14 Day Itinerary (08.03-22.03): Osaka – Kyoto – Tokyo

Hi, everyone! Two friends and I have a March trip planned for Japan, and I wanted to see if I could get some feedback on our plans.

Some background information: Generally speaking, my friends and I are into anime, video games, food, shopping, and good views. We are open to drinking on our trip and in fact would like to enjoy some alcohol sometime during our trip. I am bringing a camera and would like to put together a travel film for us, but I don’t want to focus so hard on that aspect that I forget to enjoy the trip. We have been to Japan once before, so we didn’t mind skipping out on some of the bigger tourist attractions that we’ve visited before. We are pretty easy-going and don’t mind exploring and finding new places that weren’t on our itinerary. Our strategy for this trip was picking places we were interested in seeing, placing it on a Google Map document, then grouping those places by location and going from there.

**Day 1: Arrival in Osaka**

* Land at ITM around 1900
* We already have our Suica cards and WiFi sorted out, so we can immediately leave via Itami-Airport Limousine Bus
* Check into our hotel that’s pretty much on Dotonburi
* We expect to be tired, but excited, so we plan to hang around Dotonburi and grab Ichiran for dinner
* We did float the idea of going to a nightclub on Dotonbori (Giraffe Resort or Pure Osaka), but I think we may be way too tired for that

**Day 2**

* Kuromon Ichiba Market
* Nipponbashi DenDen Town

**Day 3**

* Universal Studios Japan
* We expect to spend the whole day here

**Day 4**

* Ship large luggage to Tokyo (plan on keeping small luggage for Kyoto)
* Rikuro-Ojisan no mise Namba
* Pokemon Center Osaka
* Umeda Sky Building
* 40 Sky Bar and Lounge in the evening

**Day 5: Travel to Kyoto**

* We specifically want to take a special train called Kyo Train Garaku
* Arrive at our hotel around 1200
* Nishiki Market
* Dinner around Pontocho

**Day 6**

* Philospher’s Path
* Kiyomizu-dera
* Higashiyama (there is supposedly an event during this time called Higashiyama Hanatoro which we would like to see; basically a lantern-filled festival at night)
* End the day at Gion

**Day 7: Travel to Tokyo**

* Shinkansen tickets already booked; plan to arrive at around 1415
* Check into hotel in Shinjuku
* Nothing specific planned today; we can explore and grab a bite around Koreatown

**Day 8: Odaiba**

* Tsukigi Outer Market
* teamLab Planets @ 1400
* DiverCity Tokyo Plaza?

**Day 9**

* I wanted to do a Your Name pilgrimmage where I take pictures from various locations from the movie. It’ll take me to Roppongi, so we can explore around there as well before ending at the famous stairs
* Ryu No Miyako Inshokugai: Shinjuku Higashiguchi-Yokocho
* Sukiyaki Imahan

**Day 10**

* Kirby Cafe (reservation at around 1300)
* Tokyo Skytree
* Ueno Park or Akihabara

**Day 11**

* On this day we have tickets to a Porter Robinson concert at Toyoso Pit at 1800. Since it’s also near Odaiba, as far as I know, we thought maybe we could do DiverCity Tokyo Plaza on this day instead of Day 8?

**Day 12: Harajuku**

* EATME Harajuku Honten
* Daifuku Strawberries
* Takeshita Street
* AFURI Harajuku

**Day 13: Ikebukuro**

* Animate Ikebukuro
* Sunshine City (Gachapon, Namco Museum, Planetarium)
* Round One
* Don Quijote

**Day 14: Shibuya**

* Musee du Chocolat Theobroma
* Shibuya PARCO
* Hachiko
* Shibuya SKY
* Shibuya Hikarie
* Ebisu Yokocho

**Day 15: Return to Reality**

I was initially worried about packing our trip too densely, but writing it all out here makes me feel like there are some clear holes in our itinerary. I didn’t write down most of the places we wanted to eat, but we don’t mind going out of our way to visit places like Glitch Coffee or Niku no Mansei steakhouse. I apologize if the itinerary is a little messy; I’m multitasking a bit trying to fix this up and I know I have random food places peppered in there, haha. I’m reading a lot of itineraries posted here and can already see how I can modify ours. I sincerely appreciate everyone reading and for any suggestions or critiques. Let me know if there are any questions regarding our choices and I can explain a bit better with some time. Hopefully we are on a decent track, thanks again!!