Final Itinerary Check | 3 Cities, 10 days | 1st international overseas trip as a couple. Advice appreciated.

17 comments

1. One question, are you doing Akihabara in the morning on the 18th? (As you say team labs around noon and you have akiba earlier).

   Just take into account that most shops won’t open until 10 AM

2. I just got back – I did sometimes have to switch cards between visa/MC/Amex to load money into Suica but the vast majority of the time it was super easy. We often did it as we were walking into the station. Have fun!

3. Why are you worried about tickets on Klook? Also, you are most likely SOL on the Pokémon cafe unfortunately!

4. If you’re only doing a day trip to Kyoto, my suggestion would be to skip the bamboo forest (overhyped imo, specially if you arrive there mid-morning) and do Kiyomizudera instead. I visited during sunset (before COVID) and it was gorgeous and not too crowded.

5. For pokemon cafe you had to check their website 30 days in advance and at 6 pm JST to get a reservation on the date you wanted.

   You’re sadly too late now, but once in a while reservations get cancelled. If you’re lucky and check the website fairly often then maybe you still get some options by selecting the date that you want to go to.

   It will say it’s full but you can still select a date to see all the timestamps. The only way to get a reservation now is to check that day multiple times to see if you’re lucky enough that someone has just cancelled their reservation.

6. For the Pokémon cafe keep checking it, my wife & I were able to get tickets a day in advance as someone had cancelled. Just a bit of luck. For the 20th try Miyashita park

7. For Kyoto, it’s too much to do in a day. The sights in Kyoto are very spread out and public transportation is pretty lacking for a city of its size. The bamboo forest is in Arashiyama, the western district and about a 20-30 minute train ride from Kyoto Station. Nishiki Market and the palace are in central Kyoto. And then Gion is in the eastern district. If you’d like to walk around in kimono, budget some extra time because walking in kimono naturally restricts your movement and your steps become smaller. For one day in Kyoto, I would choose one area and stick to it.

   For kimono, what do you mean by voluptuous? That being said, there are some places that do have plus size kimono, but do know that plus size in Japan isn’t necessarily plus size as we know it in North America. Still, it’s best to e-mail the rental companies in advance to ask. If you give them your widest measurement, they’ll be able to tell you if they have kimono that will fit you. Just Google “plus size kimono rental in Kyoto” and you should get some hits. FWIW my widest point is about 40″ around and with some finnagling, I can wear a standard kimono. A few inches more than that should also be fine, but beyond that, you’re probably going to have to e-mail the rental companies to ask.

8. We bought a sturdy duffle bag from Don Quixote that was relatively cheap and it made it through being checked just fine. Depending on how large/how much luggage you have, there are coin lockers in most train stations to stash things in. We traveled with 35L backpacks and were able to fit them into the smaller lockers. We used Suica on our phones and could load more money on within seconds using a stored Mastercard. There are known issues with Visa and they will not work using this method. We bought our JR passes from Klook and had no issues, I can’t see why amusement parks would be any different.

9. Take out cash from a 7-bank ATM and use it to reload your Suica at the ticket machines if you have a physical card. Apparently you can also do Suica on your phone, though I have not investigated that.

   Do Toyosu or Tsukiji fish market areas in the morning before TeamLabs reservation! I’ve never been to Toyosu, but Tsukiji outer market is awesome.

10. I’ve heard you can go to the Pokémon cafe the morning of and see all of the available time slots for the day from last minute cancellations. You can pick the time slot and come back.

11. As of April 30, no need to have travel japan website to go through customs faster + covid vaccine card; there is no more fast pass and you do not need to present and covid documentation.

    Visa will not play well with suica, if you only have vias and discover, you may opt for a physical suica card and top it up with cash. Or get and AMEX or mastercard.

    I am planning to bring backable duffle bags, these can be found really anywhere in USA and take very little space. Any large items you can likely use the box it cam in or see if the shop can mail it to the USA. Look into the extra baggage fees that airline will charge.

    I know it is late now, but you are landing in Tokyo then getting on a train to Osaka day 1; since you are already at the airport, a flight to Osaka would be a better use of your time and cheaper.

12. No plan survives first contact with the enemy. I say the same to everyone with overly detailed itineraries that you are going to have a tough time fitting everything in. It’s better to have a strategy rather than a fixed plan. Set your priorities and build your schedule on the fly based on those, what’s available, what’s nearby, the weather, and your mood. Go by stuff you have to book in advance at the top, then the stuff that’s a must do, and then the stuff that you’d like to do if you have the time but you could skip. Fill your remaining time with what’s nearby and leave some time for anything you discover that you hadn’t planned for.

    Some things you might be missing out on based on your indicated interests:

    – Gundam Base in Odaiba, it’s not far from Team labs and has the life-size Unicorn Gundam outside. The Gundam Factory might be more impressive but it’s only a short detour if you’re already in the area.

    – Pokemon center mega Tokyo. You didn’t really specify whether the last Pokemon center on your list was the one in Yokohama or one in Tokyo. But the Pokemon Center Mega Tokyo in Sunshine city in Ikebukero is the biggest one in Japan. Honestly I think you could save yourself a lot of time cutting out going to the Pokemon center in Osaka and just going to this one. As a bonus Ikebukero is also a district with a lot of shops selling anime merchandise.

    EDIT: Oh and since you mentioned this is your first big trip as a couple just try to make sure you’re on the same page with a lot of activities and take time to support each other.

13. Which travel japan website did you go to for customs?

14. One more thing to note: please prepare to use cash for everything. You can withdraw cash from foreign accounts at 7/11.

    If a place (outside of the biggest and most expensive department stores and international hotels) accepts card payments – let alone with a foreign card – that’s a rare and special encounter! People genuinely pay for things like university tuition and houses in cash here.

15. Shipping from Japan won’t be cheap, for that weight, it might be cheaper to bring it with you as extra luggage. Check price with your airline and compare to Japan post rates.

    If you want to use sui a on your iPhone, then get a Mastercard or American Express, visa is known to not work most of the time.

    Home appliances are often 100v only and might not work as intended. So unless you also want to buy a proper transformer from 120 to 100, I would not buy devices that are 100v only. I have a friend who to,d me her rice cooker was overcooking the rice, likely because of the power difference.

16. If you buy enough that you want a cheap suitcase rather than just a duffle bag, the cheapest place is likely to be Ginza Karen (though there is no longer a Ginza Karen strictly speaking in Ginza.)

    [http://ginzakaren.co.jp/](http://ginzakaren.co.jp/)

    Generally, they charge around 5000-7500 yen for a decently large check in suitcase. The bags tend to last a few International trips for me, before they get damaged, but they are the cheapest large suitcases I know of in Japan.

    In general, it is always cheaper to bring a bag as a check in than to mail it to the US. Even if you have to pay $50 for another check in, it’s likely going to cost you more than that to send stuff to yourself.

    It tends to be much harder to book window seats on the Fuji side of shinkansen, but I’m also not sure that you will even be able to see Mt. Fuji since sunset is at 6:40 pm.

    Good luck!

17. Hi! Can’t help with anything, actually wanted to ask you a question! What forms did you fill out for customs? and what website?