This post is a little delayed since my boyfriend (m23) and I (f23) got back from Japan May 30th, but I’ve finally decided to sit down and post this for all those interested. This subreddit’s posts really helped me plan out an amazing vacation and I’m hoping to pay it back.
Day 1 Tokyo:
* Arrived at Haneda airport \~4:00pm, opted for Suica card that we could return at the end of the trip for a refund of deposit and leftover money.
* Line for JR Pass was incredibly long and since we would not need it until a week into our vacation we decided to pick ours up later at Tokyo station.
* Took monorail into the city and got to our hotel \~6:00pm.
* Went to a grocery store across the street for our first meal in Japan and the next day’s breakfast.
Day 2 Tokyo:
* Boyfriend and I could not sleep past 4am because of jetlag so we headed out by 6am to get to Senso-ji before the crowds.
* Headed to a McDonalds to see what the Japanese version had to offer.
* Went back to Senso-ji to get my first goshuin (didn’t open until 9)
* Got melon pan w/ vanilla icecream at Asakusa Kagetsudo
* Went to Tokyo National Museum for about 3 hours. At this point our bodies were getting pretty sore since we had walked much of the day, we would opt for trains more often later in the trip.
* Got lunch at Ichiran
* Visited a couple stores in Akihabara, including my boyfriend’s favorite, Yodobashi-Akiba.
Day 3 Tokyo:
* Headed to Tokyo station to get our JR passes (not activated until day 6)
* Went to the Imperial Palace to wait in line for day-of tickets for the morning tour
* Tsukiji Market for a lunch of tamagoyaki, eel, wagyu beef, and a kimchi croquette
* Went to Ginza and the MUJI flagship store
* Went out to dinner at Tenko Gyozabo, a restaurant near our hotel.
Day 4 Tokyo:
* Spent several hours in the morning exploring Shinjuku Gyeon National Garden, the roses were in full bloom.
* Went to Nakano broadway, with a quick lunch at an Indian restaurant along the main walk way from the the train station.
* We had tickets for the Studio Ghibli museum at 4, but had some time to kill before that so we hung out at Inokishira Park for a little over an hour.
* Spent two hours at Studio Ghibli museum taking in all the cool artwork.
* This was another day full of soreness, so we spent the rest of the night relaxing.
Day 5 Tokyo:
* Meiji Shrine was our first stop for the day (got a preprinted goshuin here)
* Window shopping in Harajuku
* Did some cook-it-yourself okonomiyaki and sobameshi at Sakura Tei
* Saw the Tokyo skyline from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building
* Spent the night doing laundry and packing up since we were leaving for Hakone the next day
Day 6 Hakone:
* We used our JR Passes to take the shinkansen from Tokyo station to Odawara, at Odawara we bought two-day Hakone free passes.
* We did the round course backwards, starting with the train and bus to Motohakone Port, then the ferry to Togendai Port, ropeway and cable car to Gora, and then a bus to our hotel/ryokan, Asante Inn.
* We walked (big mistake) to have lunch at Babil Cafe & Restaurant and made sure to take the bus back.
* We relaxed in our room and had a private reservation time for the Inn’s onsen.
Day 7 Hakone/Kyoto:
* We spent our morning at the Hakone Open Air Museum and then headed back to Odawara station to make our shinkansen to Kyoto.
* Checked into our room at Pocket Hotel, changed out of our sweaty clothes and headed back out to Nishiki Market to try soy sauce dango, strawberry mochi, and shaved ice along with a sit down meal at one of the restaurants in the market.
* We headed to Fushimi Inari Shrine shortly before sunset and although it was crowded in the lower walkways, it quickly thinned out as we made our way up the mountain. We made it to the top and on our way back down, we stopped at one of the look out points to see the sunset. I was expecting this hike to be much worse than it was, but it only took us about 1.5 hours to get up and back down.
* Stopped at Baskin Robbins on our way home for dessert.
Day 8 Kyoto:
* Started at Kiyomizu-dera where I got another goshuin and we walked through the pitch black basement of one of the building that represented a mother’s womb.
* Walked the old lanes of Sanneizaka and Nineizaka.
* Visited Kodai-ji.
* Lunch at Hisago, udon and oyakodon
* Visited Yasaka Shrine.
* Saw Tatsumi Bridge and Shirakawa lane both in the daylight and night time.
Day 9 Kyoto:
* It was an incredibly rainy day and we really should have switched what we did on this day with day 10, but we already had a plan so we just stuck to it and got soaked through.
* Started at the bamboo grove
* Went to the Iwatayama Monkey Park where the monkeys did not seem to be too bothered by the weather
* Adashino Nenbutsu-ji was our next temple stop and then Otagi Nenbutsu-ji (probably my favorite temple of the entire trip because of all the little statues)
* We went back to our hotel to dry off before going back out to eat at Ippudo. We got dessert (shaved ice) at Nishiki Market and then went back to our hotel.
Day 10 Kyoto:
* Got to Kinkaku-ji shortly after its opening time and it was so crowded that it wasn’t even that enjoyable.
* Next we went to Daitoku-ji, a complex of various subtemples. We visited Ryogen-in and also Obai-in, which is normally closed to the public, but had special opening hours the day we went. One of the monks here gave my boyfriend and I an impromptu lesson on Buddhism and Zen teachings.
* Had lunch at Nishiki Warai, okonomiyaki-Warai style and sobameshi. Had shaved ice yet again!
Day 11 Nara:
* Traveled to Nara, dropping off our bags right away.
* Kofuku-ji and its museum were our first stops.
* Todai-ji and its giant buddha statue
* Fed some deer
* Kasuga Taisha
* This stop was probably our worst stay and we really should have paid a little more for a better hotel.
Day 12 Osaka:
* Headed to the railway forgotten market which was a bit of a let down after seeing fun stuff about it online.
* Osaka castle (one of my boyfriend’s favorite spots), the building was impressive and the museum inside was very informational
* Went to dotonbori to explore and find some good food to eat.
Day 13 Osaka:
* Spent our morning/early afternoon at the Osaka aquarium which had a wait time when we arrived, but we got in about 45 minutes after arriving.
* We went to get lunch at dotonbori and then visited some retro game shops.
* Relaxed at night to prepare for our next busy day
Day 14 Osaka:
* Universal studios all day long!
* Used express pass 4 to get timed entry to Super Nintendo World and Harry Potter world
* When we got back to our hotel, we went out to dinner at a Spanish restaurant, Banda, where we had delicious paella and tapas
Day 15 Osaka:
* Cup Noodles Factory where we made our own personalized Cup Noodles
* Lunch at Ippudo
* Took a train to Mino-o and then hiked to Minoh Falls with a stop at Ryuan-ji along the way
* teamLab Botanical Garden at night
Day 16 Miyajima:
* Shinkansen to Hiroshima, then train to Miyajima-guchi, then a ferry over to Miyajima, all covered by JRpass
* Started at Daisho-in
* Had udon, eel, and rice lunch at Zipang
* Walked through Itsukushima and took photos of the “floating” torii gate at high tide. We waited in a verrry long line for this goshuin.
* Did a short stop at Daigan-ji
* Went out for dinner at Yosakoi, soba and cheesy okonomiyaki
* Now it was low tide so we walked out to the torii gate to take photos, we also came back when it was dark out and the flood lights lit up the torii gate
Day 17 Hiroshima:
* We went to the Peace Memorial Park and spent several hours exploring the different memorials and museums
* We had a group of Japanese primary school children come up to us while we were taking a break on a park bench and they practiced their English on us. Their teacher(?) even asked to have a photo of us with them and then they gifted us each a folded paper crane.
* Next was the Hiroshima castle and shrine.
* The shrine had an event going on that night that we came back for. It was a festival for the shrine maidens, so we got to see a large group of young women and girls do several traditional dances along with performances by others.
Day 18 Himeji/Tokyo:
* We left early on the shinkansen to get to Himeji shortly after its opening
* After exploring the castle and its grounds, we went to get lunch before getting back on the shinkansen to Tokyo
* We checked into our hotel and then went to get dinner at Indian Nepali Restsurant & Bar Maakali – (how its spelt on Google)
Day 19 Tokyo:
* We went back to Nakano Broadway to buy the items we wanted from our first trip there
* Went back to Tsukiji Market to get some more food
* Had an evening reservation at teamLab Planets
Day 20 Tokyo:
* We had a late afternoon flight back home, but we just decided to spend the day at the airport after turning in our Suica cards
BUDGET (all in usd):
Flights: $990 per person from US
Accomodations: \~$29 per person per night (always had a private room, sometimes had a shared bathroom)
Within Japan Travel including 14 day JR pass, 2-day Hakone free pass, busses, and trains: \~$23 per day per person
Food (restaurants, groceries, combinis, street food): \~$20 per day per person, usually had a small breakfast (bf did not eat breakfast), medium to large sized lunch, medium sized dinner, this category probably had the most range day to day, some days were really cheap and others were more costly
Activities (temples, museums, anything else with an entrance fee): \~$17.50 per day per person
Total including flights and miscellaneous costs (medicines, souvenirs, etc) per person: \~$2900
6 comments
I would say you did Hakone clockwise, there is no “backward” way to do it in my opinion, both directions are valid.
If I had to give an advice, it would have been to not spend the night in Nara, I do not see much advantage doing it. There is not any special nightlife in Nara either. So unless you are going to an even late in Nara, spend more than one day…. would not especially spend a night in Nara.
You could easily just go as a daytrip from either Kyoto or Osaka or as a stop between the two, leaving your luggage in a locker during the day, like you did for Himeji. While I do not especially mind hotel changes, might as well avoid extra change if ou can easily avoid it.
Awesome write up.
Did you buy a ticket for the aquarium in Osaka before you went or did you buy it when you got there. On my last day in Osaka I have a train back to Tokyo at like 4:30pm and I was hoping to go to the aquarium first before I left.
Do you feel the 2 week JR pass was worth it or would you have opted for 1 week?
Edit: also, did you just use Suica card in Tokyo? How much did you load on it?
Thanks for the write-up! Definitely gonna add the MUJI flagship store and Daitoku-ji to our itinerary.
Don’t pick up your JR rail pass at Narita Airport unless you are going straight to Osaka/Kyoto or wherever and need the pass ASAP. This is good advice for any traveller. I remember in april when we passed the JR tourist office at Narita when we came back from Okinawa. There was a huge line and me and my wife kept wondering what it could be for until it hit us. It’s really unneccessary given that there are places to activate the JR pass in several major centers in Tokyo.
Great report ! Very informative and well summarized. Looks like you had full and rewarding days, that’s the kind of travel I enjoy 🙂
Quick question on the Imperial Palace tour : I assume you took the 10am free one. How early do you think you need to show up to guarantee registration for 2 persons ? Also, where did you line up, at the Kikyo-mon gate ? We’re targeting the 1:30pm tour in September.