Wife and I took our first trip to Japan from 4/23-5/8. We have traveled Asia before so we kind of knew what to expect but Japan is unique in many aspects that I will cover below. Golden Week is highly talked about on this sub and I will discuss how it impacted our travels and where we found it was most busy. I wont go into our itinerary on a daily basis but will try to give details on what we did.
**Tokyo:**
Getting from Haneda Airport – we took the airport bus from Haneda to Shinjuku Station. This was cheap and quick – we then walked to our hotel with our bags for \~10 minutes. The total trip from the airport was around 40 minutes.
We stayed in Shinjuku in the Godzilla hotel and this area is incredibly lively. If you are not a night owl and do not intend on going out at night, I would advise against staying here. The “red light” district is interesting to walk through and relatively very safe. Nobody is going to bother you, however, that might be different if you are a solo traveler.
TeamLabs was fun and I recommend doing it first thing in the morning to maximize your time inside with fewer people. As others have mentioned, the water can feel weird and does smell like chlorine. Its a touristy attraction and we spent about an hour there.
Do the Tsukijii Market before or after Teamlabs if you can, they are relatively close to each other and you will be able to avoid lines there as well if you do it in the morning.
Tokyo was not as busy the week before Golden Week and you could comfortably walk around most areas and not feel surrounded.
Nakano is fun if you are interested in watches, manga, anime etc and you could spend about 4/5 hours there.
Akihabara – similar to Nakano – this area is for Anime, Cosplay, Electronics lovers. Every building has multiple stores dedicated to these hobbies. If you are interested in this, you could easily spend all day here.
Asakusa – this was the most crowded area we experienced in Tokyo. We planned on spending a lot of time here but it was so packed that we ventured west to Kappabashi and Ueno for kitchenware and shopping.
Ginza – your standard high end shopping district – if you can afford to shop here, you are spoiled for choice as every high end brand in the world has a spot here. There are also tens of malls that have great food courts and shopping as well.
**Kyoto:**
We took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto and it took about 2.5 hours.
Kyoto’s infrastructure is not as good as Tokyo so be prepared to take multiple trains and buses to the main spots around town.
Arashiyama Bamboo Grove and surrounding area – we visited this during golden week and if you arrive at 8am, you are “Golden.” However, anything past that, be prepared to be swarmed by tourists and the millions of Japanese school children traveling during that time.
Fushimi Inari Taisha – we arrived around 9am and it was crowded but if you follow the path up for like 20 minutes, you will already see a significant decrease in people. It is not the easiest hike up so most tourists do not bother.
Kyoto is a far more relaxed and traditional atmosphere compared to Tokyo or Osaka. Take a bike out and take a ride down the river. Spend some time walking around Gion at night, its quiet and beautiful.
If you have time, book a Kimono and Tea Ceremony experience – great way to get into the traditional Kyoto feel.
**Osaka:**
This would probably be the only part of our trip that we would change.
We stayed in Osaka for two nights after Kyoto and it was underwhelming. We did not go to US in Osaka so I cannot comment on that but as we started in Tokyo, Osaka did not do much for us.
I would have turned Osaka into a full day trip from Kyoto instead.
TeamLabs Botanical is also a fun experience at night but also very crowded and underwhelming in the end as it is just lights pointed at objects. Take a few pics, walk around and out within an hour.
**Hakone:**
I wish we had more time to spend in Hakone as I loved the Japanese Countryside.
We spent one night in an upscale Ryokan with a private Onsen and it was worth every penny.
Getting from Odawara Station to Hakone can be a bit annoying. I recommend taking the train if your accommodations are near a stop but otherwise you can take a bus that stops every 30 seconds.
Hakone during Golden Week was absolutely packed. Tons of Japanese locals seemed to take over the area and the buses and trains were full. If you are going to spend time in this area, come prepared to leave early for the main attractions.
Ryokans are an expensive but wonderful experience. The Japanese service you are used to is on steroids here. If you get a place that offers Kaeseki meals in the room, definitely take advantage of that.
**Restaurants We Recommend:**
* Afuri Ramen – The spicy yuzu ramen here is sublime. Definitely worth a visit. They have multiple locations but we hit the Harajuku location.
* The Bellwood – one of the most unique sushi experiences in all of Japan. If you can make a reservation for one of their seatings (they only have 4 seats), I highly recommend you do so.
* Sushi Marafuku – unique, aged fish Omakase meal. If you are familiar with Omakase and want to try something a little bit different, this is your spot.
* Happy Pancake – this is a classic social media spot but the pancakes were quite good. Not a must visit but if you like pancakes, plan it into your trip
* Kichisen (Kyoto) – if you have not tried a traditional Kaiseki meal, I would recommend doing so here. Kaiseki is incredibly weird, lots of different dishes and they do not all go together well but its worth the experience for a traditional meal.
* Maguro – to – shari – great rice bowls with high quality fish
**Other Observations and Tips:**
* We booked the JR Rail Pass directly from the JR company and loved the ability to book seats in advance. We rode in both the Green cars and regular cars and if you splurge on the Green car, I found it to be worth it, especially for longer rides
* Pick up your JR Pass outside of the airport – the Haneda airport office was packed and the line was at least an hour or two. We picked up our pass at Shinjuku station when we came back on a random day and it was empty.
* If you need to change your JR Pass tickets (after they have been issued) you will have to go to an office – they were able to quickly change our time and seats and issue new tickets at no cost
* As others have mentioned, trash cans are sorely lacking. I understand the cultural decisions at play here but it is actually ridiculous at some points. Every coffee shop sells coffee to go and pastry stores do as well but there is usually nowhere to throw it out. Bring a bag, find a Starbucks or go to the bathroom to throw our your trash.
* We bought a Suica/Pasmo card once we landed in Japan directly in our Apple Wallet and kept reloading it as needed. **Remember to always swipe in and out of train stations or your card will be locked and you will need to find an attendant to help unlock it.**
* **This part was stupid:** If you want to visit a store located inside a train station area where you need to swipe your IC Card, you will need to pay a fee to exit the station even if you dont buy anything from the stores or ride the train. This happened to us at Tokyo station as I wanted to visit a specific Sake Store and had to pay 150 Yen to exit (which is more than the typical train ride).
* Japan a has a big reservation culture. Even some restaurants that were empty turned us away without a reservation. If you cannot make a reservation in advance, ask your hotel for help.
* You will walk, a lot. We walked over 150+ miles across our two weeks in Japan. Bring good shoes and be prepared for it. Take breaks, stretch, get an Onsen in Hakone 🙂
* Google Reviews in Japan are harsh (and poorly translated) – a 3.5 in Japan typically is like a low 4 in the US from my experience. Do not stress to much about the reviews and just enjoy the food. It is mostly delicious everywhere.
* This might be controversial: Many of Japans temples, shrines etc are similar in design and style. If you have travelled to somewhere like Thailand and saw the far more impressive architecture, I recommend not rushing to see every single temple you can. The law of diminishing returns definitely applies here. Check out the major ones (especially in Kyoto) but do not go out of your way to squeeze them in if you are pressed for time or want to see other areas.
11 comments
Great write up! My spouse and I were in pretty much the same areas between April 25 and May 6th.
Which Ryokan in Hakone did you stay at?
Loved the pancakes but didn’t feel like I actually ate anything afterwards. 😂😂
> I understand the cultural decisions at play here but it is actually ridiculous at some points.
Nah. What’s ridiculous is how I live in a country full of trash cans and garbage bins and it looks like an absolute pig-sty compared to Japan.
Japan is the cleanest country I’ve every been too. The fact that you’re whinging about taking the smallest amount of responsibility for your consumption habits is something else.
>This part was stupid: If you want to visit a store located inside a train station area where you need to swipe your IC Card, you will need to pay a fee to exit the station even if you dont buy anything from the stores or ride the train.
You’re entering the station. The stores are inside the station. Do you expect to be able to go to the airport lounge and duty free when you’re not flying?
There does seem to be a bit of a cultural difference regarding rating in Japan versus elsewhere. In my experiences, other cultures start higher (4 or 5 stars) and ding stars as appropriate. The result is that places with no issues, and places that are truly extraordinary both get high marks. I’ve noticed Japanese tend to start in the middle (say 3 stars) as a baseline and adjust accordingly, with 3 being no issues, 4 or 5 being award-winning. But I don’t know, that’s just my thoughts and observation.
This thread earlier this year in r/Japan touches upon it a bit https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/zpwphu/why_do_japanese_businesses_receive_low_ratings_on/
lmao I stayed in the godzilla hotel last time in japan and didn’t fucking realise i was even in the red light district
like yeah I noticed the… stuff. But did I think red light? omgg im dying @ my level of unawareness now.
EDIT: A few more thoughts:
* We did not wait in line for more than 20/30 minutes. Places like Ichiran Ramen aren’t worth your time when you have so much to do and see.
* I was surprised at how well English was actually understood and spoken. We had no issues in most places ordering food or asking for help – totally different experiences to other Asian countries I have visited.
* We found the best place to exchange cash was at the airport. They were closest to par with the exchange rate vs other places we saw throughout Japan. We changed about $300 USD and didn’t go through that all.
* The umbrella game – lots of people in Japan have similar umbrellas. You kind of just put your umbrella in a holder when entering a store or restaurant and might receive a totally different one when you leave as people just take them randomly. This is actually something I googled and saw others with similar comments
* Imperial Palace in Tokyo is closed to visitors – we did not know that ahead of time
* Osaka Castle has long lines due to an extremely inefficient ticket system. Buy them online or ahead of time. That said – Nimeji Castle is far superior and this one was a hollow rebuild
* Tokyo Station was to us the most confusing station to navigate in all of Japan. Give yourself a bit more time here – between the stores, malls and numerous lines
* The deer at Nara bite. If you buy the cookies to feed them, be prepared to be swarmed and bitten – they got me right on my ass.
* Nara was a wonderful day trip – the sake brewery right off the Main Street does tastings for 500 yen and the bottles are cheap
* The Nara mochi show was funny and the Mochi actually tastes great – although people crowd the entrance for a 2 minute performance so if you are interested be there early.
* Smoking is prevalent in Japan – some restaurants allow it inside and you could be smelling it
* Not all revolving sushi chains are created equal – do some research ahead of time as they vary in quality greatly
Did you reserve any restaurants? I don’t want a reservation to dictate my day.
Thanks for the trip report! How many days did you explore in Kyoto?
>We bought a Suica/Pasmo card once we landed in Japan directly in our Apple Wallet and kept reloading it as needed.
Thank you for the trip report. How were you able to purchase/reload the card inside of Apple Wallet? Was it with a Mastercard or Amex (in Wallet) as I have read that you can’t use Visa.
Not sure how soon in May you left, whether it was still golden week or not, I’m wondering how quickly golden week crowds calmed down?
Afuri ramen is on my food list now – spicy yuzu ramen sounds delicious and nice to see they have a vegan option, too! 🙂
This is great to hear. I have a good 4-5 days scheduled in Osaka, but was planning on doing day trips from there because it didn’t seem like you need quite that much time to see the whole city. We just will have a baby with us, so wanted to minimize hotel changes over the two weeks.