Hello, we are a couple in our early 30s travelling to Japan for the first time. We have booked our flights so our departure and arrival days are locked, but we have not booked any hotels yet. Any feedback on our itinerary, additional places to visit, or things to do would be nice. We also have some questions below. Thanks in advance!
1. Any downsides to staying in a hotel in the Kabukicho district? We read a bit about it and don’t want to have to deal with touts, scammers, and hectic night time environment for the entire 6 nights we are in Tokyo.
2. Which days should we buy our JR passes? The 7 day pass (if we buy it on day 5) will cover the round trip to Kyoto but won’t cover our trip to Chiba on day 3.
3. It would be nice to visit at least one castle. Are there any we can visit based on our schedule and locations?
Day 1 – Hakone
* Arrival at Haneda at 2:15pm.
* Go directly to Hakone and check into a ryokan with a private onsen.
Day 2 – Hakone/Tokyo
* 12pm-5pm: Fun2Drive guided driving tour to Mt Fuji and surrounding areas.
* Take the Odakyu Hakone Highway Bus to Shinjuku, check in to hotel in Shinjuku, dinner and explore around the hotel in Shinjuku.
Day 3 – Tokyo
* Summer Sonic 2023 in Chiba. Nothing else planned for the day until the set times are released.
* TeamLab Planets Tokyo if time allows.
Day 4 – Tokyo
* Meiji Shrine in the morning.
* Omotesando Hills shopping mall in the early afternoon.
* Shibuya district in the late afternoon.
* Shibuya Sky in the early evening.
Day 5 – Tokyo
* Tokyo Disneysea for the whole day.
Day 6 – Tokyo
* Ghibli museum in the morning and early afternoon.
* Return to Shinjuku to explore for the rest of the afternoon.
* Explore Kabukicho in the evening.
Day 7 – Tokyo
* Tokyo Imperial Palace in the morning.
* Sensoji temple in the early afternoon.
* Akihabara district in the late afternoon.
* Ginza district in the late afternoon and evening.
Day 8 – Kyoto
* Check out of hotel and take shinkansen to Kyoto.
* Check in to Kyoto hotel once arrived.
* Visit Fushimi Inari Taisha in the late afternoon.
Day 9 – Kyoto
* Spend the day in the Higashiyama district.
* Yasaka Shrine in the late morning.
* Kiyomizu-dera in the afternoon.
Day 10 – Kyoto
* Arashiyama in the morning.
* Kinkaku-ji in the afternoon.
Day 11
* Check out of hotel very early in the morning.
* Take shinkansen back to Tokyo. Since it takes around 2h 45m, we are planning to be at Kyoto station at 10am.
* Depart from Haneda at 4:45pm. We are aiming to arrive at Haneda at 2pm.
3 comments
my friend and I stayed at Hotel Gracery in the Shinjuku area back in 2018. It was a close walk to Shinjuku station. In the evenings, it was fine as the area near our hotel was also a touristy location. If you headed further in towards the host clubs / love hotel area, then you might run into the touts and scammers, but all in all, it wasn’t too bad. Sometimes when we left early in the morning, we’d see a drunk salaryman propped up against a store front sleeping, but nothing too horrible.
Well, the downside of staying in Kabukicho is that if you go back to the hotel a bit late, well, you are in the middle of a nightlife district ans might encounter touts (just never follow them) and people on the party. So it’s that’s not what you want, then don’t stay in Kabukicho.
Only doing rond trip to Kyoto you will save little to no money, so the pass is really not required unless you add something. Also Chiba is not that fat and not that expensive.
Day 2 : you can also take the Romancecar train to Shinjuku from Hakone-Yumoto station.
For castle, Osaka castle, Himeji castle and Hikone castle are some options, but they would require to allocate at leas half a day, if not the whole day, for that visit. I guess you could start the day early to leave Tokyo, get to Hikone for lunch time, so you have time to visit the castle.
I don’t like Kabukicho, but I always seem to stay there, it’s fine. They’re not going to do anything, just walk by. If it bothers you though, Shin Okubo is a similar alternative.
I doubt you can do anything on the day you go to Summer Sonic other than that (who are you going to see??).