Trip report: 7 days in Tokyo 3 days in Kyoto with a 9 year old.

I (44m) took my 9 year old daughter to Japan for ten days. We spent six nights in Tokyo, 3 in Kyoto and one more night in Tokyo. This was her first time outside the USA and my first trip overseas (only ever been to Canada).

Just thought I give my account for anyone who might find it helpful.

I had just 2 objectives for this trip.

1. Have my daughter experience some culture and see what the world looks like outside of the US.

2. Have fun.

My daughter loves anime, pokemon and nintendo. I’m a love history, architecture and a big baseball fan. So Japan seemed like a good choice for a place to visit.

I didn’t do a ton of planning. I just made a list of activities in each city we both wanted to do and just let each day’s be somewhat spontaneous. The only things I preplanned for was hotel reservations, the CupNoodles museum and a Giants game. Everything else we just decided to do day of. I don’t know if this was the best approach, but it worked out ok for us.

Day 1. Arrived in Tokyo. Got in around 1pm. We were a little jet lagged so didn’t do much. After checking in to our hotel around 3:30 we walked around Asakusa (where our hotel was) for a little bit then got dinner at a 7-11 (fried chicken, curry bread a croquettes) which was all surprising good and chilled out for the rest of the night.

Day 2. Explored Shibuya, Ginza and. Akihabara. Shibuya was fun. We discovery a capsule store and bought a bunch of capsule toys. We did the scramble, visited Hachiko, and spent time checking out the various stores.

We went to Ginza but didn’t stay long. I didn’t realize it was mostly high end stores and there wasn’t much that appealed either of us so we made our way to Akihabara. My daughter loved it. Tons of arcades, claw machines and capsule toys. We spent a lot of time just playing videos games.

Day 3. Went to the Senso-Ji shrine. I liked it a lot more than my daughter but I kind of forced her to go along with it. We burned some incense and lit candles at the shrine. Luckily she humored me and I think enjoyed at least some of it. We took our time and took lots of pictures. We got lunch there and then did some shopping. Our hotel wasn’t too far away so went back there to chill for a before coming back to check out some more of the shopping areas. Overall it was a pretty full day of sightseeing, eating and shopping.

Day 4. Went to the CupNoodles museum. We did the workshop where you make ramen from scratch. This required a reservation. My daughter absolutely loved it. She likes to eat ramen and to cook so doing this was really fun for her. We did the rest of the museum which she also really enjoyed. Personally I didn’t love it and would never do it on my own. I thought it was more for kids than adults. In total we spend about 4 1/2 hours there. After we rode the ferris wheel at cosmo world which was ok but nothing too amazing. Then we went back to the hotel for a bit to chill and then went out for conveyor belt sushi for dinner.

Day 5. Giants game at the Tokyo Dome. My daughter is not much for baseball, but she didn’t mind it too much. She did get bored though as the game went on. I had a great time. I was surprised how different Japanese baseball is from America. The game itself is the same, but the fan experience is quite different. It felt more like a soccer game with singing, chanting and drumming continuing through the entire game. No national anthem, 7th inning stretch or yelling at the umps. I think I prefer American baseball because that’s what I’m used to, but still had a great time. After the game we checked out Toyko dome city and rode some rides but didnt do the huge roller coaster. After that she was too tired to do anything else so we just got some street food (meat on a stick- I forget what it’s called) and crashed at the hotel.

Day 6. Just wandered around Tokyo. We kind of fell in live with the metro and my daughter loved taking it. She also wanted to try navigating herself. So we pick a few places to go. I gave her basic instructions on how to there and she led the way. She got turned around a few times but eventually found her way. She had a lot of fun just figuring where to go. We went to the tsukiji fish market for lunch, Shibuya (again) and Shinjuku because I wanted to see Godzilla. We discovered the Eki stamps earlier so bought a book and went on a hunt to find as many stamps as we could. It was a fun full day of train riding and walking.

Day 7. Shinkansen to Kyoto. The bullet train was awesome. I so wish we had something like that in America. We got the reserve seats and we got to see Mt Fuji. Got to Kyoto in the afternoon. Our hotel was right by the Nishiki market so we spent the rest of the day checking out the shops and got dinner there.

Day 8. Arashiyama – bamboo forest and monkey park. We took the bus out there so we could see the city along the way. Took about an hour from our hotel. The bamboo forest way really cool though not all that big. Calling it a forest might be a bit of an exaggeration but was still pretty cool. There were quite a few people but not as crowded as I heard others describe. Lots of people with selfie sticks and tripods trying to get the perfect picture which was kind of annoying but otherwise we enjoyed it.

After that we walked to the monkey park. Not a huge place but I enjoyed the hike to the top and the view of the city from there was great. The monkeys were funny and we got to feed them.

After monkeys we rented a row boat and paddled around the river. It was relaxing and nice to get away from some of the crowds and get to take in the pretty scenery. It was a pretty full day for us at that point so we just took the bus back to the hotel and I hate to admit got McDonalds for dinner.

Day 9. Shrines and arcades. We had one more full day in Kyoto and I wanted to see both the Yasaka shrine area and the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine. I knew doing both would be a tough ask for my daughter. So I got up super early in the morning and went to Yasaka by myself while my daughter slept. It worked out great. There was hardly anyone there and I was able to get some great photos and see everything I wanted to and was back with the whole day still ahead of us.

After I got back we headed out to Fushimi Inari. Had a great time there and she actually love walking through all the gates and just looking at all the stuff. There were a lot of people and many selfie sticks again but it was too bad. There were times when the crowds thinned out and it was a nice peaceful walk.

Next we headed back to town and went to Round 1 for bowling and video games. The arcade there was awesome. We don’t have anything quite like that or nearly as big where we live so we had a ton of fun playing games.

We were pretty worn out by that point. So just went back to the hotel after getting some food from 7-11.

Day 10. Back to Tokyo. We took it easy in Kyoto for our last morning there. Had breakfast at the hotel, checked out the nintendo store which was much better than the one in Shibuya which was insanely crowded and then made our way to the train station.

Got back to Tokyo in early afternoon and just took it easy. Went back to Akihabara for our last night. Played lots of video games, did a little shopping and had a nice Sushi dinner.

Day 11. Had an easy morning, checked out of the hotel had lunch and strolled though ShibaKoen park before heading to airport

Overall, we had an awesome time. I’m so glad we picked Japan for our first overseas trip. It’s a lovely country with beautiful scenery and wonderful people.

Main takeaways

– The language barrier wasn’t much of an issue. A lot of people spoke English and when they didn’t I just used Google translate and that worked fine. Everyone I encountered was helpful and patient with me.

– Getting around was so easy. We took trains or buses everywhere. Rarely did we wait more than 5-10 for a bus or train. I don’t know why anyone would take a taxi or uber in Tokyo.

– Safety. I’ve never felt safer in a big city than in Tokyo. It really surprised me. Also very clean and public bathrooms were everywhere. It’s not like that where I live.

– Many trips reports I read leading up to our trip sucked. I guess everyone has a different idea of what they want their trip to be or what their preferences are but so much advice people give is just plain bad. People also like to complain about the dumbest things. So take these trip reports (including this one) with a grain of salt.

– Most things in Japan were pretty cheap compared to where I live. I thought I was going to spend a lot more money than I actually did.

– There were a lot of things I wish I could have done on this trip but couldn’t with a 9 year old. I would have loved to get more adventurous with restaurants and go out to some bars. I would have loved to see more shrines and temples, but had to remind myself a few times that this trip wasn’t all about me. It was about having an experience with my daughter and she had an absolute blast.

by devinprayyy