Trip report – 9 days/10 nights in Tokyo/Narita

Edit: 10 days/9 nights obviously…

Just got back from our Tokyo trip on Monday morning, and had found a couple of recent trip reports useful to get a sense of what’s happening at the moment and pick up a few additional tips so thought would share a few thoughts and highlights.

**A bit about us and trip context:**

My husband and I are in our mid-thirties, and we’re both huge fans of Japan, having travelled there together around 5-10 times each (with each other, friends, family etc)

We’re pretty active travellers, and like to spend our days walking around taking in neighbourhoods, sight seeing, taking in a bit of culture/history, shopping and eating. I’m super food focussed, so will prioritise seeking out good food.

We both studied Japanese in high school and I have retained better remembrance of the language so have enough to ask for basic things, interpret katakana etc. so between broken Japanese, Google maps and Google translate we have enough to get around very comfortably.

This trip was our first international trip after covid, so the aim was to just to fly direct into Tokyo, and minimise time moving around so we could just be in Tokyo, cause there’s so always so much to see there and after a few years I was just desperate to be back amongst it!

**Immigration:**

Filled in all the Visit Japan stuff, would suggest having screenshots of the page that shows your vaccination status confirmed, along with the QR codes – we got checked for the former first and they wanted to see it on the phone. There is Narita wif-fi in a pinch though if you need it.

We must’ve gotten really unlucky as it literally took 3 hours to get from the airplane through immigration – NOT INCLUDING LUGGAGE AND CUSTOMS. They were just trying to manage crowd control in the immigration counter area, so we were in a huge line down the hallway leading up to the immigration counter area and just standing for around 20-30 minutes at a time before they let people go through and we got to take 20 steps forward. Once we were in the immigration counter snake line, it slowly shuffled which was better.

Fortunately my husband and I decided to do our business on the plane about an hour before we landed and had water on us so maybe just a note to be prepped, I haven’t see anyone else have this issue but did hear other tourists while travelling around during the trip refer to long lines like ‘being in immigration’.

I think a couple of things led to this, including our flight being brought forward 24 hours from its original date, and I saw signs when we returned to the airport that flights that normally go to terminal 3 were going to terminal 2, so think the terminal was much busier than usual. Assume this will be better in May when they further lift restrictions.

Edit: Quick thought to add that once we got our bags, customs was a breeze, and leaving the country was super quick too!

**Internet:**

Because of immigration delay, we couldn’t pick up the wifi dongle that we hired cause the post office was closed. The company was also not responsive the whole trip, until the end when they apologised and have said they’ll give me a cancellation refund.

We fortunately had prepaid wifi dongles my dad uses when he travels (from a company called Pokefi) that can be used internationally and they were fine for us just to use to get google map directions etc.

In future would probably just try the e-sim that I’ve seen people talk about in the future.

**Accommodation:**

I booked our first night just next to Kurumae (which is next door to Asakusa where Senso-ji is) as our flights got moved and we got an extra night out of the trip, so thought would pick a location that took a little less time to get to than Shibuya (where we spent the rest of our stay). Since immigration took so long, this was a huge advantage as it only took us one local train ride and one hour to get from the airport to the hotel. Would recommend this if you arrive late the first night.

We actually loved the area, as it was quite quiet at night/morning but a short walk to cafes (heaps in Kurumae).

The next 7 nights we spent in Shibuya which was pretty central to everywhere we wanted to travel out to – it was pretty busy though and especially at night a real night life kind of place. Although we loved our hotel, in future I’ll probably look to stay a little further out, I’ve once stayed in Asakusa near Senso-ji and loved how relaxed it was there.

Although it was close to all the cool restaurants we wanted to go to which meant it was often a short commute which was a benefit.

Our last night we went to Narita to spend a night there (which we’ve frequently done for Tokyo), with the benefit of not having to do a 2 hour train ride on the same day/night as a long flight, and reduced hotel costs for one night.

**Cherry Blossoms:**

We went for our anniversary, which happened to be early April during the Easter break in Australia and I was hoping we would time well with the cherry blossom season. Cherry blossoms peaked on the 27th of March, we arrived on the 31st of March. I rejigged a few plans and we spent the 2nd and 4th of April in particular hitting up the best Cherry Blossom locations in Tokyo to make sure we were doing them earlier in the trip rather than later – they were beautiful but you could definitely tell they weren’t at their absolute best by that point, and by the end of our stay (on the 9th), streets that were covered in flowers originally were totally green.

If you want Cherry blossoms I’d suggest doing your stay in Tokyo for the last week of March to the first week of April to be covered!

Shinjuku-Koen is your place to go if you’re late in the season though, as they have more of the double cherry blossoms that bloom a little later in the season.

**Food:**

In previous trips we never really booked anything, and would bounce around until we could get in somewhere or do short waits. We found in Shibuya in particular we actually struggled to find dinner locations – many places often turning us away or telling us to return in at least an hour because we didn’t have reservations. Fortunately we only really had this problem with the first half of the trip cause I had reservations in the second half.

Having said that, Shibuya was particularly bad on the weekend, a tsukemen place that had a long line at 8pm-9pm on Saturday, we managed to get into with a 5-10 min wait on a Monday night.

So probably just aim to be at opening time if you’re super keen on somewhere that you can’t book etc.

We did a mix of low key nights (yakitori, izakaya, Shake Shack!) to high end (a few michelin star meals) and loved everything. A couple of places we liked:

* Cafe Tomorrow Asakusa – level 1 in a shopping street in Asakusa, small spot that does Onigiri breakfast sets – although we love combini breakfasts, it was so nice to have a fresh warm onigiri in hand!
* Toriichi – Shibuya – stumbled in here after running out of options and they fortunately fit us in. Really great Yakitori (which we could compare to a few other places we went to after that were good but not as good).
* Tempura Funabashiya – Shinjuku – Have been here on previous trips and still great. Joined a line of about 10-15 people about 10 minutes before they opened and didn’t have problems getting a seat upstairs.
* Iwasa Sushi – Toyosu – didn’t bother with Sushi Dai/Daiwa as we had Teamlab tickets and didn’t want to be late. Walked straight in at around 8:30am and got a seat no problem, filled up very quickly about 15 minutes later (lots of locals which is always a good sign for me).
* Lature – Shibuya – 1 michelin star (booked online) – Amazing lunch. The lunch set in particular is awesome value (by comparison to what I can get in Melbourne/Australia). Focus on game meat with mostly French influence
* Roan gensoba – Shimokitazawa – Awesome soba, we got it cold and hot with duck broth and loved. Got in at 11:45am no problem, but was a queue by 12pm.
* Den Kushi Flori – Shibuya – 1 michelin star (booked online) – Such a cool dinner, collaboration between a Japanese chef and French style chef who both worked in Michelin star kitchens – really clever how they interpreted and fused the two styles together. Some amazing flavours, and again thought the dinner course was great value for what we got (and compared to home)
* Katsukami – Ginza – (booked online) – Katsu but done as a course/degustation. Very delicious, very filling!! Again great value, 3,800 yen for 4 fairly good size pieces of different cuts of pork, rice, miso soup, pickles, cabbage salad and dessert or spicy pork stew.
* SG Low – Shibuya – (Booked online) – Modern izakaya – LOVED this place. So much energy, on level 2 behind a bit of a shabby unmarked door, very vibey. Food was delicious too, super flavoursome – great cocktails too – got a bit smashed.
* Sushi Tou – Shibuya (kinda) – (Booked online) – Considering how hard some sushi places could be to get into, great to be able to book in, great experience here!
* Short coffee list:
* Blue Bottle (multiple locations, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Aoyama)
* Brooklyn Roasting Company (Shimokitazawa)
* Cafe Kitsune (Aoyama)
* Coffee Wrights x Higuma Doughnuts (Omotesando – Doughnuts were soooo good)

**Sight seeing etc:**

* **Day trip:** We did a day trip to Kamakura which was great, and loved the little break from city life. Hit up Enkaku-ji, TsuruGaoka Hachiman-gu, Kotoku-in and Hasedera.
* **Teamlabs Planets:** My husband’s first time who enjoyed it, I went to the original one and preferred that better. Still a cool experience, but a very managed one, not as exploratory as I think it was previously. Lots of waiting in the dark corridors between artworks, and being crowd controlled to experience artwork. It’s still a great way to fill up a morning if you’re an early riser though since nothing else is really open in Tokyo until 10-11am anyway!
* **Shibuya Sky:** WORTH IT. I booked about a month out, to make sure I got a ticket at sundown/dusk and it was absolutely beautiful to see the lights start coming out and the sun go down. We went at 6pm and the timing was perfect. It will likely be the busiest time, people line up for the ‘best insta’ shot in the corners if you can be bothered with that kind of thing.
* **Gotokuji temple:** Temple with all the cats, super cute, but not worth going out of your way for. We were heading to Shimokitazawa to do shopping so it kinda of worked with the itinerary

**Additional thoughts:**

* **Day structures for early risers:** I’m an early riser (was up on average at 6-7am), which doesn’t really bode well with Tokyo since everything generally opens 10am or later. With that in mind, it worked pretty well to have parks/historical sites/temples for the morning and then get our shopping and eating in in the afternoon/evening.
* **Masks/Covid management:** Mask wearing super common, but starting to see more people not wear them on train/combini’s etc since it’s optional inside now. Only had temperature checked when we went to a concert, but otherwise no problems
* **Shopping:** Have your passport for tax free, much easier/cleaner than it used to be since it’s all digital. Don quiote gets a bit intense, I did my shopping late afternoon around 4pm and it took about half an hour to wait in the tax free line to pay at that time. If you’re into buying designer, so much great designer consignment, honestly took up a lot of the trip for me just popping in and out of stores to see what was available…!

**And quick breakdown of our daily itinerary:**

* Day 1 – Friday – Arrived late, checked into Kurumae
* Day 2 – Walked up to Senso-ji, wandered back down through Kurumae (lots of cute coffee shops etc) then went to Shibuya, checked in, grabbed some lunch, had a quick wander around shops then went to a concert at Ariake Arena. Dinner back in Shibuya.
* Day 3 – Went to Inoshikara park for cherry blossoms, Shinjuku for lunch, Shinjuku Koen for more cherry blossoms, then Naka Meguro for more cherry blossoms! Dinner back in Shibuya
* Day 4 – Kamakura day trip
* Day 5 – Toyosu market for breakfast and a quick wander, Teamlab Planets, Chidorigafuchi Moat for cherry blossoms, Omotesando/Harajuku for coffee/afternoon tea, Roppongi Midtown for cherry blossoms and dinner at Shake Shack (had cravings)
* Day 6 – Shopping in Shibuya, lunch at Lature, more shopping in Shibuya (Don Quiote specifically – tax free line took a while!), Shibuya Sky
* Day 7 – Gotokuji temple, Shimokitazawa to go vintage/second hand designer consignment shopping, dinner at Den Kushi Flori
* Day 8 – Mipig cafe in Harajuku, Katsukami for an early lunch in Ginza, shopping in Ginza, Afternoon tea at Henri Charpentier, dinner at SG Low
* Day 9 – Wander around Omotesando and have coffee, lunch at Sushi Tou, headed to Narita and checked in, dinner at local Yakitori place in Narita.
* Day 10 – Went to a golf shop in the morning (husband wanted to and we needed to kill some time), Kawatoyo for lunch, little temple wander, headed to airport

Hope that’s useful for someone!