I have a revised itinerary based on some wonderful suggestions that I got here. We are finally going to be able to go to japan at the very end of April and early May! I saw some hotels were booking up already so I booked some refundable hotels so we don’t have to worry about finding a place to stay.
I’d love some feedback again on what we’re doing as I still have some things to plan out.
Mostly this: I figured out that we can add another day to our trip if we want to (this is optional) but I’m unsure where to add it or if this is the perfect number of days. We could add another day in Tokyo but I am not sure what to do with our time. I think we will have enough time in Kyoto and Osaka (I’m still figuring out what to do in Osaka) but I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts.
What we like:
We are foodies. We’ve had a lot of fun going on food tours or taking cooking classes when we travel abroad. We’re hoping to do a few of these in Japan. We love trying food we may not get to try elsewhere.
We also love anime.
Special considerations – I have fibromyalgia so I sometimes need to rest but I want enough planned that if I’m having a good day and I don’t need to rest too much, we have some extra stuff in mind that we can go do, but we also won’t be sad if I am tired and we miss it. I’m also trying to plan for alternating “easy” days with less walking to come after days that might have a lot of walking.
Relating to the fibromyalgia, I have problems with my feet and I generally can’t walk barefoot without a lot of pain, so I want to make sure I know in advance if I will need to take off my shoes (like at temples and such) so I can plan or decide if it’s worth it for me.
Day 1
\- we arrive in Tokyo towards the evening – I am estimating we will get there around 7 pm
Hotel is in Shinjuku.
I am not sure how tired we will be so I won’t plan anything else, but we can explore Shinjuku if we want in the evening.
Day 2
Wake up early and go to Tsukiji and Toyoso for a tour that includes food (about 4 hours). I’m hoping it’s easy to wake up because of jet lag so I want to take advantage – I saw most tours start around 8:30 am.
Afterwards explore Asakusa
Check out Senso-ji
We might go to Solomachi mall or Skytree if we are done quickly in Asakusa.
I am unsure if we should schedule a food tour around Shinjuku or just plan to be in Asakusa for dinner.
Day 3
Shibuya and Harajuku
If we don’t do a food tour in shinjuku for dinner on day 2 then I would do one tonight.
Day 4
Studio ghibli museum and nakano broadway
Could also do a food tour this evening as well if we wanted something different
I am not fully sure if we will even be able to get tickets to the ghibli museum so if we can’t, we can go to nakano broadway and then something else but I am not sure what.
Day 5
Disney Sea if we are not too tired.
When I went to disney orlando I rented an electric scooter in the park so I didn’t have to do too much walking. I’m assuming Disney Sea will also have rentals.
Day 6
Travel to Kyoto and go to our Ryokan near Arashiyama. I originally wanted to stay overnight in Hakone but I wanted one with a private bath attached to the room and many were booked up already. But I did find one in Eastern Kyoto so I figured that would make it easy to see the bamboo forest early.
So when we get there we can spend the second half of the day in western Kyoto.
Monkey park
Day 7
That morning we can check out the bamboo forest before the crowds.
Then change hotels to one in western Kyoto near Gion
This might be a good day to go to Nara after we get the hotel sorted since that’s a half day trip.
In Nara we will definitely see Todai-Ji
Head back to Gion for a food tour for dinner if we can get back in time.
If this is a bad day for Nara we can explore around Gion and Nishiki and go to Nara another day.
Day 8
Eastern Kyoto
Fushimi Inari Shrine – I do not think I will be hiking up the whole way, we can go as far as I’m comfortable, even if it’s to the entrance just to see it.
Possibly go to Uji and check out some tea houses.
Tour at Nishiki market at night
I’d like to maybe do a temple walking tour and a tea ceremony if we can.
Day 9
I have this as a bit of a free day. We can go to Nara if there was not enough time on Day 7
I think there’s a festival in Kyoto (Fujinomori) starting that day that we can check out, but I am unsure how long we will spend there.
We could also go to Toei Park as a backup option.
Day 10
We are going to change hotels and go to Osaka in Namba.
In the morning we can see anything else in Kyoto that we missed.
In the evening explore Dotonbori (maybe get a food tour here too)
Day 11
Not sure what to do but our choices are – Universal studios, aquarium, or a cooking class.
Of the above things Universal is last on my list. We will definitely do a cooking class if not today then on day 12.
We will also check out den den
Also open to suggestions.
Day 12
Another day in Osaka
We can do one of the above or something else
Day 13
I looked into open jaw flights, but it looks like our only options to fly out would be to go back to Tokyo, (or take a flight to Tokyo from Osaka first) so it looks like it will take us less time to catch a train back up to the airport that morning for an evening flight.
I’m interested in shipping our bags from our hotel and pick them up at the airport but I’m unsure how far in advance we need to do that or how that works.
I could also add another night here in Tokyo and then fly out the next day but it feels like a wasted day if we are losing time to the train and checking into a hotel again. I think if we do add another day/night it would be at the beginning of the trip.
2 comments
Re fibromyalgia, when you do need to remove shoes you can leave socks on (maybe even expected to leave socks on), if that helps. I found that we only needed to remove shoes when staying at a ryokan, some restaurants where they had tatami mats, exploring an indoor component of a temple or shrine, or visiting a some historical building.
Your trip looks good.
For shipping your bags to the airport you can use Yamato transport, it’s super easy, english help line too and your hotel can likely organise it as well. Usually it’s 2 days in advance I think but I’ve only done that from around Tokyo so not sure if it’ll be longer since you’re further afield.
If you want to do a bit of shopping Tokyo is a good destination for that and that would be a good reason to add a final day in Tokyo to trip as it’s easiest to shop at the end so you’re not carrying stuff around Japan.
I also think you can always find more to do and add more time, I don’t know anyone who has been to Japan and said that trip was too long.