8-day Osaka/Kyoto/Tokyo Itinerary Advice for First-Timer

16 comments

1. Denden town, yeah, why not. It’s not exactly like Akihabara. It’s like if you were considering not going to Ikebukuro either because it’s also known to be one of the anime/manga spot in Tokyo but again, different than Akihabara).

   You seems to plan a change of hotel from Osaka to Kyoto, but that is not really necessary, you can easily do a full daytrip to Kyoto and one to Nara.

   In Nara, do not miss Todai-ji.

2. I’m in japan right now……team labs…..period

3. Yeah check out DenDen town for sure! I enjoyed wandering around there and some of the shops were very different from Akiba. I also enjoyed the few Lashinbang shops near Nishiki Marketplace in Kyoto.

4. Maybe you could visit the flagship store of Animate as well in Ikebukuro on your Day 7

5. That’s a pretty solid itinerary for a first time visit. If you’re set on eating dinner at Dontonburi try to get a reservation or be prepared to wait for at least an hour for a table. Denden Town has a small town feel compared to Akihabara. There’s an Animate store in Denden Town but I assume you likely have plans to visits their Flagship store in Ikebukuro.
   I always tell friends and family visiting for the first time to skip Nara and spend more time in Kyoto if they only have a couple days in the area.
   Keep in mind you won’t see any cats in Yanaka Ginza (shopping street) since the cats avoid crowds, but plenty of cat souvenirs to be had there. If you walk along adjacent streets with less people you’ll have a better chance of seeing some feline friends. I hear you can see cats at the temples next to the cemetery, but I cannot confirm this 🙂

6. Don’t forget the Nakatanidou mochi shop in Nara! Delicious, freshly made mochi

7. Give kichi kichi a miss. Old mate wants everyone to film every second of the experience and upload it to the gram or tiktok. Less focused on his food and more on being a glorified character. 0/10

8. Good luck with your Kirby cafe reservation. Be ready on July 10th at 6pm JST (so, for example, 5 am EST). Pull the website up 5 minutes beforehand. Have your auto fill ready for your name. At the top of the hour, refresh the page, click the button and go go go. All reservations were gone in under a minute this month. Managed to get my reservation though!

9. when you are in higashiyama in Kyoto and see Kiyomizudera, if you got time, do not miss Kodaiji

   I think if you are going to Nara, you should walk through the park, see some deer, and see todaiji with the big budda and see Yoshikien Garden.

   its a bit of a shame to miss kinkakuji and some stuff in arashiyama but I get it you cant do it all. now, I am crazy, and I would try to do Kinkakuji or even Tenryuji in Arashiyama first thing, then head to Nara, and then on my way back see Fushimi Inari.
   [or see Kinkakuji before Tokyo]

   Climbing Fushimi Inari (and its more walk up the stairs not climb), be aware, there is a rest spot with a great view, but on the top, you dont have much of a view. so, if you dont go aaaallll the way, you may miss out on saying been there done that but at least you dont miss out on view

10. For a trip this short, I would generally recommend picking either Kansai or Kanto, not both. There is easily enough in Kyoto/Osaka/Nara to fill a week or more. I typically recommend at least 3 full days as a starting point just for the highlights of Kyoto. That said, if you do keep the current schedule, this is what I recommend:

    >August

    What dates in August?

    >Day 1: Osaka

    Skip Amerikamura and spend time in the Shinsekai, the Namba arcades, or Umeda instead. DenDen Town is within walking distance of Kuromon (to the north) and Shinsekai (to the south). You could start at Kuromon for lunch, walk through DenDen Town to Shinsekai, and then head back up to Namba/Dotonbori after that–all on foot.

    >Day 2: Osaka / Kyoto

    Skip Osaka Castle (it’s a concrete reconstruction anyway) and go to Kyoto immediately. Unlike some other posters, I think it makes a lot of sense to change hotels to Kyoto–you have very little time, and saving yourself an hour or two of transit is huge.

    >Day 3: Nara / Kyoto

    Nara to me is most or all of a full day, and going there for the deer is kind of like going to Rome to see the pigeons. Definitely see Todai-ji, but don’t stop there. I would make a point of going to Nigatsu-do and Kasuga-taisha as well.

    Kinkaku-ji I agree with skipping given your time limitations and the fact that it’s relatively small, constantly packed, and fairly isolated from other sights. I would also probably skip Arashiyama since you only have one day in Kyoto, but skipping it just because you don’t like monkeys leads me to believe you don’t really have any idea what Arashiyama is. The monkeys are a teeny-tiny fraction of what there is to do there, and they’re in a park on a mountain away from most other attractions.

    >Tokyo

    I was going to make comments on individual days for Tokyo, but so many of them are so empty that I didn’t have much to say. For that reason, and the fact that Kansai is so rushed, I would cut 2 days from Tokyo and give then Kyoto. I would also cut Ginza (unless you’re really into upscale brand shopping), add Ameyayokocho (on the same day as Akihabara and Yanaka), and plan to spend some time in Shinjuku. I’m also not sure that Ikebukuro is really worth the time–especially if you’re just going there for Animate (a chain store that exists in Akihabara, DenDen Town, and Kyoto, amongst other locations).

    Edit: Judging by the fact that you’re considering Summer Sonic, it seems you’re going in mid-August. Given that information, you should also be aware that the 16th is Gozan-no-Okuribi in Kyoto.

11. If you want to see stray cats, definitely do Fushimi Inari at night. We saw like 10 of them during our walk up!

12. Unless you really, really like stairs, fushimi inari isn’t worth climbing to the top. Halfway mark has the best views and after that it’s just stairs with no scenery leading to the top which has no scenery or big shrines, just a small stone plaque that says 山顶 or mountain top.

13. Don’t skip Osaka castle —it was my fave thing in Osaka.

14. I’d highly recommend making some time to visit Asakusa while in Tokyo. Lovely area and you can get some great views of Skytree from there too. I’d also recommend checking out Zozo-ji temple after dark as there are some great views of Tokyo Tower.

15. biggest piece of advice is buy tickets online

    my experience:

    went to osaka castle -> 30 min+ line in the bright afternoon sun -> googled it and managed to buy tickets online in less than a minute, for the exact same price too

    went to an aquarium at 2pm -> ticket counter was only selling tickets starting from 2:40pm -> bought a ticket online instead for 2:15pm

    etc.

16. Consider just picking two places and not three, would be my advice.

    Tokyo and Kyoto would be my advice.