Probably crashing pretty early again.
May 18th:
Head out to the **Hijikata Toshizo Museum** to be there when it opens at 10am.
Then head back to Shinjuku and hit up Okadaya (fabric shop), the Kinokuniya for some recent art books I’m looking for, and Seikaido Shinjuku for art supplies for my wife.
Any extra time is probably going to spent in Ikebukuro shopping today. And honestly every day. Just assume that’s happening.
May 19th:
**Tokyo Sword Museum**
Then **Suishinshi Masahide’s Grave**
We’re in the process of trying to get reservations for the **Touken Ranbu 2.5D cafe** in Akihabara, so fingers crossed on that.
Spend the rest of the afternoon wandering Akihabara, especially Mandarake Complex. I do expect to leave Japan with my bodyweight in doujins. I am not a light woman.
May 20th:
Hit up Shibuya Parco right at open for the Pokemon Center, Nintendo Store, and **Touken Ranbu Shop**.
I have a tattoo appointment at noon at Studio Muscat, so my wife is going to wander off to Harajuku while that happens. I expect we’ll likely end up there afterwards, or spend the rest of the day in Shibuya. I want to stop by the Punyus in particular.
We’ll probably stop by Meiji Jingu on the way back to the hotel.
May 21st:
Possibly Tsukiji Outer Market in the morning? We’re still feeling that out and we don’t really have strong feelings about it either way.
**Tokyo National Museum**. We are museum people. We will be there all day. (I have a Masters in public history and my wife is getting her PhD)
If we are not collapsing afterwards/have time, maybe stop by Nezu Shrine?
May 22nd:
We have tickets to the Imperial Palace in the morning and tickets to TeamLabs Borderless at 3pm. In between, maybe wandering by Tokyo Tower? Definitely exploring the gardens around the Palace.
May 23rd:
Moving to Kyoto! We will be storing most of our luggage (all of our Purchases) at our Tokyo hotel (they have lockers you can rent) and taking our clothes, etc with. We’ll ship a small rollerboard and just take a backpack.
Get on a Shinkansen probably relatively early-ish (8:30). Get ekiben for the train.
Arrive at Kyoto Station. Either store our backpack there in a locker or carry it down to our hotel: Kyoto Anteroom (about a 15 minute walk south of the station).
Head up to **Honnouji Temple**
Also go over to Mimuru to look at kimono and yukata.
What else happens that day depends on how long that takes. If it’s early enough, we’ll wander around Nishiki Market.
Head back to hotel, stop at the **Touken Ranbu Store Kyoto Branch** which is in a mall between Kyoto Station and our hotel, and possibly the Animate there.
May 24th:
Himeji and Osaka!
Catch an early morning shinkansen to Himeji, tour the castle, drink tea in the garden.
Hop on another shinkansen back to Osaka, head to **Abeno Harukas Art Museum**.
We will likely regard Osaka Castle from a distance, stop by the Glico man (my wife wants to see him so badly), and get dinner before heading back to Kyoto.
May 25th:
This is **Sword Day.**
Start at open at Kinkaku-ji.
Head over to **Kitano Tenmangu Shrine.**
After this, we begin a Touken Ranbu goushuin stamp rally across four shrines.
**Kenkun Shrine**
**Fujinomori Shrine**
**Toyokuni Shrine**
**Awata Shrine**
These do involve crossing the city, but needs must.
My wife will perish if we don’t stop by the Misuyabari Sewing Needles shop.
**Dinner reservations at 6:30 at the restaurant on the site of the Ikedaya Inn.**
May 26th:
Nara!
I will perish if I do not feed deer. I know it is a tourist thing. I do not care.
Todai-ji
Hopefully Naktanidou mochi
Stop by the **Sanjo Workshop** and acquire a knife.
Not sure how much time we’ll spend in Nara in total. If we’re finished early we will wander elsewhere.
May 27th:
Fushimi Inari at Very Early O’Clock
Nijo Castle
Anything else we haven’t done that we feel the need to do. Today is pretty light and flexible. My guess is we’ll just wander for the most part.
May 28th:
Check out of Kyoto hotel. Ship any luggage that needs to be shipped back to Tokyo.
Head to Hakone at Very Early O’Clock!
I still need to do some research on exactly what we’re doing there–I’ve seen the loop but I’ve also seen incredibly mixed reviews on how feasible it is to do it in a day. So ???
Check in to our ryokan: Ichinoyu Honkan. We’re both significantly tattooed, so our options were relatively limited.
Dinner at ryokan. Spend the rest of night soaking in the bath in our room.
May 29th:
Check out of ryokan.
Back to Tokyo!
Stop by the **Masamune Workshop** which is between Hakone and Tokyo. Acquire Knife.
Return to Tokyo. We’re leaving the rest of this afternoon/evening free for last minute acquisitions, shopping, packing, etc. We’re staying at the same hotel we were at originally, so we won’t have to go anywhere to re-collect all the stuff we stored.
May 30th:
Flight leaves mid afternoon. Expect to spend the morning eating conbini food and weeping premature tears of loss.
We don’t have particularly strong feelings about food, so we’re mostly expecting to just. Vibe. Hence the lack of reservations. We have various categories of food that we want to taste, but not specific restaurants.
If anyone has anything thoughts, please let me know!
by Disdainfreely