My husband and I are going to Japan for our honeymoon/birthdays/one-year wedding anniversary/everything-in-one trip! We’re so excited, but also feeling a bit overwhelmed like everyone else.
We adore Japanese food and our main priorities are good food and sightseeing. We love wandering museums/temples/gardens, so we figured we’d spend a bit more time in Kyoto than the other places we have on our itinerary. We’re late 20s/early 30s, so we’re prepared to walk lots and tend to go faster than most others! We’re not fans of amusement parks, so opted not to spend some days at Disneysea/Universal.
We haven’t booked any hotels or ryokans yet because we wanted to nail down a rough itinerary first. We’re also keen to book a decent amount of restaurants (fingers crossed for some Michelin starred restaurants). Any recommendations/suggestions would be appreciated!
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* **Day 1 – Saturday, Oct 28: Arrive in Tokyo**
* Arrive at Narita Intl Airport at 3:00pm
* Pick up IC Card/other items
* Spend day relaxing/adjusting to local time
* **Day 2 – Sunday, Oct 29: Tokyo**
* Meiji Shrine
* Yoyogi Park
* Harajuku
* Shimokitazawa
* Shibuya
* **Day 3 – Monday, Oct 30: Tokyo**
* Tsukiji Fish Market
* Namiyoke Inari Shrine
* Hamarikyu Gardens
* Ginza
* **Day 4 – Tuesday, Oct 31: Tokyo**
* Asakusa
* Senso-ji Temple
* Tokyo National Museum
* Ueno Park
* **Day 5 – Wednesday, Nov 1: Tokyo**
* Tokyo Imperial Palace
* Royal gardens
* Studio Ghibli Museum (if we can get tickets)
* Shinjuku
* **Day 6 – Thursday, Nov 2: Hakone**
* Travel to Hakone and stay at ryokan
* **Day 7 – Friday, Nov 3: Kyoto**
* Travel to Kyoto
* Kiyomizu-dera Temple
* Explore Gion and Higashiyama
* Nishiki Market
* Yasaka Shrine
* **Day 8 – Saturday, Nov 4: Kyoto**
* Philosopher’s Path
* Nanzen-ji Temple
* Kinkaku-ji Temple
* Kyoto Botanical Gardens
* Fushimi Shrine – torii gates – go at night time for good vibes
* **Day 9 – Sunday, Nov 5: Kyoto**
* Arashiyama Bamboo Forest
* Tenryu-ji Temple
* Iwatayama Monkey Park
* **Day 10 – Monday, Nov 6: Kyoto Free Day?**
* **Day 11 – Tuesday, Nov 7: Kyoto Free Day?**
* **Day 12 – Wednesday, Nov 8: Osaka**
* Travel to Osaka
* **Day 13 – Thursday, Nov 9: Osaka**
* Osaka Aquarium
* TeamLab Botanical Garden
* **Day 14 – Friday, Nov 10: Osaka**
* Kuromon Market
* Dotonbor
* Hozenji temple
* **Day 15 – Saturday, Nov 11: Osaka**
* Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine
* Osaka Castle
* Shitennoji Temple
* **Day 16 – Sunday, Nov 12: Day trip to Nara**
* Todai-ji temple
* **Day 17 – Monday, Nov 13: Osaka Free Day?**
* **Day 18 – Tuesday, Nov 14: Koyasan**
* Travel to Koyasan and stay at Fukuchiin if we can book it
* **Day 19 – Wednesday, Nov 15: Tokyo**
* Travel to Tokyo
* **Day 20 – Thursday, Nov 16: Tokyo**
* Depart from Narita airport at 6:30pm
3 comments
You should try to go to Koyasan earlier in your trip, as peak koyasan foliage is closer to early November.
If you like gardens, look into the Kunaicho reservations / lottery process for the sento imperial palace and shukaguin villa. They are capacity controlled by definition and are a free + uncrowded way to see the royal family’s gardens.
I’d suggest splitting Tokyo into two equally long time periods at the beginning and end of the trip. Pick one hotel in the east and another hotel west of the Imperial Garden. Pick whichever hotel is closer to places you want to shop at for the latter one. In each stay, visit the sights closer to your hotel. You’ll save a bunch of time you otherwise just sit on public transit. Getting from one part of Tokyo to another often takes longer than you’d expect.
Ichijou-in is reputed to have the best food in Koyasan. Only place there that I’ve stayed at and it was very good.
Based on your interests, I’m not sure Osaka is a good fit. Street food is the weak spot in Japanese cuisine IMHO. I think Kanazawa would be a better fit. Kanazawa will be near peak foliage towards the second half of your trip and Kenroku-en is one of the greatest gardens in Japan. It also has several top-level sushi restaurants (with Mekumi being the best of them) that aren’t *as* difficult to book as the Tokyo ones (but still quite difficult)
day 7, the day itself looks good, but nishiki is poking out a bit. timewise it may not work out, and its a bit of a travel there. i suggest you stick with higashiyama including kiyomizudera and dont miss kodaiji, when its getting “late” head over to yasaka and explore gion
day 8: maybe kinkakuji is better left of that day, so you can explore the philisophers path more fully. fushimi inari is okay if you go late.
day 9: there is a good chance you could do kinkakuji before or after arashiyama if you only do the three things on the list. maybe start with tenryuji, when you exit past the garden you are standing at the entrance to the bamboo grove. walk through there, then head to the bridge/monkey park if you so chose. maybe spend the rest of the day exploring arashiyama. or skip the monkey park and explore more arashiyama. if you get “sick of it” and its like 3pm you can head to kinkakuji, but chances are, you can spend a day in arashiyama without any trouble…
day 10 and day 11
now with a free day 10 or day 11, you could head to north kyoto and see kinkakuji. a little west of kinkakuji is ryoanji and ninnaji (you can walk there but if you happen to catch a bus, your feet will thank you). I also like kitano tenmangu
seeing nijo castle might be a good change of pace from all the temples. I liked it. seeing the imperial palace is impressive from the size of it. apparently you can get in and see stuff. i never managed to. however, both locations are quite central, and from there it is very possible to head over to nishiki market