Hello! Travelled with a friend. It was a last minute trip since we found the flights for an extremely nominal price, so we didn’t get much time to plan it out. It was our first time in Japan. We started with Tokyo:
Landed at Narita and took the Kisei Skyliner to Ueno Station. There, we got our Suica IC card at the JR station nearby. We then took a metro and checked into our accommodation in the Akasaka area, and surprisingly enough found the Hie Shrine nearby, didn’t expect to find such a beautiful shrine right in the middle of the city, the Tori gates at the stairs made it even better! We explored the city taking long walks late at night and visited the popular places during the day. The view from the Tokyo Skytree was breathtaking, there was some Pokemon event/exhibition kinda thing on the upper deck (450m) so it was mostly filled with kids and accompanying parents but overall it was a great experience. Also visited Tokyo Tower and Teamlab Borderless, the later was as beautiful as in the pictures, especially the hidden rooms. I would recommend everyone to go there atleast once if you visit Tokyo. The Shibuya crossing is as busy as they say, got to witness it with my own eyes. Explored Akihabara a little but then was informed that most of it closes by 9pm. Visited some more shrines like Akagi Shrine and Meiji Shrine, both plenty beautiful and peaceful. Our last stop was Senso Ji temple but we were short on time since our Shinkansen tickets were already booked so we couldn’t spend a lot of time there but the little time spent there made me realise that I will be visiting again next time! PS – It was very crowded.
Onto Kyoto, arrived via Shinkansen and checked into our accommodation in Gion area. One challenge we faced here was carrying our luggage to the hotel. The routes showed by Google maps had buses mostly and there were signs of “No Heavy Luggage” on the buses so we took a Taxi, even though it was a little heavy on the cost side, the person driving the Taxi was very polite and made sure we reached our destination comfortably. Our accommodation was near the Yasaka shrine so we checked it out first, there was a Kagura Dance (not sure if I am using the correct term here, please correct me if I am wrong) coming to a close so we got to witness the last few moments and it was beautiful. We went on to visit Kenkaku-ji and Ginkaku-ji, there were a lot of school kids in groups probably on field trips. Next we went to Kiyomizu-dera temple, and I was stunned by the views from the top. Japan is very photogenic in general but those views from the top were just something else. We also went to the Fushimi Inari shrine, and went all the way to the top, although it was around 7pm and no sun but the humidity made it a little hard, the 10 thousand Tori gates were totally worth it though. Wanted to visit the bamboo forest as well but we were out of time.
For food we went for local restaurants as much as possible and late night snacks had to be from the konbini (which are a true blessing). The interactions with the locals were very wholesome in general, everyone was very polite and respectful. In one of the restaurants we visited in Kyoto, the girl who served our ramen was very pretty, which I told her and her smile and reaction was adorable.
Overall it was an amazing experience, this unplanned last minute trip was better than most of the planned ones I have taken to other places.
Some points I think people should know (if they don’t already) –
Almost all places we visited in Tokyo and most of them in Kyoto accepted Credit Cards, very few were cash only. So its better to be on the safer side and carry some cash.
The humidity was as bad as everyone has been saying. Pocari sweat is your friend. I did hear the weather is going to get much better from next week so maybe you won’t need it but it’s available at almost every Konbini and Vending Machine.
One interesting thing I noticed at Mt Inari, the cost of the same drink in the vending machine increases by 20-30 yen the higher you go. Good sales strategy. Thankfully we bought from the one at the starting point.
Coin Lockers are underrated. You can store your luggage for nominal fee and explore the city carefree. This proves very handy if there is a gap between your hotel check-out/check-in and train/flight times.
Thanks for reading and please let me know what I could have done better or any other suggestions!
by optimisticwanderer13