**Introduction**
Hello, I am traveling to Japan—as well as leaving my home country—for the first time ever. Any guidance or recommendations considering my current travel plans and itinerary would be most helpful and much appreciated by me.
A bit about me: I am a 25 year old man in good health with an active lifestyle from the United States traveling alone, I will be able to speak basic Japanese travel-specific words and phrases with a firm understanding of Hiragana and Katakana, but let’s assume I will know zero Kanji by the time I leave for this trip. The primary impetus for my trip is to attend a Japanoise/Extreme Metal festival that will be held on Saturday, June 10th and Sunday, June 11th in Tokyo. I have budgeted about three additional days of tourism to explore Tokyo primarily, as I don’t think I have much time to go elsewhere with the exception of just a few specific locations outside of Tokyo. I have interest in general sightseeing, Otaku culture, music, film, and history. I have no interest in anything that I view as too much of a corporate time sink—any theme park-like activities or things such as the Studio Ghibli Museum, Pokémon Café, etc. However, I do plan to make an exception and have budgeted time to attend the Gundam Factory in Yokohama to see the life sized Gundam (which, yes, is still in service and has now been extended to March 2024).
The feedback that will be most helpful for me is identifying how realistic my plans for each day are and maybe pointing out logistic errors that my untraveled eyes may have missed.
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**Itinerary**
**First Half of Trip**
Day 1—Friday, June 9th:
* Board on Thursday, June 8th at 7:10 AM via O’Hare in Chicago -> Arrive in Seattle at 9:42 AM with a 2 Hour 48 Minute Layover -> Board at 12:30 PM -> Arrive at Haneda Airport on Friday, June 9th at 2:50PM
* Total travel time: 17 Hours and 40 Minutes
* Travel from Haneda Airport to my Ryokan located just outside of Takadanobaba Station
I anticipate to be tired, jet lagged, confused by the rail system, and otherwise disoriented, so all I feel inclined to plan from the time I arrive at 2:50PM to the end of the day is to safely navigate to my Ryokan, check in, and gather myself. Again, this is my first time travelling abroad from my home country. I will try familiarize myself with the area I’ll be staying in and identify a few convenient places to get food.
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Day 2—Saturday, June 10th:
* Attend first day of Music Festival from about 3PM to 10:30PM at Ochiai Soup via the Tozai Line from Takadanobaba Station (approximately 15 minutes of travel from my Ryokan)
I am again reluctant to schedule much outside of attending the music festival, to ensure I get there safely on time without the stress or headache of missing any performances. This music and event are a big part of the trip for me and my appreciation of Japanese culture. In addition to this, I will identify some places to get food and then am likely to just ride the rail system around aimlessly a bit before the music festival to become more familiar with it.
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Day 3—Sunday, June 11th:
* Attend last day of Music Festival from about 3PM to 10:30PM at Ochiai Soup
I figure I will be at least slightly less disoriented on this day, so I have a play it by ear attitude about what I will do prior to when the music festival begins. Maybe I will have picked up some English-speaking friends at the festival to do some things with—maybe not! I may grab some activities from my other days resigned to general tourism to knock out, or simply just wander aimlessly around the part of the city the venue is located in.
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**Second Half of Trip**
The festival has now ended and this will begin the part of my trip reserved for more general tourism. I expect to have a better grasp on the rail system by now and be less jet lagged. One thing to keep in mind is that the specific days (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) are subject to change according to the schedule of events/hours of businesses in relation to certain activities. For example: the June calendar for the Gundam Factory in Yokohama has not been posted yet, but they tend to be closed on Tuesday; if a record store that I want to go to has hours that conflict with other activities, I may need to switch days or forgo an activity. I will finalize these days the closer I get to my trip when I can be more certain of what days to schedule specific activities. To be more organized in lieu of this, I have grouped my activities, generally, by cardinal direction in relation to my Ryokan: Monday—activities east of my Ryokan; Tuesday—west; Wednesday—south. The only activity I have set in stone is an appointment to view the studio of one of my favorite Japanese artists at 2:00PM on Monday, but it is located conveniently <25 minutes west of my Ryokan.
The activities are listed in order of occurrence by convenience of travel and I have also listed the city or part of Tokyo they are in.
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Day 4—Monday, June 12th:
* Disk Union—Record Store(Chiyoda)
* Yasukini Shrine (Chiyoda)
* Imperial Palace (Chiyoda)
* MA Studio viewing at 2:00PM (Nakano)
* hidden-circus.com
* Ueno Park (Taito)
* Akiba (Taito)
* Maid Cafes, Otaku sightseeing, viewing electronics, etc.
* Sensoji (Taito)
The most helpful feedback I can receive for these last few days would be how realistic managing all of the activities per day will be. According to Google Maps, it should possible. However, if I happen to be too stressed out to make everything that I’ve put on my itinerary, I have no problem cutting things out to enjoy priority activities more thoroughly. Also, if there’s anything I’ve left out that I must try to see or experience, that would be of much help as well.
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Day 5—Tuesday, June 13th:
* Record Boy—Record Store (Suginami)
* Record Shop Base—Record Store (Suginami)
* Nishiogi Unknown Record—Record Store (Suginami)
* Tama Cemetery (Fuchu)
* This is about an hour and a half west of my Ryokan, but I would like to travel here to see Yukio Mishima’s grave and enjoy the sights
Is there anything else specific in these areas that could be nice to do? I do not have a lot of activities planned for this day, so I could use it to plug activities from other days into or add additional ones if necessary.
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Day 6—Wednesday, June 14th:
* Gundam Factory (Yokohama)
* Sankeien Garden (Yokohama)
* Gundam Base (Koto, Odaiba \[?\])
* ROCK in Tokyo Disk Union—Record Store (Shibuya)
* Shibuya Crossing (Shibuya)
* Yoyogi Park (Shibuya)
* Meiji Jingu Garden (Shibuya)
* Nat Records (Shinjuku)
My plan for this day is to begin by heading out early all the way south from my Ryokan to get to the Gundam Factory in Yokohama to ensure that I can attend and then gradually work my way north back into Tokyo.
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Day 7—Thursday, June 15th:
* Check out of Ryokan
* Board on Thursday, June 15th at 5:45PM via Haneda -> arrive in Chicago on Thursday, June 15th at 3:35PM
Thankfully, my flight leaves later in the day and I can use this time to hit an activity or two I may have missed on previous days while en route to Haneda airport, and still be able to get to the airport on time without feeling too neurotic about missing my flight. I will arrive back in Chicago and I need to drive 2 hours south to get home. I don’t have to be back for work until the following Monday, so I can make accommodations to sleep in a motel if absolutely necessary due to being jet lagged, and then drive home on Friday.
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**Miscellaneous Preparation for Trip**
* Bring a few hundred dollars worth of Yen into Japan so I don’t have to stress about changing out USD when I get there
* Find an appropriate SIM Card for my iPhone
* Use a credit card with no foreign transaction fees (Capital One Quicksilver)
* I will also call Capital One in advance to alert let them that I will be using the card out of the country
* A U.S. friend of mine will be giving me a spare Suica card of his that I can load when I arrive in Japan
* It appears that a Japan Rail pass will be unnecessary given that I am remaining mostly in Tokyo
* I may buy lots of music (records, cassettes, CDs) at the music festival and various record stores—but I may not
* I am considering the idea of shipping all of the music I may buy from Japan back home, rather than taking it back on the plane
* Brushing up on my far less than fluent Japanese, and consideration for cultural differences and biases
* Being aware and prepared for Covid-specific travel procedures and criteria
* I am vaccinated, but will not be receiving any booster shots, so I must prepare a negative Covid PCR test from 72 hours prior to my first date of travel
* If the weather doesn’t play out conveniently, I will dress appropriately and deal with it
* As far as food goes, I will simply stop and try different places everywhere I go
* I will use Google Translate/Google Lens to assist as necessary
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**Questions**
* Does anyone have any other must see things to do given the places I’m visiting? Some of my love for the culture that will be lacking in this trip is 70s/80s/90s Anime (Belladonna of Sadness, Leiji Matsumoto, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Satoshi Kon etc.) and Japanese film (Kaneto Shindo, Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, Takashi Miike, Sion Sono). Any applicable activities such as museums, shops, film locations, etc. would be highly appreciated
* Are taxis helpful? Is Uber or Lyft a thing in Japan, or will they require cash? I don’t want to spend too much money on them but may grab one here and there to expedite travel as needed
* What major logistics stuff did I miss or undervalue?
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If you have taken the time to read any or all of this—thank you.
2 comments
For your first day, you are probably going to be pretty jet lagged but I’d suggest trying your best to stay up to a normal sleeping time do it has less of an impact on the rest of your schedule. If you knock out in the middle of the day on your first day, it will mess up your schedule for the rest of the trip.
You should also not exchange USD while in Japan, but rather just withdraw from ATMs if you can (7/11 ones work pretty well).
Considering you will only be in Tokyo you probably won’t need to worry about taxis, everything you are going to seems to be pretty accessible by transit.
Starting from 5/8 Japan is doing away with all COVID related requirements, so you won’t need to get tested before you leave. Also, you don’t need your friend’s suitcase card, just get a digital one on your iPhone.