JapanTravel has been the best and most helpful resource ever! After a months of reading the amazing tips on this sub, I finally have my own itinerary to check.
My husband and I love a mixture of learning about other cultures, wandering, and having down time to eat and people watch.
I am in low/average shape after recent medical procedures, so wanted to balance seeing as much as we could without setting unrealistic expectations.
**QUESTIONS**:
1. Are we missing out by not taking more formal tours? Having freedom throughout the day is appealing to us, which is why we shied away from more.
2. Are we okay skipping TeamLabs? We love the idea of it but since we have limited our own time in Tokyo because of the Disney 1.5 days, we thought it might be better to focus on Tokyo neighborhoods and classic sights.
3. Any awesome cultural experiences we should find room for? I was most interested in a tea ceremony (abbreviated, rather than full), but didn’t seem to find one that was a fit/work it in!
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**Saturday, 9/8 (Shinjuku hotel that is right near the station)**
* Arrive to Narita at 3 PM
* After hotel check-in (Shinjuku), dinner and drinks around Golden Gai
**Sunday, 9/9 (Shinjuku hotel)**
* Morning: AirBnB walking tour of Shinjuku (it says it may include a last stop in Shibuya depending on time)
* Afternoon: East Imperial Gardens (last entry at 4:30 PM)
* Evening: Flexible — staying in central Tokyo near the gardens ***(suggestions welcome here!),*** circling back to Shibuya if the tour didn’t end up going there earlier, or head back to the hotel area to eat and call it an early night if too jet lagged.
**Monday, 9/10 (Disney hotel)**
* Morning/early afternoon: Meiji Jinju and Takeshita Street for lunch
* Late afternoon: Disney hotel check-in
* Evening: Weekday evening pass for Tokyo Disneyland
**Tuesday, 9/11 (Disney hotel)**
* Tokyo DisneySea
**Wednesday, 9/12 (Kyoto hotel that is right near the station)**
* Morning: Bullet train to Kyoto, drop luggage at hotel
* Early afternoon: Fushimi Inari
* Late afternoon: Check into hotel
* Evening: Walking tour of Gion
**Thursday, 9/13 (Kyoto hotel)**
* Morning: Kiyomizudera Temple, Ninenzaka, and if time more of Higashiyama
* Lunch at Nishiki Market
* Early afternoon: Nijo Castle (last entry 4:00 PM)
* Evening: Dinner and maybe drinks at L’Escamoteur Bar
**Friday, 9/14 (Kyoto hotel)**
* Day trip: Travel to Kibune, have a mid-morning lunch by the water (to minimize wait time), walk around the area, and go to Kifine Shrine
* Late afternoon: Back to Kyoto and if enough time, consider sights we missed depending on timing/energy ***(I sadly made Kinkakuji and Toji Temple lower priorities, but there is the possibility of adding one here)***
**Saturday, 9/15 (Need a hotel in Tokyo)**
* Morning: Arashiyama Bamboo Grove and Kameyama-koen Park
* Afternoon: Bullet train back to Tokyo
* Evening: ***Wide open, please help! We were thinking Asakusa to do the Not Suspicious bar and surrounding area, and wake up to do Sensoji?***
***Sunday, 9/16***
* Morning: ***Also wide open! I had my heart set on Warner Brothers Studio Harry Potter tour, but it would be a bit of a hectic morning with travel and my husband understandably is less enthused about spending our last morning doing something that feels less relevant to a Japan trip. So if we wake up in Asakusa — Sensoji, or a tour? Or is there somewhere else in Tokyo you would recommend?***
* Depart for airport by 1:30 PM for early evening flight
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We are SO incredibly grateful for any thoughts you have on any of the above! I have loved learning from this community.
6 comments
You could hit up both Teamlabs and the Toyosu Fish Market, as they’re close to each other in Odaiba.
Maybe check out the Ginza area in Tokyo if you have time?
1. You do not have to do tour to enjoy a place. While yes there might be more explanation given, I would not trade that for the flexibility to just do whatever I want. If you want to have information about a place, then you can search online to know what the places are about.
2. It can be interesting, but there is a lot of interesting things to see in Japan. Especially considering the little time you are spending in Japan, you have to make choices. I personally enjoy the teamLab exhibit I went to (not in Tokyo) and never been to USJ or the Disney park… been to Japan 7 times so far. So different people have different priorities.
3. Tea ceremony can be interesting, I remember seeing one place on the By Food channel on youtube, I think they are the channel of a service of the same name that offer food tours in Japan, from what I understand they are a kind of site that list tour offered by different people/company (rather than being exclusively their employee that run the tours) and they possibly have tea ceremony options.
Note that people traveling to Japan usually walk A LOT. That include walking to/from the train/subway station and walking around the attractions. You might want to be flexible and ready to drop things if you do not think you can walk all day, every day.
Sensoji is closed in the evening, i.e. you can’t enter the temple hall, but you’re not missing out on much inside – however, the gates and hall are very nicely illuminated, so definitely worth checking out after dinner. Afterwards, leave the temple grounds through the gate just west of the temple hall and walk straight for a couple of minutes. You’ll end up at Sumida river and have one of the best views of the Tokyo Skytree, which is illuminated until 11 PM. Follow the river south to get back to the subway stations.
So yea, imho Asakusa in the evening is worth it.
The Asukasa Culture Tourist Information Centre has a free observation deck that looks down on Sensoji Temple for a different view. You mentioned you interested in culture but the focus was local culture with it’s exhibitions when I was there.
You are near to Asukasa Peir where the water taxi using the sumida river depart. Enjoyed the experience going to Odaiba via hop off hop on to Hamarikyu Garden. It’s slower but different.
Planets is open really late so you can just make that an evening activity any day
I would recommend trying to go to Fushimi Inari early in the morning if you can. It will be super crowded if you go later.