Trip report March 15-29th / Tokyo -> Kyoto -> Nara -> Osaka -> Tokyo

Hi! All memories settled down a bit now so I decided to share our experience. This subreddit helped me a lot in planning our trip so I would like to give back. We (28F, 29M) finally made it after taking a gamble on purchasing cheap (€‎ 305 pp round trip) flight tickets back in May last year when borders were still closed.

I’d like to preface this that you will not find omakase dinners or fancy hotels in this report as we were rather on a budget with out European salaries and no credit card points. Regardless, we found Japan much more affordable than our home country Lithuania and this was an amazing trip.

Our interests: food, culture, fashion, art, design.

We skipped theme parks and avoided any animal cafes, zoos, aquariums.

We got **7 day JR pass** and used it for all train travel between cities. Also, for metro/train lines like Osaka Loop, Yamanote and couple others I can’t remember in Tokyo.

I booked hotels on [booking.com](https://booking.com/) back when borders were closed so again got lucky with costs. For 2 weeks we paid around €‎ 1000. The hotels we stayed in:

Tokyo: **DDD Hotel** (this wasn’t our first choice but another hotel cancelled couple of weeks before we trip and we landed on this one.) Good location, nice interior—no complaints.

Kyoto: **Hotel Resol Kyoto Kawaramachi Sanjo** (since a traditional ryokan wasn’t in our budget I looked for a hotel with a traditional interior.) Location was perfect, staff was super friendly we really enjoyed our stay)

Tokyo: **THE KNOT TOKYO Shinjuku** (our room had a view of another building under construction and the room was very dark) Other than that, good location, nice atmosphere with the bakery and a bar in the lobby.

I’m a major over planner and spent *months* planning this trip while my husband just knew we were going to Japan lol. As expected, not everything went to plan and we swapped some activities around (mainly due to weather). Also, we found ourselves starting our days quite late (around 9-10am) but still had very packed days and walked about 25k steps on average.

*My tip regarding shoes:* bring a couple of pairs and rotate them. We both done this and didn’t suffer from sore feet. I rotated New Balance trainers, ankle boots with a block heel and flat knee length boots. My husband had trainers, Dr Martens boots and Converse. This really worked for us and I could even wear heeled boots all day, no problem.

Also, we somehow had 0 jetlag throughout the trip. For us it was -7 hr difference. We went to bed around 1amand were waking up around 8-8:30am most days

**Day 1:** Arrived around 10pm, met our friend who lives in Tokyo, arrived at the hotel, got some snacks and drinks from 7/11 and went to bed around 1am.

**Day 2:** Left the hotel around 9am and headed to Uniqlo because my husband realised he forgot to bring jeans and only had his joggers. This was not the plan so we ended up arriving in Senso-ji way too late. Here’s what we did:

\- Asakusa (Senso-ji, Nakamise dori steeet for street food, Kappabashi Street)

\- Ueno (Ueno park, rented swan boats, saw the first sakuras)

\- Walk around Akihabara (we went to Animate but its really not my thing so we just had a quick look and left)

**Food:** Breakfast Nakamise dori street food, Kura Sushi, Gyukatsu Motomura.

**Highlights:** Gyukatsu Motomura and playing arcade games in Akihabara we loved Mario cart and the drum game. Was interesting to see the girls promoting maid cafes and to see the lights and adverts.

**Day 3: it was pouring down with rain all day**

\- Ueno (Ameyoko shopping street, Taito station arcade to hide from the rain, some vintage shops)

\- Odaiba (Small worlds & TeamLAB planets)

*The plan was to then go to AQUA city Odaiba to watch the sunset and the Rainbow bridge but weather was horrible. We planned to come back another day but, unfortunately never made it.*

\- Akihabara for drinks with our friend

\- Don Quijote

**Food:** 7/11, Ichiran, Izakaya our friend took us to in Akihabara

**Highlights:** Small worlds museum. We spent 2 hours there but we had to rush to our TeamLAB booking. Wish we could’ve stayed longer. And of course, TeamLAB Planets (we still had to queue for over 30mins despite having a booking.)

**Day 4: First sunny day!!!**

\- Roppongi (Mori Art Museum, Mohri garden)

\- Akasaka (Akasaka Hikawa Shrine, Hie Shrine)

\- Ginza (shopping, Hibiya park, Yurakucho)

**Food:** Family Mart, amazing Korean BBQ [チョンソル 別館](https://goo.gl/maps/4Jz9rWUqGZ4Xqg5W8), Marugame Udon.

**Highlights:** Korean BBQ, just walking around Akasaka, seeing cute dogs and trying udon for the first time and the chef giving us lollipops after we said *oishi katta desu.*

**Day 5: travel day to Kyoto**

\- Arrived around 11, took a train to our hotel, left our suitcases there

\- Nishiki market

\- Gion

\- Maruyama park

\- Yasaka shrine

\- Shoren in temple night illuminations

**Food:** bento boxes from Tokyo station, Nishiki market (taiyaki, giant tempura shrimp, takoyaki, ice cream), 10 YEN cheese coin from street market, Korean food at Hongdae Mukbang (fried chicken, rose tteokkbokki, kimbap, soju and various pickles)

**Highlights:** seeing Mt. Fuji from the shinkansen, Yasaka shrine at sunset and Night illuminations at Shoren-in. We saw a poster and decided to come for night illuminations instead of just visiting during the day.

**Day 6: another rainy day… We were supposed to rent bikes and just cycle around, have a picnic this day but atlas. We just decided to walk around and explore a bit.**

\- Kyoto national Gyoen

\- Saw many sakura trees along Kyoto river

\- Higashiyama

\- Kiyomizu-dera

**Food:** Sukiya, Walden Woods cafe, random udon place we stumbled upon, street food (chicken karaage, strawberry mochi, mochi with sweet soy sauce, dango mochi), yakitori at Torikozu.

**Highlights:** finding dango which is just emoji irl, experiencing first sakuras in full bloom, the local udon spot.

**Disappointments:** Kyoto national Gyoen. The pathways are the width of a highway, I realise weather might have something to do with our experience but it wasn’t cosy or very nice. Kiyomizu dera in this weather. Crowds with umbrellas are even worse, I felt like rain ruined the experience and made a plan to come back the other day.

**Day 7: one of the days that we managed to start early and the weather was sooo warm.**

\- Arashiyama bamboo grove

\- Tenryu-ji temple

\- Kimono forest

\- Arashiyama riverside

*Took a train to a nearest JR station and rented bikes from PIPPA app. Cycled to a parking space nearest to Kinkaku-ji.*

\- Kinkaku-ji temple

\- Kugyokudo Kyoto incense store

\- A failed attempt to catch Kiyomizu-dera at sunset. Google maps took us to an entrace with a closed gate, by the time we made it to the main entrance it was closed. I was so mad at myself for not double checking the opening hours.

**Food:** Sukiya, amazing udon spot near Arashiyama river – [Kameyamaya](https://goo.gl/maps/4rHhMoYuUqP8vkZm7), quick snacks at Family mart after bike ride, Musashi Sushi.

**Highlights:** walk along Arashiyama river and Kinkaku-ji temple which really felt surreal. Also, our experience at the Kugyokudo Kyoto incense store was amazing. Its like Chanel of incense.

**Disappointments:** Tenryu-ji temple garden. Just not sure if its worth the paid entry and of course failing to plan a proper revisit to Kiyomizu-dera.

**Day 8: Day trip to Osaka which was another rainy day, lucky us.**

\- Osaka museum of Housing and Living (we found this when looking for rainy day activities and ended up loving it)

\- Osaka castle

\- Kuromon market

\- Sennichimae Doguyasuji Shopping Street

\- Shinsekai

\- Dotonbori

\- Americamura

Food: 7/11, tonkatsu, grilled seafood from Kuromon market, takoyaki, Rikkuro’s cheesecake and ramen near our hotel back in Kyoto.

**Highlights:** Osaka museum of Housing and Living – it was so fun and interesting, seeing all the lights in Shinsekai and Dotonbori.

**Disappointments:** my phone died around 3pm despite being on plane mode (I take a lot of photos…) and we relied on my husbands phone which also started to get dangerously close to dying so we had to get back to Kyoto earlier than we would’ve liked.

*When planning the trip I never felt as attracted to visit Osaka. I felt like I didn’t find many things I wanted to do there but I would go back for sure, especially in better weather.*

**Day 9: Nara day!**

\- Started the day early and went to Fushimi Inari. Didn’t hike far as we wanted to make it to Nara.

\- Kōfuku-ji

\- Nara Park

\- Kasuga Taisha Manyo Botanical Gardens

\- Ukimido

\- Yoshikien Garden

\- Nakatanidou mochi pounding show

\- Back to hotel to do laundry

\- Kyoto station stair show

**Food:** 7/11, udon at Mizuya Chaya (such a cute spot, it’s a small hut in the middle of the park), mochi, Yakiniku like BBQ, Mister donut doughnuts for desert.

**Highlights:** the deer!!! They were so cute, we couldn’t get enough. We found it was much nicer around Nara National Museum there were loads of deer but not as many people where Google maps says the actual deer park is. Mochi pounding show was really entertaining, I’m glad we got to see it. It seems to be going on every 10 minutes or so.

**Somewhat of a disappointment:** Kasuga Taisha Manyo Botanical Gardens. I guess I expected more for paid entrance. I assume it would be breathtaking during wisteria season as they seem to take up a large park and while not in bloom just look like twigs. Regardless it was nice to walk around as it wasn’t busy at all and we enjoyed feeding the koi fish in the pond. There was a small stand where you put 100 YEN and take a bag of fish food.

**Day 10: travel back to Tokyo**

*We arrived at Tokyo station and then took a train to Shinjuku station. We wanted to drop our bags off at the hotel but the Google maps were just not working. We were trying to find a bus stop but the location kept jumping around so we just started to follow the signs for Tokyo Government building because we knew our hotel was near it. After walking underground for about 30 minutes we made it outside and realised we were 5 minutes away from our hotel so I guess this worked out even better than taking a bus.*

*We managed to check in early which was a huge help after a hectic travel morning. When we made it out we visited:*

\- Chuo park (this was just a nicest way from our hotel I was surprised to see so many tulips, it had major Central park vibes)

\- Shibuya Yokocho

\- Miyashita park

\- Hachiko statue

\- Shibuya crossing

\- Shibuya109

\- Taito station arcade

**Food:** 7/11, Coco Curry, Sushi Uobei, snacks from Family mart.

**Highlights:** seeing Shibuya crossing and just the real craziness of Tokyo, finding an original Tatsuro Yamashita vinyl from the 80s in a record shop we found in Miyashita park.

**Day 11: rain again…**

\- Gotoku-ji temple

\- Shimokitazawa

*Stopped by our hotel to drop of shopping and rest for a few minutes*

\- Shinjuku

*Now, this was a massive fail on my part, we wanted to go to Omoide Yokocho but Google maps took us to a wrong place and we visited some side alley decorated with sakura branches and bars so it kinda looked similar but it wasn’t the actual Omoide Yokocho!*

\- Purikura photobooth

\- Kabukicho

\- Golden Gai (we didn’t go to any bars, the atmosphere was not good, loads of touts on the streets and only drunk tourists)

**Food:** 7/11 (it just never gets old), Flippers pancakes, Oreryu Shio ramen, we had the spicy cheesy fried chicken ramen and it was **the best**

**Highlights:** seeing the 3D Shinjuku cat, Purikura photobooth which was so stressful at first because it’s all in Japanese, we had to get help from this Japanese couple and then staff because we thought our photos got lost, but we figured it out in the end! And having the ramen, it was just an explosion for taste buds.

**Somewhat of a disappointment:** Shimokitazawa, just didn’t find anything good, got one jumper after visiting at least 10 shops.

**Day 12:**

\- Yoyogi park (we missed our stop and got of at a wrong stop for Meiji jingu, so just did some dog watching at the park and decided to go to Meiji jingu in the afternoon instead)

\- Harajuku

\- Shopping at Omotesando

\- Meiji jingu

Went to our hotel because my husband wasn’t feeling too well so wanted to rest.

\- Nakameguro (the amount of people really surprised me and what was even more surprising that it seemed like we were one of a few tourists among the crowd)

**Food:** a weird day when it comes to food so breakfast was sakura soft serve and lemonade and then early lunch was 7/11 because Harajuku was insanely crowded. Dinner was at Afuri ramen in Nakameguro.

**Highlight:** Nakameguro cherry blossoms, just no words photos didn’t do it any justice it felt magical.

**Disappointment:** Takeshita street. It was sooo crowded just wanted to get out of that street ASAP.

**Day 13: rain again :)**

\- Aoyama (I really wanted to see the Prada building)

\- Harajuku (it was much quieter, we managed to get Korean cheese dogs and the rainbow cotton candy without having to queue for tooo long)

\- Shibuya SKY (when we arrived we were informed the sky deck is closed due to weather which was a bummer. Later after visiting the viewing gallery, we almost left but noticed people going towards and found out the sky deck was now open! The rain stopped and we managed to have a nice time and good view.)

\- Sakura Street Shibuya

\- Shin-Okubo (skincare shops, Korean supermarket)

*On our way to Rainbow Karaoke we found the actual Omoide Yokocho which this time was the correct one… and it was nice! I wish we had more time because atmosphere was actually good but it was out last night and we didn’t have time.*

\- Rainbow karaoke (we only had 30 minutes until our last train which was a bummer. The place was super clean, foreigner friendly. The first hour is free and you only pay 700 YEN each for unlimited soft drinks. We wish we had more time but we had to rush back to the hotel to pack.)

**Food:** Korean cheese dog, rainbow cotton candy (it was actually flavoured according to colour and tasted good), Oreryu Shio ramen again because it was just too good to not repeat, shaved ice desserts and korean fried chicken in Korea town – Shin-Okubo.

**Highlight: Seeing the Sakura street and how vibrant Shin-Okubo was.**

**Disappointment:** when planning my trip I always imagined going to Shibuya SKY at golden hour so it was a bummer to visit during such a cloudy day. I always so people telling to book at least few days in advance, I booked 5 days in advance and only available time was during the day around 2pm. We had a look at the weather app and chose the one with best visibility among the few rainy days. It worked out okay in the end and you can’t control the weather. But *I had a look and available times for golden hour were only if you book about 2 weeks in advance, so something to keep in mind.*

**Day 14: the last day**

*For our last day we wanted to have hanami experience as it was finally a nice day and we wanted to revisit Hibiya park which we liked a lot but arrived too late last time.*

\- Breakfast at Shinpachi Shokudo Shinjuku

\- Hanami at Shinjuku Gyoen

\- Ginza (Muji Store, Uniqlo, Hibiya park)

**Food:** traditional breakfast at Shinpachi Shokudo Shinjuku (grilled salmon, miso soup, rice), picnic at the park with snacks from 7/11.

**Highlights:** sitting under the sakura trees, when the wind blew some of the sakura blossoms off it seemed like it was raining cherry blossoms and it was such a magical moment to wrap up our trip, it felt almost emotional. Also, we really liked the small MUJI exhibition. They have a city made from MUJI things which was cool to look at and also an exhibition from an artist Tatsuya Tanaka who does miniatures from various things, I followed him on Instagram for a while so was interesting to see the works in real life.

*Going to Haneda Airport with two suitcases and two backpacks during rush our was not fun at all. Looking back I would’ve booked the Limousine bus.*

We enjoyed our trip so much, I never felt so at home or felt so inspired in any other place I visited. We definitely had a bad case of post holiday blues and I find myself daydreaming about living there one day in the future.

I hope we can visit during the autumn foliage in the future because it feels like we only scratched the surface of all Japan has to offer.

I made a point to document the trip as best as I can so took loads of photos and videos. If you’d like to see videos & photos feel free to message me for my IG handle.

I hope this will be interesting of useful for some of you. Didn’t intend for this post to be so long…

So thanks for coming to my TED talk 👋