We’re very much in the “final countdown” stage of travel planning, and we’re looking to see if anyone has some solid advice for any last-ish minute changes or additions, particularly with regards to our eating situation. If anyone has solid food recs, sound off!
**Day Zero:**
\- Arrive at Haneda Airport round 4pm, somehow get to Sunshine City Prince Hotel (we were hoping to use the shuttle service, but apparently it’s “temporarily closed,” so recommendations here are appreciated.
\- Recover from the flight, maybe explore the immediate area if we’re up to it.
**Day One (Tokyo):**
\- Ghibli Museum at 10am (Not thrilled about how close this is to our arrival, but this was a must-do and it was the only time we could get so we’re going to just set a million alarms and hope the jet lag doesn’t screw us)
\- No concrete plans after this, but we do want to see the obvious districts like Akihabara, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku, so if there’s an ideal route here I’d love to hear it.
**Day Two (Tokyo):**
\- See above! No plans today, just getting to whatever we missed yesterday (we’ll also be coming back for a bit later in the trip, so we can save a district or two for then.
**Day Three (Tokyo->Kyoto):**
\- Travel to Kyoto via JR, check in to ryokan
\- We don’t really have much planned in Kyoto! As you’ll see below we plan to walk through the Arashiyama grove, but that’s kind of it in terms of specifics. We were thinking maybe a visit to the Manga Museum, but we’re very much open to suggestions here. We don’t think we’ll be terribly interested in temples outside of Kinkaku-ji.
**Day Four (Kyoto):**
\- See above!
**Day Five (Kyoto->Osaka):**
\- Ride JR to Osaka, check in to hotel
\- Visit Osaka Kaiyukan
\- Visit teamLab Botanical Garden (entrance time is 7:30-8:30pm)
\- We’ll have some time to explore throughout the day, so let us know
**Day Six (Osaka):**
\- USJ all day, baby! Don’t need much help with this one (though advice is obviously always appreciated!). We’ve got our tickets, we’ve got our Express Passes, the ducks seem to be in a row here.
**Day Seven (Osaka->Nara->Tokyo):**
\- Leave Osaka, ride JR to Nara
\- Exchange bows with various deer, explore (again, love to hear recommendations for a half-day visit!)
\- Ride JR back to Tokyo, check in to hotel
**Day Eight (Tokyo):**
\- teamLab Planets at 9:30-10am
\- Hit up anything we didn’t get to before
**Day Nine (Tokyo->Home):**
\- Last Day! Our flight is around 6pm, so we do have time for a couple excursions
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Honestly, typing this all out does make our trip seem pretty light, but I have to admit that what we do have planned out is plenty exciting and anything else we get to do is just icing on the cake. Again, any food or activity recommendations are greatly greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
2 comments
You can take the monorail from HND to Hamamatsucho station and then transfer to the Yamanote line for Ikebukuro station.
Maybe look into Small Worlds on Day 8 after TeamLab since you’ll be in the area.
I went to Haneda airport’s site and they had a couple of listings of bus companies that go directly to Ikebukuro and they seem to both be available? Unless they’re “out of service” on the days you’re arriving. If they don’t come up online, I wouldn’t stress about it because after arriving, you can just ask the bus ticket desk if there’s availability. If not, just catch the monorail and JR as someone else said.