Hi, my husband and I are traveling to Japan next week. We are in our 30s and like to explore cities, food, nightlife and music scene. Here is our itinerary for the trip. It’s not very strict except for the booked reservations we have so we are flexible. I need advice on our hotel choice and tours:
1. Is Takadanobaba a good place to stay based on our itinerary or would it be better to stay somewhere in main Shinjuku area? We are thinking Hotel Groove Shinjuku.
2. Are there any recommended food and drink tours in Tokyo that are worth it? We have looked in airbnb experiences and most of them seem pricy.
3. We like techno and house music and are looking recommendations for clubs.
Thanks in advance! 🙂
**AUG 18**
\-landing at Haneda airport 1900
\- take limo bus to Shinjuku and taxi to hotel in Takadanobaba?
\- eat and maybe izakaya around hotel
**AUG 19**
**-** konbini breakfast
\- Shinjuku Gyoen Garden
\- Rakuu-tei Tea House or Coffee Punkto?
\- walk to Meiji shrine
\- Harajuku, Omotesando
\- Shibuya scramble
\- Shibuya sky booking 1640
\- Han-no-daidokoro bettei early dinner reservation
\- go back to hotel to freshen up
\- explore shinjuku at night, golden gai
**AUG** **20**
\- watch ghibli orchestra Suntory hall 1400
\- Shimokitazawa Awa Odori Festival 630-830pm
\- Check out bars or live music venues nearby
**AUG 21**
**-** send luggage to next tokyo hotel
\- get 3 day hakone freepass at shinjuku station
\- train to hakone 1500
\- check in Gora Hanaougi ryokan
\- relax in ryokan for the night
**AUG 22**
**-** breakfast in ryokan
\- explore hakone – cable car ropeway to owakudani
\- lake ashi take pirate ship
\- tokaido road
\- hakone jinja shrine
\- old hakone highway
\- amakaze teahouse
\- back to ryokan for dinner
\- ryokan night 2
**AUG 23**
**-** breakfast at ryokan
\- check out and go to open air museum
\- train to tokyo
\- check in hotel in asakusa near sensoji temple
\- sensoji temple at night
\- hoppy street for dinner and drinks
**AUG 24**
**-** sensoji temple early morning
\- teamlabs planets booking 0900
\- tsukiji market
\- hamarikyu gardens
\- akihabara
**AUG 25**
**-** Fly out of Narita 1110
4 comments
If you are the kind of person that goes out late / clubbing. For sure do not stay in Taladanoba and look to Shinjuku and or Shibuya.
If you do end up staying in Taladanoba there is no reason to take an airport limo bus into Shinjuku and then a taxi from there to Takadanoba.
Not sure how accessible Sensoji is at night. If you take the bus to Shinjuku I would also stay in Shinjuku. No reason to stay in ‘Baba.
I don’ know what happened to Golden-gai. It used to be a place I would only go if a local invited me. 5-seater bars, all locals, no interest in foreign tourists. Now it seems to be on everyone’s list. Local dive bars are going to pay no attention to you. I guess there must be a lot of tourist-friendly places now. Haven’t been in years; 15 minutes from my house.
I was just in Hakone and my advise is to prepare for hot temperature. We were planning to walk around the Hakone Yumoto station but it was too hot that we didnt feel like walking around anymore. Also Hakone is famous for onsen(hot spring) so maybe try that. Most definitely there’s onsen in every ryokan but if u have like a big tatoo that can’t be covered by tape or seal/sticker then u cant get in… or maybe ask the employee bc every ryokan have different rule and i think japan is becoming more flexible.