Jan 7-15 Trip Report / Review: Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, Nara

Just returned from an 8 day trip to Japan and wanted to write an in-depth review of the places we went and things we did, as well as other details and tips that may help future travelers of this sub.

Overall, we had an incredible time. I’d go back in a heartbeat to keep exploring. There are some things we definitely could have done differently or made ourselves more aware of, but we were also able to make some really good choices on the fly as well. Given it was our first time and the amount of effort we put into the itinerary in advance, I thought it went amazing.

This post is fairly long and includes both a day-by-day itinerary as well as more details (costs, etc.) at the end. Please ask any questions you have!

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**FRIDAY 1/6: HOUSTON TO TOKYO (direct)**

Departed at 10am Friday, arrived 3:30pm Saturday Japan time.

**SATURDAY, 1/7: TOKYO**

* Arrived NRT 3:30pm.
* Before leaving Narita, stopped by the Terminal 1 JR East office and 1) picked up JR passes, and 2) bought tickets for Narita express to Tokyo station, then transferred to Higashi-Ginza. It was not very busy, waited maybe 5 minutes.
* Hotel: Aloft Tokyo Ginza. <5 minute walk from Higashi-Ginza station, with a 7-11 < 2 minute walk away. Breakfast extra but very good. We were able to book this with points due to a ton of prior work travel, but I’d still recommend it even if we’d had to pay out of pocket.
* Checked into hotel and explored nearby. Went back to Tokyo station for Ramen Street dinner at Tsujita Miso no Sho. \~1000JPY per person, it was incredible. Went back to the hotel for early bedtime after. We tried our best to get ahead of the jet lag but it hit hard during dinner.

**SUNDAY, 1/8: TOKYO**

* Early morning exploring Imperial Palace grounds and Hibiya park. Took HG -> Ginza -> Otemachi route.
* Otemachi -> Tsukiji to visit the outside market. Was not fully prepared for how long the most popular lines would be, but fun to try things nonetheless. Also quickly stopped at Tsukiji Hongwanji temple before heading back toward Tokyo.
* Lunch: Katsukichi (tonkotsu) Shin-Marunouchi Building, in the office building/mall connected to Tokyo station (lunch for 2 people \~$50 USD). Very tasty.
* Afternoon – train to Harajuku
* We started at Meiji Shrine. This complex is HUGE and the grounds include a long walk to the shrine. The largest grounds of any temple we visited in Tokyo. If you’re Goshuin “collecting”, the stamp location isn’t super well marked but it’s after you walk through the entire temple area and start heading back toward the Harajuku train station
* Originally were going to explore Yoyogi park after, but dropped it and walked through Takeshita St. instead. It was quite crowded but cool to see.
* Evening – train to Shibuya station. Basically just people watched here and took some timelapse shots.
* Dinner: Originally, we were supposed to go to sushi no midori in Ginza for dinner, but didnt realize you need to show up way in advance and take a ticket. At 730pm, they stopped giving out tickets for tables for the night and there were probably 50 people still waiting We walked to Ramen Takahashi in Ginza instead.
* Allergen note – My wife has a “hinge”-only shellfish allergy (think clams, scallops, oysters, mussels). Ramen Takahashi uses two different seafood stocks in their ramen, one with fish only, and one with fish **and** scallops. We brought an allergen card with us, but the machine where you order does not tell you which ramen contains which broth (only that they both use their “seafood” broth). Thankfully the chef was very nice and looked up the recipes to see which was safe to eat and allowed us to change the order.

**MONDAY, 1/9: TOKYO**

* We’d originally planned to do an early morning visit to Toyosu, but after reading some horror stories online about not getting a table for hours (if at all) at the two popular sushi places at the market, we bailed and slept in. No regrets.
* Somewhat later start as we were still trying to adjust to the time difference. Went to Asakusa \~830 to visit Senso-Ji temple. Much of Nakamise shopping street doesn’t open their stalls until 930-10am, so we were able to walk through the temple grounds and then do some shopping and snacking on the way out.
* While Nakamise was busy, it wasn’t as busy as I was expecting, particularly for a holiday. Idk how prevalent participating in coming of age day still is but I was expecting an unmoving mob of people and it was quite manageable instead.
* Mid-morning – train to Tokyo Solamachi/Tokyo Skytree. I booked our tickets on Klook primarily so I could book them more than a week in advance (on the TST website I think you can only do it a week out). Had a 1pm entry, so explored some shops and ate beforehand. There’s a food court on the 3rd floor, it was the only meh meal on the entire trip but really just needed calories so we didn’t care too much.
* We did both the 350 and 450 meter decks at Skytree. If you are interested in paying for a picture, I recommend waiting until the 450m deck to do so, as the picture is better imo. It’s actually quite difficult to get good camera photos from the tower during the afternoon because of the glare.
* Right before you enter, I also recommend buying a water bottle. Both decks are basically sunrooms and get VERY warm with essentially no airflow. We were dressed for the outdoor weather (\~50F) and it was easily upper 70s-80s F in the decks.
* At Tokyo Solamachi, we stopped in Tree village (which is right outside the exit of Skytree), Donguri Kyowakoku (the Studio Ghibli shop), LOFT (stationary and other paper goods), the Pokemon Center, and the Kirby cafe store.
* LOFT had some super cool stuff. The Kirby cafe itself is cute, but skip the store – tree village had 10x more kirby items.
* In the evening, took the train to Akihabara. Tried to visit Fukurou Owl Cafe, once more didn’t realize you needed to reserve in advance. Reserved to come back the final night of the trip (14th) since our flights are out of Tokyo anyway.
* Gachapon literally everywhere. While we visited Akiba Gachapon hall, I can’t recommend going there specifically because there were cool ones everywhere.
* Was curious about pachinko (I knew what it was but had never seen it before). Walked into a pachinko hall and basically walked right back out. So, so loud and hot.
* For shopping, we stopped at 2k540 Aki-Oka, Akiba Radio Kaikan, and Mandarake Complex among a couple other quick stops.
* 2k540 is like boutique shops, so if you’re into small artisan items (pottery, leather goods, etc.) you could come up here. It’s a bit of a walk from the main drag.
* I personally thought Radio Kaikan served the bulk of any weeb buying needs in the area – I’d planned to visit several other shops and just didn’t want or need to after going there.
* Dinner: Kanda Yabu Soba. A little walk from the main drag but close to mAAch ecute. Very, very good and inexpensive ($40 USD for 2 people).
* Drinks: Hatachino Brewing Lab. Small craft beer bar on the water looking back at Akiba proper. Drinks were pretty good, vibes immaculate.

**TUESDAY, 1/10: TOKYO TO HAKONE**

* Transit day to Hakone. We got an early morning start in Ueno park so we could do as much as able until we had to check out and head for the train. Specifically, we were able to visit:
* Kiyomizu Kannon-do
* Gojoten Jinja
* Ueno Daibatsu (opens after the others)
* Ueno Toshogu
* If you are going before the middle of february, the Ueno Toshogu peony garden is open. It’s impressive and surprisingly large, and the toshogu shrine has a peony goshuin available while the garden is open.
* Train back to hotel, checked out, one last stop at ramen street for lunch, then train out of town
* Took the Tokaido Shinkansen to Odawara, and then the bus out of the east exit to our Ryokan outside of Hakone. It was about \~1 hour 10 minutes by bus plus 10 minutes walking.
* We stayed at Hakone Yuyado Zen for one night, one of a couple “splurgy” bookings (1 night, \~$500). Vibes were immaculate. Dinner and breakfast were very good.
* More details about this ryokan:
* Each room has a private onsen attached, rather than a communal one
* They offer both western and Japanese style rooms, but the western style is really a mixture. Western style bed area but tatami mat eating area
* Both the dinner and breakfast, in addition to being delicious, we’re very elaborate multi course meals. That didn’t always come across in researching different places to stay.
* One small hiccup was walking uphill from the bus stop – you can request a pickup, but we didn’t have voice sims and so didn’t have a way to contact them.

**WEDNESDAY 1/11: HAKONE TO KYOTO**

* Ryokan breakfast, then checked out and took the bus back to Odawara.
* From Odawara, took Hikari shinkansen to Kyoto.
* Hotel stay: Sh by the Square Kyoto (3 nights, $300 USD total including breakfast)
* The first thing to become immediately apparent in Kyoto, we could not rely on easy-mode subway lines like in Tokyo. Buses instead. We were using Japan Travel app and it was \*spectacular\* in tokyo, but liked to mess up in kyoto when looking for bus routes.
* After checking in and dropping clothes off for laundry, \~20 minute walk over to Gion to visit Kiyomizudera temple. Very pretty. Be aware that the temple grounds currently close at 6pm, and the second thing to become apparent was that things in parts of Kyoto close **early**. By closing at 6pm, Kyomiz. was the exception rather than the rule, as many temples and shrines close at 5 or earlier. We’d intended to visit other places in Gion *after* Kyomiz. and didn’t get to them before closing. Poor planning on my part.
* Dinner: Gion Tanto (okonomiyaki). The front waiting area is pretty small, but food was super tasty and inexpensive (\~$22 for 2 people)

**THURSDAY 1/12: FULL DAY IN KYOTO**

* Early-ish morning at Fushimi Inari. We arrived at the temple grounds around 8:30am and there were not many people when we got there. The entire walk up to the top of the mountain and back down took \~2 hours, but that included a lot of stopping and starting for pictures, etc. Got progressively busier throughout the morning. If you aren’t plan to get there until 10am or later, I’d really encourage you to reconsider.
* Stopped for some snacks outside of the temple before heading to Nishiki Market and Shinkyogoku shopping area.
* Lunch: Ippudo ramen. Very good, but a little difficult to find. The address has it listed as “B1F” in the mall at Shijo station, but it’s **actually** accessible from the street instead.
* If you’re “collecting” goshuin, Nishiki Tenmangu is tucked inside the Shinkyogoku shopping street. There’s a second one there also, but the window was closed when we were there and I don’t remember the name.
* After lunch, took the bus to Kinkakuji from Shinkyogoku
* It took about an hour and it’s at this point that we decided to start ubering around kyoto instead of going by bus.
* Kinkakuji grounds are pretty small and quick to move through. We wanted to also visit Ryoanji and Ninna-ji since they are close by, but again ran into early closing issues. Ninna-ji is listed as closing at 4:30pm, so we stopped there first, then went backwards to Ryoanji, which normally closes at 5. However, in the winter months Ryoanji closes at 4:30pm so we missed it.
* Took an Uber back to the hotel to relax a little, then went to dinner at Teppanyaki Manryu. Again, we didn’t have voice lines set up, so we asked our hotel to make a reservation for us.
* Dinner: Teppanyaki Manryu. Highly recommend a reservation here. They open at 5:30pm, and our reservation was at 7pm. At 8pm, they were turning people away and no longer seating tables. It was very good and affordable, but they’re only open a few hours a night.
* After dinner, drinks at Bees Knees. Cute speakeasy-styled bar, definitely targeting western (particularly american) clients. Pretty small space so expect to wait a bit

**FRIDAY 1/13: DAY TRIP TO NARA**

* Took an early morning train (JR Nara line) from Kyoto to Nara (about 70 minutes)
* From the station, we walked to Kofukuji to start exploring. We attempted to go from there to Isuien gardens and Todai-ji, but the gardens were closed until the 14th 🙁
* The deer are everywhere, and were very fun. However, only try to feed them if you’re really sure you’re comfortable doing so. A few people wanted to do it, bought the biscuits, then realized that wasn’t in their comfort level, but too late; they’ve seen you have food and want it and will pester you until it’s gone.
* Todai-ji is very impressive!
* From Todai-ji, we walked to Todaiji Nembutsudo and had intended to continue on to Kasuga-Taisha, but at this point were pretty hungry and looking for a break.
* I recommend eating in the shopping area of Nara before walking out to Kofukuji, because there are not many food spots around the temple areas.
* Lunch: Soba-dokoro Kitahara. There was quite a wait (like an hour) – it’s one of the only restaurants in this area open for lunch. It was decent, not stellar.
* After lunch, we decided to head back toward town instead of continuing toward the mountain. The weather was pretty gloomy and was inching further towards rain, and we didn’t want to be caught in the rain. We did make an impromptu stop at Gangoji temple which was cool to see, then stopped at some shops before heading back to Kyoto to regroup.
* For dinner, we were feeling a break from local cuisine and ate at Giochi Pizza. Very cute restaurant and the owner is very nice – found out we were from the states and had visited italy several times and talked back and forth a bit. Also felt bad we had to wait for a table and served us a couple of beers while we waited. I was a little skeptical but the pizza was surprisingly good.
* For drinks, we stopped at Beer Komachi. The beers we had were ok, but selection was meh. Neither of us are IPA people, and out of 7 taps there were 5 IPAs, another pale ale, and a stout.

**SATURDAY 1/14: ARASHIYAMA AND BACK TO TOKYO**

* It poured rain in Kyoto. We were supposed to go to Arashiyama, but due to rain and wanting to shop a little more back in Tokyo, we skipped it and took the shinkansen back to Tokyo earlier than we originally planned.
* Hotel: Millennium Mitsui Garden hotel (1 night, $218). Location is incredible (even closer to Higashi-Ginza station than the Aloft), but otherwise was very meh.
* Dropped bags at the hotel and went back to Asakusa to shop at Nakamise.
* Lunch: Sometaro (okonomiyaki). Very tasty, affordable, and short wait since it’s away from the business of the shops near Nakamise.
* Midafternoon, we took the train to Akihabara again for our evening owl cafe visit as well as to grab something I didn’t buy the first time around.
* Fukurou (the owl cafe) was a super cool experience. I highly recommend going if you have time. I did wonder a little bit about whether the birds are thriving (they are birds of prey, after all) but the business is apparently well-regarded as taking care of them.
* I didn’t realize this at first but “cafe” is a misnomer – this is a 40-minute “meet the owls” experience, not a cafe in the usual sense of eating/drinking. The time was also a little bit of a surprise, as we’d thought it was an hour-long slot.
* Leaving Akiba, we went over to Shibuya and stopped for drinks at Goodbeer Faucets. Pretty extensive menu of draughts and cans from a number of places (Japanese craft but also US, Australia, UK). Great vibes. Only complaint was that it was relatively pricey imo, but it was also in Shibuya. Half-pints were in the $6-8 USD range, which felt high.
* For our last dinner, we made a reservation at Sushi Tokyo Ten Shibuya. 9:30pm was the only time available. Incredible dinner. Fish was super fresh and they were accommodating for the shellfish allergy as well.
* Comparatively affordable – omakase dinner for two was \~$130 USD not including drinks, but in the US that would’ve been a \~$300+ dinner.

**SUNDAY 1/15: TIME TO GO HOME**

* Because of our late night, we slept in in the morning, so there wasn’t time for a ton. Ate a quick breakfast before going to check out.
* We enjoy going to church while we’re traveling, it’s so cool to see how diverse other parishes are. Roppongi Catholic Church has an english mass on Sundays, it was very easy to get to.
* We basically headed straight for the airport after this. Grabbed our bags from the hotel, transferred at Tokyo, N’ex back to Narita, and then waited in the lounge until it was time to leave

Below are some more details about specific topics in case they are helpful.

**If you have a question about something not addressed, ask! I’ll respond as well as I can**

**PAYING FOR THINGS**

* Where able to pay by card, we used a travel VISA with no foreign charge fees.
* Otherwise, cash. 7 bank ATMs at 7-11s work with international debit cards and don’t charge fees (although your bank might still). I think we paid 3% fees (imposed by our bank) on cash withdrawals, which, meh.
* Outside of JR trains (more below under transit), we paid for local subway and bus lines using mobile Suica cards in apple wallet. We both have iPhones and it was super easy. You can also use Suica (or Pasmo or any IC) at many restaurants and seemingly all convenience stores and vending machines. Only challenge is to try and “estimate” the right amount to load – we have \~$15-20 USD on Suica cards and $20 cash that we can’t use or refund now lol.

**TRANSIT THOUGHTS AND COSTS**

* Tokyo subway transit was incredible. I am crying for good public transit back home.
* Japan Travel app is your friend, it’ll give you not only route information but also things like platform and what car to get on. Two things that were a little finicky:
* The app will give you the shortest possible routes, including the shortest transfers. These transfers work great if it’s just you, but you’ll miss them every time if you have bags. Luckily the trains are very frequent
* The app isn’t clear about this, but if you select a special pass/ticket (e.g. Japan Rail pass), the app will sometimes ONLY show you routes with that pass.
* Narita express to Tokyo, \~$23 per person (before JR activation).
* We purchased 7 day JR passes for **$255 USD** per person. Because we spent the first several days in Tokyo, we elected to wait until the 9th to activate them (we landed on the 7th) so they would cover us through the 15th. Below are the things our JR pass covered. Out of these, the math came out to the **Nara trip, Shibuya route, and the final Narita express being free**.
* Shinkansen from Tokyo to Odawara
* Shinkansen from Odawara to Kyoto
* JR Nara line Kyoto to Nara and back (free)
* Shinkansen from Kyoto to Tokyo
* Random route from Akihabara to Shibuya (see special pass bullet above, free)
* Narita express from Tokyo to Narita airport (free)
* In Tokyo, we spent an **additional 4066 JPY or \~$32 per person** for all non-JR transit combined
* In Hakone, **the bus to and from Odawara station was 2900 JPY or \~$22.50 per person**
* In Kyoto, we spent **930 JPY (\~$7.20) per person on buses, 420 JPY (\~$3.30) per person to/from Fushimi Inari, and $104 total on Ubers.** Average uber trip was \~$5 USD, highest was \~$23 from Ryoanji back to our hotel. Worth it.

**DATA PLAN**

* We used Ubigi eSim for data service, and coverage was mostly excellent. Bought the 10GB, 30 day plan for **$15** each. Not having a voice sim was a couple of times problematic but we worked around it.
* There was a little glitchiness with the data plan. Before arriving, I changed all the settings correctly (Ubigi plan for data, no voice line, turned off data switching, turned off SMS, etc.), yet four different days (across two phones) our phones registered a roaming data charge with our home carrier anyway. Since we have xfinity, thats a $10/line/day surprise. Tiny expense but annoying since the purpose of the eSim was to avoid that.

**HOTEL CHOICES**

* With the Hakone exception, we opted for western-style hotels the whole trip. That was just a preference for us. Next time I might like to stay at another more traditional property just for fun, but we had no regrets about it this time around
* In Tokyo, both hotels were incredibly convenient location-wise, but we should’ve gone back to the Aloft over the Mitsui.
* In Kyoto, proximity to stations was quite a bit less relevant as primary transport was bus and uber. SH hotel was good, breakfast decent and staff very nice
* The Ryokan outside of Hakone was pricey but a great experience. Dinner and breakfast amazing, vibes amazing.

**LANGUAGE BARRIER**

* Neither of us speak Japanese. I know a handful of key words and phrases, but the green owl could not prepare me for conversations on short notice. Was not really a challenge based on where we went.
* In Tokyo, we only had some trouble at two small restaurants. E.g. above with the seafood ramen.
* In Kyoto and Nara, fewer people spoke English, but pretty much everyone speaks hand gestures. Don’t be afraid to use google translate also – a couple of nice people offered to do that in real time and we got things quickly figured out.

**SHOPPING FOR SPECIFIC THINGS**

* If you’re just looking for shops to show you what you need to buy, you’ll do amazing. If you’re looking for something specific, it can help to try and do some research ahead of time. As an example, something we struggled to find was a nice teaset (cups, saucers, pot etc.). By just happening in on places, we couldn’t really find what we were looking for, and the couple of places we found didn’t ship internationally.

**FOOD COSTS**

* The biggest disclaimer I was given by friends outside of this subreddit before traveling was how expensive the food would be. In part because of choices we made, in part because of relative economic strength right now, that wasn’t our experience. There certainly WERE places where we could have spent a ton, but we didn’t feel in any way that we were scrimping or taking a “low-budget” vacation.

**OTHER NOTES**

* If you’re in this subreddit, 99% chance this won’t apply to you, but **please be respectful of public spaces**, particularly religious sites like temples and shrines. A number of occasions we were in areas intended for reverence and then you’d hear very loud talking from other travelers, or see people drop garbage, etc.
* It’s not always obvious what to do with rubbish, as recycling bins are very common but trash bins didn’t seem to be. Just worth keeping an intentional eye out.
* **Despite the many warnings of this sub and even including the things we rescheduled or skipped entirely**, this was still a very busy trip. If I could do it again, I’d extend the trip by 2 days. 1 day to add one of the theme parks (probably universal) and 1 day to spread things out more and make it easier to breathe