Hello! First time visitor, going with a group of 3 (me, my boyfriend, and our mutual acquaintance). None of us have been to Japan before, and this is me and my boyfriend’s first time traveling internationally. We fly out 02/19, arrive in Tokyo in afternoon of 02/20, depart on 3/1. We have roughly ten days in Tokyo only. We are not looking to go to any other cities right now as we plan to travel to Japan again in the near future. I’m looking for guidance on a rough itinerary. Would love some advice on hidden gems we might be missing in the areas we explore each day.
Some of our interests include: video games (nintendo, sony), anime (naruto, jjk, bleach) pokemon, studio ghibli, historical culture, coffee, alcohol, theme parks.
Day 0 – Travel, travel, travel LAX – SEA – HND
Day 1 2/20- Land in HND at 3 PM. Take limo bus or taxi to apartment in Ota city. Explore local area, find bite to eat, buy some groceries and toiletries, settle in early to recover from travel.
Day 2 2/21- Teamlabs Planets, Ginza shopping district, explore area, Tokyo Skytree and Kirby Cafe. This day could change depending on what day I can get the Kirby Cafe reservation.
Day 3 2/22- DisneySea. Not sure if we’ll spend all day here. We are from California, so doing Disneyland as well would be pointless since we’ve all been recently. Can anyone weigh in on time spent here?
Day 4 2/23- Starbucks reserve store, Meguro river blossom promenade (I know it won’t be cherry blossom season yet, going for a personal reason), Shibuya crossing, Shibuya SKY, explore area, Nintendo store.
Day 5 2/24- Shinjuku city, yoyogi park and meiji jingu, harajuku, explore malls and shopping, Shinjuku national garden(?) (is this too much for one day?)
Day 6 2/25- Mt Fuji day trip – All day affair. Get back at 6 PM in Shinjuku area. Grab dinner in the area. If not exhausted after dinner, piss alley and explore shops.
Day 7 2/26 – Studio ghibli museum (if i can get tickets), Afterwards nakano broadway, ikebukuro, Sunshine city, Pokemon mega center. This day also has the potential to move depending on if and when I can get Ghibli tickets,
Day 8 2/27 – Asakusa, senso-ji, akihabara. Super potato, shops, arcades, might do another themed cafe. Plan to spend the rest of the day here since we’re all big anime nerds.
Day 9 – 2/28 – Tokyo national museum, ueno park. Definitely need more advice on what to do here. We were thinking about Ueno zoo, but we’re 3 adults and only really interested in animals native to Japan. This is our last full day, can anyone recommend some good final places to see?
Day 10- 3/1 – Check out 10 am. Will likely do a luggage storage at the airport and go back into Tokyo for some lunch and light shopping to end the trip. Depart at 5 pm.
I would love any and all recommendations/advice/feedback. I tried to organize this so we’d be hitting our must see attractions that are in the same area. We plan on using subways to explore different areas of the city and taxi’s when we need to get somewhere time sensitive. Thank you for any and all advice
5 comments
Ueno Park has about 10 museums, I haven’t been yet, but from what I understand taking your time with those you might not need other stuff to fill out that day.
I think overall you did a great job arranging places that are close to each other to reduce commute time.
– I spent the entire day at DisneySEA last time when I went, from park opening till 9pm. But YMMV.
– You can consider slotting in Tokyo Skytree visit together with Senso-ji Asakusa area. It should be a nice walk across the Sumida river bridge to reach Skytree especially in February with cooler weather.
– If you’re slotting Skytree with Sensoji, you can change your second day to a visit to Tsukiji outer market for street food/fresh seafood in the morning, then head to Team Labs, and then end your day shopping at Ginza.
– If you manage to get tickets to Studio Ghibli Museum, the day might be too cramped to visit the museum, then Nakano Broadway then Ikebukuro especially since you guys are into anime and might spend a long time at Nakano.
– Go Shinjuku Gyeon Garden earlier, it closes early by 4pm. Maybe you can start the day here early morning before heading over to Meiji Jingu (also closes by 4pm) and Harajuku. Then only go shopping malls which open till later.
– For Akihabara you can consider slotting together with your Ueno day. Shops open around 11am onwards at Akihabara so you can spend your early morning at Ueno first and visit the National Museum which opens at 9.30am. Note: The museum closes on Monday in case you swap your days around.
– Regarding luggage storage, most major train stations can store your luggage for a fee. I don’t recommend you heading to airport to drop off your luggage first as you’re wasting time. You can spend the day shopping at Tokyo Station, they have a lot of luggage lockers that can store your bags for a fee. They also have a Character street full of souvenirs of famous anime and Ramen Street there. A lot of souvenirs can be bought here as well.
I know a lot of people here love Disney Sea but from my perspective it just doesn’t make sense to waste precious time in Japan to experience something that’s available at home. Instead, if I really wanted to do a theme park, I would go to an onsen theme park like [Ooedo-Onsen Monogatari Urayusu-Mangekyo](https://urayasu.ooedoonsen.jp/news/4340). Or better: find a real old school sento in Tokyo. For me, sento/onsen is a must.
Finally, someone sensible who’s not hell-bent on ticking off as many boxes as possible in two weeks instead of enjoying the place.
– alcohol? Check out the craft beer scene in Shimokitazawa, book a sake brewery tour (there’s a bunch near Tokyo)
– do a two-fer by going to Kamakura; culture in the temple, anime in the train crossing (if you’ve seen Slam Dunk, the train crossing in the OP is nearby). There’s also a traditional Japanese bar on the way back from from the daibutsu named Bar Kelpie. I almost missed the sign walking back to Kamakura station; when I saw it I went fuck it, went in, and had a nice relaxing time with good drinks. Google Maps says they’re still around, so might be worth a gander?
– going for theme parks but no Fuji Q day? Might be worth doing a 2D1N trip in the Kawaguchiko area
Day 1 – Do not take the taxi, it is quite expensive, even for 3 person, limousine bus will be significantly cheaper, even consider taking the train to your hotel. Not sure on what grocery you want to buy, maybe stuff for breakfast, but for meals, you are there for such a short time, you might as well enjoy restaurant (and there is plenty of budget options. For toiletries, not sure what you do not want to bring and that a hotel would not offer, but there is not much that would make more sense to buy in Japan rather than to bring from home. And keep in mind that you will likely not find the brands you know and all products are in Japanese, so not as easy to figure out what everything is.
Day 5 – “Shinjuku city” is quite vague, especially as everything you name is technically in Shibuya ward (or Shibuya city), yes, including Shinjuku Gyoen that is half in Shibuya. If there is things you want to see around Shinjuku (the area around Shinjuku station), it would make more sense at the end of the day than to start, especially as the area focus more on shopping (stores open at 10-11am) or on nightlife, while Meiji-jingu or even Shinjuku-gyoen open earlier. Yoyogi park can also be a skip, it’s a park and not a garden so unless you go during cherry blossom or for people watching when it is warm, there is not that much to see, unless you want to run in the park.
Day 9 – What usually go well with Ueno is Skytree and Asakusa, that you could remove from day 2…. wait you did not even include Asakusa, so that would be a good option. Otherwise something like Yanaka ginza would even be at walking distance, or check Yushima-tenjin shrine, you might still be in time for Plum blossom (or is you see plum in Shinjuku Gyoen, maybe go to Yushima-tenjin in the next day to see more plum blossom, if they are not blooming yet, then you can wait a bit before going.
Day 10 – do not waste your time bringing luggage to the airport, you can put it in a coin locker at the train station somewhere along the way, visit something in that area, then continue to the airport.
I do not see anything you cannot do by train and subway and unless you have a reservation somewhere like Ghibli museum, you do not have anything that is really time sensitive, just plan a bit more time than what Google suggest and take your time to check things around if you are in advance for something.