8 Day Trip Report – Early to Mid May (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto)

Hi All!

Me and a friend just finished up an 8 day trip as first timers in Japan, and were quite satisfied with the trip.

The trip overall was a little jam packed given the time constraints, but we were able to get a good chunk of what we wanted during our short time here, and it was a good lesson to learn on our next potential trip back!

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#**Here are some general observations I made while on the trip:**

1. I generally enjoyed the **customer service** in this country. Employees greeting and sending you off when you enter and leave the store, many restaurants were self-serve friendly with tablets or ticket machines, and employees can be quite accommodating when you’re a little panicked for things like the train ticket process and customizable products.

1. As a result, the **language barrier** wasn’t a terrible inconvenience when we only knew a handful of Japanese phrases, even less so trying to listen to what they were saying. We were able to do most of the things we wanted with little to no issues.

1. A **meal** out generally costed less in Japan than it did in Canada, and the food can be quite good despite the lower price. I really enjoyed getting cheap eats like ramen, rice bowls, okonomiyaki, and omurice during my trip. I admittedly bought into too much hype for other items like convenience store food and tsukemen, which left me a little disappointed as a result.

1. Speaking of, the **transit system and travel** can be quite intimidating at first, but I found Google Maps to be quite reliable for these sorts of things. The JR Pass made some areas around Tokyo and the Shinkansen quite convenient for travel, and IC cards especially were nice to have for any other instances. We ended up using ~3000 yen for transportation and a handful of vending machines, so I would highly recommend it for ease of use.

1. For **cash or card**, I felt I could use credit on ~80% of our trip with little to no issues. Some instances where we needed to use cash were in food markets, old ticket machines, shrines, and the temporary luggage forwarding and luggage storage desks that were stationed at our hotel and inside the train station. In total, I ended up using ~25000 yen cash for my travels, but I’d likely just take money out of a local ATM for next time.

1. I especially like how there is nothing hidden with pricing, and that **tax and tipping** are already factored into the advertised price/straight up not required. We could anticipate the price of our purchases before we headed to pay, and we could get rid of the billion coins we had while doing so. Tax free shopping was also quite painless, as you simply had to hand your passport to them and they mostly took care of everything else.

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#**In addition, here is the day by day breakdown:**

**Monday, Day 1:**

* For my Western Canadian friends who are taking the new Westjet flight from Calgary, their first few flights had their fair share of delays given that it’s their first operation out to Asia, so there may be a few little kinks they have to make to adjust to this new ordeal.

* A few little delays (technical issue with plane, dealing with my buddy’s nausea after the flight) resulted in us not being able to redeem our JR pass at the airport as it closed at 7 PM, but we were somehow able to traverse through the Narita Express to our hotel at **Hotel Gracery Shinjuku**.

* Overall, this was the most spacious and most comfortable of the 3 hotels we stayed in, and had a small/narrow but great view of Tokyo from the windows. The novelty of the Godzilla head was also a nice touch.
* I was surprised with how packed the area was even on a Monday evening after Golden Week, and the crowds overall took some time to get used to coming from a very spacious home environment.

**Tuesday, Day 2:**

* The **Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building** had a great view of Tokyo. I particularly liked the contrast between all the skyscrapers, Shinjuku Gyoen, and especially the endless amounts of small buildings.

* As we were unable to activate our JR pass at the airport, we ended up doing this at Shinjuku Station in the morning. The lineup on a late Monday morning wasn’t too long, but still took us half an hour to go through the whole process.

* We then headed up to **Nakano Broadway** to look for some anime merchandise. It’s a nice condensed area with a bunch of unique and older items available for purchase. Great place to do a little window shopping, but we didn’t end up buying much here.

* Finally, we ended up at **Ikebukuro** to hunt for more merch. Evidently, we were not part of the target market for this area and couldn’t get anything here, but there is plenty of other shopping to do around the area, so I’d come by again.

* This day ended up being way too jam packed, and we were exhausted from the 35k steps we walked. I’d definitely spread more things out on future trips to make the walking more manageable.

**Wednesday, Day 3:**

* We checked out of our hotel the next morning and noticed that there was a **luggage forwarding service** for Sagawa Express in the lobby. I ended up trying out this service on a whim and I was fine with the result. Some scuffs and scratches on the luggage (which they recommended a luggage cover for, but we opted not to get), and it took a little over 24 hours for the luggage to arrive at our hotel in Osaka for 2000 yen per checked bag.

* After that, we went to **Shibuya Sky**. The wide open sky was quite nice, but I can see this being a little too hot to handle when it becomes peak summer weather. Personally, I preferred the views in the government building more.

* We then headed out for our **Shinkansen** to Osaka. For folks with the JR Pass, please keep in mind that you have access to the Hikari and the Kodama line. We unfortunately ended up getting seats at the Kodama line, and the trip to Osaka was a little longer than we initially expected.

* After we got off the Shinkansen, we ended up at **Karaksa Hotel Grande Shin-Osaka Tower**. Really like that many of the hotels here include pyjamas and slippers, and especially loving that this specific hotel had a **public bath** in the building. We initially went to **Hinata no Yu** for our first public bath experience that evening, but ended up using the hotel’s public bath more often as it was far less busy and much more convenient. On future trips, I’m definitely on the lookout for more hotels with public baths in them.

**Thursday, Day 4:**

* Our first stop of the day was to **Fushimi Inari**. It can be quite packed at the entrance, especially with all the school field trips that were happening during our time there. You do see less and less people as you go up, so it can be quite peaceful during your final few stages up. I felt that the walk down was more taxing than the walk up, since you can cushion your steps better going up than stomping down.

* For lunch, we ended up going to **Nishiki Market** for some skewered meat and mochi. This was probably the most packed area we went through during our trip, and that kinda meant we couldn’t enjoy the food as much as we could have. The food markets were definitely nice to try, but I’d opt to eat somewhere a little less crowded next time.

* After exploring Kyoto for a couple more hours, we headed back to **Dotonbori** to enjoy some Okonomiyaki as well as the Round 1 Spocha. It was fun trying out all the activities in this facility, even if I had to learn the hard way that most batting cages are right handed oriented…

**Friday, Day 5:**

* We took a half day trip to **Nara** to feed some of the deer and enjoy a little bit of mochi pounding. It can be a little intimidating when the deer swarm you for biscuits, but still a fun experience nonetheless. The mochi pounding also lasted a quick minute after half an hour of anticipation, and my friend had the pleasure of enjoying both of our mochis since they were covered in a peanut powder.

* After that, we headed to **Namba** for a little more shopping, but ultimately didn’t buy anything there. We did enjoy a little takoyaki while there, but as I was determined not to burn my mouth eating it, it ended up turning into one giant pile of mush poking air holes all around my food.

**Saturday, Day 6:**

* It was time to check out of this hotel and move back to Tokyo for our last leg of the trip. When boarding the train, we realized that we were actually on the Nozomi line instead of the Hikari line that we booked. Once we figured that out, we immediately stepped off at Kyoto Station and waited for our train that was a few minutes behind.

* **Hotel MONday Ueno Okachimachi** was the last accommodation we booked for the trip. This hotel ended up having the least frills out of all the areas we stayed in, and the bedroom and bathroom were quite packed. I was very much missing the on-site public bath at this point. We also had a view of some construction going on just metres away from our window, quite the contrast from all the other hotels we’ve been to.

* We then headed to **Akihabara** to do a little scouting around before we ended up buying anything. Given that it was a weekend evening, the area was quite packed and we didn’t get too many opportunities to look through everything we wanted, but I would say its just as advertised, and had plenty of choices for anime merch.

**Sunday, Day 7:**

* **teamLab Planets Tokyo** was our first stop of the day, as we intended to get there right when they opened to beat the line. Definitely the best place to be for photos, and I personally didn’t mind any of the wear and tear around the exhibits as some posts have alluded to. Well worth the price of admission.

* We did most of our gift shopping at **Ginza**, where a handful of premium and flagship stores were located in for the major brands. Naturally, we did most of our gift shopping at the fanciest place of them all: Don Quijote. This store was not as busy as the other one’s we’ve been to, and given that we were a day away from leaving the country, we panic bought a few things to ensure we got everything on our checklist.

* Finally, one last trip to Akihabara to actually confirm all the things we wanted and we bought them accordingly. Only thing was my friend was a little too trigger happy with the giant figures he bought, and it ended up costing him most of his luggage space.

**Monday, Day 8:**

* It was finally time to check out. Unfortunately, I was not able to plan much on our last day despite our flight leaving in the evening, so we haphazardly trotted around **Tokyo Station** to temporarily store our luggage while the coin lockers were inaccessible (due to the G7 Summit), and bought additional souvenirs last minute both here and at the airport.

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#**Some general lessons I learned from the trip:**

1. The biggest adjustment I had to make was all the **walking** I was doing from station to station and district to district. It’s quite the contrast from needing to drive everywhere in North America, and I would likely need to lighten my itinerary day by day as a result.

1. Additionally, **one week was not enough** to get everything checked off my bucket list. I would say I managed to do 70% of what I wanted to do on this trip, and I would have liked to do more day trips and add rest days to my itinerary for next time.

1. For **accommodation**, some of the things I’ll be sure to focus on next time include proximity to major train stations, room size, and amenities. Especially after a full day of travel, there is nothing better than to get from the station to your hotel as soon as possible, have a proper bath in a wide open space, and generally being able to use all the room available space for packing. Being within close proximity to stores/restaurants that opened early would also be nice, as I typically struggle to sleep when travelling, and always left early to explore at an incredibly quiet hour. Comfort wise, a ryokan will definitely be another thing to check off for next time.

1. A lot of the **anime related districts** were nice to explore at least once, but I’d personally stick to Akihabara next time for convenience sake, especially if you’re staying in the area. Having to lug around these things on the train seems like quite the chore.

1. Maximizing the amount of **luggage space** we had was also important for our needs, we would have been much more comfortable if we had one more bag to fit everything we purchased. Additionally, a list of specific products to buy in Japan would be good to have for next time, as you can be overwhelmed with the amount of choice you have in addition to the language barrier.

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I’m hoping this guide managed to help a few people with their upcoming trips! It’s been a wild couple of months trying to coordinate my first independent international trip, and the subreddit has helped loads with that. Thanks for reading through this!