Hi!
I need advise on planning one of my days in japan (it’s my first time there!).
Essentially, I planned:
– Visit Studio Ghibli from 12:00 – 2:00pm
– Go to Ikebukuro from 2:30 – 5:00pm (for sunshine city mall, namjatown, animate Ikebukuro)
– Spend rest of the evening at Shinjuku 4:30 – 9:00pm ( for tokyo metropolitan building, golden gai, omoide yokocho, kabukicho tower)
Advise? Is it too much?
14 comments
You’ll have to speed run the museum in that amount of time, I’m sure you’ll “get through” everything but there a lot of things there that youll want to check out closely and read. My friend and I basically spent all day there and still didn’t want to leave
Ghibli will take more than 2 hours. The café experience alone is an hour, then the short movie in the theatre another 30 minutes. Id comfortably allocate 3-4 hours to really enjoy the museum.
Ikebukuro for 2.5hr also feels rushed. You are exploring a large area with malls and the largest animate store. Ikebukuro is an entire afternoon activity
Might be possible if you get to Ghibli park earlier. It’s also like a 20 min walk from the station. so that 40 ish mins in just walking to Ghibli park and back.
Too much for one day. Take your time.
Haha I just booked my Ghibli museum tickets
Disclaimer I’ve never gone but from what I’ve read, 2 hours for the museum should be plenty of time if you don’t eat at the straw hat cafe, the lines can be long. Otherwise it’s a small museum and everyone I asked says that you’ll spend 1.5 hours there max if you don’t eat there
While I think your day is doable, it seems kinda miserable with so much stuff packed in. I would put ikebukuro and Shinjuku on different days
It’s at least 45 minutes from the Ghibli museum to Ikebukuro if your connections work out, and you can easily spend 3-4 hours there, it’s going to be an incredibly rushed day if you want to include both Ikebukuro and Shinjuku as well
I think glibly museum gonna take more than 2 hrs and to ikebukuro station will prob take more than 30mins. Also i got lost in Ikebukuro one time sooo
I’ll be controversial.. I did the ghibli museum in under an hour the first time, but then I’m not a ghibli fan and found it kind of boring.
Second time I went with my boyfriend who is a fan and took maybe 1 1/2 hours.
Ikebukuro is doable in that time if you’re not getting distracted by anything else, but what you do in Namjatown could increase that time.
Dunno about the eating&drinking in Shinjuku since that’s not my scene but that part is a bit crammed.
Ikebukero has great places to rest as well. You can get a quick room for rest or for stay.
What you’re proposing is doable if you dedicate a day to it.
HOWEVER, you need to adjust your time like others said.
Ghibli in the morning (you can get it done in a few hours if you don’t linger too long in the cafe or gift shop).
You’re gonna wanna devote enough time to Ikebukuro to make it count. Otome Road (if that’ your thing) and Sunshine City will be HUGE time drains.
but you can cap it off with the visit to Shinjuku.
Yeah definitely not 2.5 hours for Ikebukuro.
Pokémon Center notwithstanding, definitely not in those time frame if you also want to walk through the new Bandai Namco section and Namjatown in Sunshine City.
You haven’t even gone to Animate yet.
When I was last there, the train route to Ikebukuro from the Ghibli Museum requires you to switch trains at… Shinjuku. So you’d be going through Shinjuku to get to Ikebukuro, then coming back to Shinjuku a few hours later. Do you want to do that, or would you perhaps prefer to move the Ikebukuro part to another day? I feel like you’d be rushed with the current times you’ve listed.
Are you an anime fan? Ghibli fan? Or you got those spots from someone else’s must do list?
How is your time keeping?
For the weak, animate ikebukuro, sunshine city, and the surrounding area could already be a full day itin.
Ikebukuro and Shinjuku can be done in the same day, but a third place makes it too rushed.