I recently finished a 2-week trip (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Awaji, Himeji, Kobe) with my wife, 70-something MIL and kids aged 6, 9, and 14. This is my 4th trip to Japan, wife's 2nd and 1st for the rest. I've had a strong interest in Japan for last 25+ years, so came to this on the planning side with hundreds of potential things to see and places to go.
Will start with tips (last one is the one you won't see elsewhere) and then itin/trip report after. (I'm going into more detail for places most people don't cover)
Tips:
⭐ Stamp Books for the kids are definitely worth it. Bought on Amazon ahead of time. Can buy in Japan but might miss a few stamps until you get them.
⭐ Can't emphasize enough how convenient virtual transit cards are on iPhones. Do it, even if you have some folks in the party needing physical cards. We were 3 iPhones and 3 physical Suicas and just reducing physical card management to 3 was really helpful.
⭐ Download Go Taxi, Japanese for Google Translate and learn how to master Google Maps for transit.
⭐ If you have dietary needs there are easy to print allergy cards, that and mastering using the camera in translate is key.
⭐ Do the more popular activities during the week and travel or do less popular things on the weekends.
⭐ Make advance reservations for mornings if possible only for what is necessary (for us it was Ghibli, TeamLabs, Hello Kitty Show Box) and have flexible plans for rest of day. For summer: indoor and outdoor activities in location clusters. Heat, jetlag, torrential rain and a cranky 6y.o. can ruin a meticulously-planned itinerary. Be OK with making day-of reservations on your smartphone for opportunities you find on the way.
⭐ Don't be afraid to take taxis when needed – within cities it can be fast and even economical with a large enough group, but trains are often the best method so definitely get comfortable using them.
⭐ If you can depart Tokyo on the shinkansen from Shinagawa instead of Tokyo station, do it. Much easier and less confusing to negotiate. I've done this now on my last two trips.
⭐ We picked up small fans you can wear around your neck that charge by USB-C at Donki – highly recommended and will definitely use them back home.
🌟 Looking for bonus experiences that aren't what all the influencers are touting? Check out Sora News for all sorts of cool products, foods, and events. Search (and ask at the hotel) for local festivals – matsuri – in each location, and search livepocket.jp for collabs and other events. Also don't spend your time watching everything about everything on SM. For example, once I knew I wanted to do TeamLabs I stopped my research so I could be surprised and be in the moment.
Day 1 – Wed
Landed at HND afternoon.
Used QR code, were pulled out of immigration line halfway to be processed.
Wife went to ATM, I went to JR East office and bought 3 welcome Suicas for non iPhoners. First stamp for the kids at the information desk. Then caught 2 taxis to the hotel in Shinagawa, totally worth not bothering with advance booking transfer.
Day 2 – Thu
Used Seann on Fiverr to get Ghibli Museum tix well in advance, thus had them in hand at hotel on arrival. Totally worth the extra expense. Kichijoji – explored Don Quixote to kill time, took our time walking through the pretty park to the Ghibli Museum. My afternoon plan backfired and apparently I hadn't completed the reservation for the Capyneko Cafe. 🤦🏾♂️
Day 3+4- Fri-Sat
Teamlabs Borderless – flat out amazing. Rain all day meant changing to taxis and indoor activities. Decided on Ikebukuro Sunshine City, – the biggest collection of gachapon, Pokémon center and the One Piece store. Takkyubin (Yamato) for luggage to next hotel. Friday night through Saturday Sabbath services / meals at Chabad.
Day 5 – Sun
Shinkansen to Osaka went smoothly, too cloudy to see Fuji.
It was rainy so we skipped the Aizen festival, did rotary sushi at Kura, and I took the boys to Takarazuka for the Tezuka museum. I also got a kick out of passing the Takarazuka theater on the way.
Found a collab cafe near the hotel for an anime my 14y.o. loves, where I snagged the last timed ticket on livepocket that morning. It was a weird experience but he appreciated it, had a delicious kiwi soda drink and got some exclusive merch.
Namba is such an interesting area. Super touristy but also with a sprawling (and confusing) network of malls, tunnels and shops mostly for the locals. Definitely a big contrast to mostly boring Shinagawa!
Day 6 – Mon
Very rainy so we ended up going to the aquarium (booked timed tickets that morning). Lunch was at the great food court where I introduced the boys to donburi sushi. I went to Tsuyaya to pick up a few copies of a special video game magazine that had come out that day (thanks Sora News), and then we went to a sumo show in Namba which was expensive and cheezy but the kids loved it.
That night I walked solo through Dotonburi to queue up for vegetarian okonomiyaki.
Day 7 – Tue
Rainy again. This was going to be our day trip to Nara but wife wanted to do a photoshoot for the ladies with very specific requirements and only found 1 venue. So we took 3 trains and a trolley to get to Arashiyama in Kyoto. One of those trains was more local than I thought and some quick googling put us on an express. Boys did the monkey park. Grabbed some dorayaki, rice cakes and dango 🍡 dessert and found a covered spot to sit and eat. Our party re-formed and we headed to Tenryuji for a fantastic vegan meal at the temple restaurant. It was just as good as I remembered from a previous trip, but not a total hit with the whole family. We hit the bamboo forest, grabbed more sweets and walked to another station for a 3-train trip back. Evening I took the boys to Dotonburi just to soak in the sites, and stopped at a Book Off on the way back to check out the retro video game systems and manga.
Day 8 – Wed
Wife checked us out and arranged Yamato delivery to Kobe, I picked up our minivan rental, picked up the family, and we headed for Awaji. The Toyota Alphard was outdated and we decided to rely on Google rather than the old GPS which worked out just fine. We proceeded straight to the Naruto theme park. (note: I found out about this theme park cluster and then planned the whole Awaji trip around it) It took us a while to find the parking lot. Once we got there, the kids loved it. It was really a unique "only in Japan" experience (throwing slight shade at Disney/USJ) and there was a lot of stamps to collect, which they were well prepared for from all the stamps collected so far. After that we had a snack break with their unique "collab" foods and drinks with collectable bottles and cards, then we went to Operation: Godzilla. The movie explaining the premise was fantastic, my oldest enjoyed the zip line (but he did a much better one in Montreal) and the shooting game was really dumb. The museum and effects area was great, but we were bummed that we missed the Godzilla Minus One exhibit by a few days. Unfortunately we didn't have time for Dragon Quest, which I was really looking forward to. But we had our only (non-Chabad) dinner reservation of the trip- off to sunset sushi at Aonoya. It was a really cool (but empty) restaurant and the staff worked really hard to meet our dietary needs. We all really enjoyed the food and the sunset over the ocean. Then a long night drive to the hotel, Yumekayu Awajishima in Sumoto. More on that tomorrow.
Day 9 – Thu
So the driving in Awaji is a bit harrowing, especially in a minivan. Lots of people do it, but some main roads are a bit narrow (mountain roads even more so) and the rain ditches on the sides can be worrisome. I picked the hotel, Yumekayu, after many, many hours of research for it being Japanese, next to the beach, with nice rooms and onsens. But, it's a good 45 minutes from the attractions in the north part of the island and while that seemed fine on paper it was exhausting to navigate. We decided to cut our stay short and extend our Kobe hotel one day earlier. We enjoyed a really cool Japanese breakfast at the hotel and tried out the pool and the beach before packing up and heading out to what my daughter was so excited about – the HKIC (Hello Kitty Industrial Complex). First we went to Hello Kitty Smile, a kitchy bunch of rooms with all sorts of Kitty stuff to take pictures with, some projections and videos and of course tons of merch. Our consumerism was thwarted when they couldn't get the credit card machine to work and we had to go to drive a few minutes up the road for our reservation at Hello Kitty Show Box for a vegan meal and a jazz show. Sound weird? It was. The food was generally good for the set meal and the jazz band was great. Kitty participates, "playing" a sax while the real player is off to the side. My daughter was disappointed in the show, she expected "more." I think she wanted to see more Sanrio characters but it was just Kitty. Interestingly, most of the audience were adults. Don't worry, there was more merch there, too. Then a quick stop next door to the Apple House, the world record for the biggest apple shaped building. Random. They had some projections on the inside and then you climb to the roof for photos. All in all my daughter had a good time, but I think unless you really are hardcore for Kitty-chan I would not shlep to Awaji just for that. I thought the ferris wheel would be a good stop on the way out of Awaji but it didn't look like it was moving and the kids weren't interested, so we just proceeded to Kobe, got gas, dropped the family off and returned the rental.
Day 9-10 – Fri – Sat
Day trip to Himeji on a hot day, we decided to spring for fast and expensive (1 stop on the shinkansen) vs slow and cheap, a difference of over 45 minutes each way. The (newly restored) Himeji castle was as fantastic as I remembered it, and the family enjoyed it despite the oppressive heat which was not conducive to the amount of outdoor time required. However, once inside the main keep we discovered that being the tallest building on a windy plain means lots of natural air conditioning through the windows. We repacked and sent our just- received luggage to Tokyo and headed for the Jewish community of Kansai. The synagogue is on one of the most famous streets in Kobe, Kitano-dori, famous for being a Western settlement started around 1912.
Saturday night we explored the area around Sannomia and had great sushi, and the kids first karaoke experience at Big Echo.
Day 11- Sun
As a makeup for my botched Capyneko visit, we went to Kobe Animal Kingdom which was fantastic. I was amused that the biggest line by far was to pet kittens, while our main purpose, the Capybara enclosure, was easy to access, no wait. The kids loved petting and feeding them in a much more humane environment than the cafes. Then shinkansen to Tokyo, where we finally caught a fleeting glimpse of Fuji. There were two festivals in Tokyo, but we only had strength for some of us to go to Tanabata in Asakusa which was hot and crazy crowded but good people watching. We didn't even make it to Sensoji and I left the group and proceeded to Shinjuku for the Metropolitan Tower projection, which is nightly, but on weekends includes a special projection… Godzilla! Unfortunately one projector wasn't working, which spoiled the effect. I went to the observatory for some great night sights, and on my way out, noticed that they had fixed the projector, so I stuck around for an encore which was totally worth it.
Day 12 – Mon
Hottest day of trip. TeamLabs Planets. Cab to Diver City. Unko Museum, Doraemon store, giant Gundam. Decks mall, found a cool Kawasaki showcase with virtual reality and a robot that draws portraits. Did Joypolis, then Vegan Ramen and shopping at character street at Tokyo Station, then Shibuya Crossing for Hachiko and Starbucks.
Day 13 – Tues
Harajuku for people watching and last minute souvenirs and then back to the hotel, then taxis to HND and back to the US.
by Stunning_War_376