Hi All! My wife is doing a study trip in Seoul, and since she’s already out there we’re going to complete two bucket-list vacations (Korea and Japan) in one trip! We’ve already booked flights to Seoul and from Tokyo. I’m looking for your advice on the 5 days we will be in Japan. I have some questions which I’ll try to highlight in bold below. Thank you for your help on making this an amazing trip!
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***Weds:*** Land from Korea into Narita. Travel to our hotel in Shinjuku. **What is the best way to get from the airport to our hotel?** Once we are checked in, we plan to explore that area including the Metropolitan Sky Tower (if it is still open), touring the area to learn how to get to the train stations. Finally, we will look for dinner either at the Robot Show restaurant **(The reservation system is not working through their website. Is there another way?)** as well as explore the Golden Gai for drinks.
***Thurs:*** We’ll get up early and take the train to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea. Our goal is to spend time in both parks. Since we are from California, we frequent Disneyland, meaning we don’t need to do many of the direct clones, so we may only spend the evening in Tokyo Disneyland. **Tokyo Disneyland Resort does not have a park hopper option. Is there any way to get tickets to both parks on the same day to make our own park hopper? Will we need to have two different accounts with tickets? Also, we’d love your recommendations for the unique things that Tokyo Disneyland has to offer!**
***Fri:*** Wake up and take the train down to the Meiji Jingu Shinto Shrine on our way toward Shibuya. Explore the Shibuya Crossings area for shopping and food. **Is there anything we should try to experience while we are in this area? Is it worthwhile to do the Tokyo Skytree if we already did the Metropolitan Tower?**
***Sat:*** Wake up for an early bullet train to Kyoto. We intend to only do a day-trip out to Kyoto but have limited research in how to spend the day. **What’s the best way to spend the day in Kyoto?**
***Sun:*** Take a train to Taito City/Asakusa to see the Buddhist Temple, explore some of the food offerings, and take a river cruise tour on the Sumida River. We should be there during the Cherry Blossoms, and this is the day I’m most excited about!
***Mon:*** We will check out of the hotel and head toward the airport after spending the morning in Shinjuku for coffee and a final meal.
1 comment
If you’re also leaving from Narita, the best way to get into Tokyo would be via the Narita Express. Since you’re doing a short trip, you should be able to buy a roundtrip ticket for like ~4000 yen (one way is like 3000 yen). You can do a roundtrip ticket if the return ticket is within 14 days.
Also, I’d recommend getting a Suica card when you’re at the airport. If I remember correctly, there’s a few machines that you can buy it from right after the area where you buy your Narita Express tickets (right before you actually use your tickets to enter). Keep in mind the travel time from Narita -> Shinjuku is around 80-90 minutes. Once you add in the time of getting through customs, buying tickets and such, you might not get to your hotel until 3-4 hours after you land.
For the robot restaurant, the reason why you can’t make a reservation is because they’ve been closed since the pandemic started. Currently it’s unknown if/when they’ll reopen.
For Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea, while they don’t have parkhopper tickets, a ticket to each park should run you 7000-9000 yen each, depending on the exact day, which should be cheaper than a parkhopper ticket you’d get at Disneyland in California. You should be able to buy tickets to both parks for the same day. Note, you should buy our tickets online via their portal as soon as you can. As of right now, you cannot buy tickets on the day of at the ticket booth.
For Friday, Tokyo Skytree isn’t in the same area so I probably wouldn’t go there until Sunday. Though if you want to go to an observation deck, I’d take a look at Shibuya Sky. It’s a new observation deck in Shibuya that was opened right before the pandemic started and it features an open air deck.
For your trip to Kyoto, are you taking a bullet train back to Tokyo on the same day? The earliest train I could find to Kyoto gets there around 8:40am and leaves Kyoto around 8:45PM. To have some buffer room just in case sometime happens, you probably only have at most, 8-9 hours in Kyoto. Realistically, that might be enough time to check out the Imperial Palace, Kiyomizu-dera, and Fushimi Inari Taisha before you have to head back and catch your train. You could also check out the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest right as you get to Kyoto. While it’s on the other side of the city, you can take a direct train there from Kyoto station and that takes about 30 minutes.