Trip Report: Week 1/3 in September, Arrival, Tokyo, Nikko, Kyoto

Hello all! We’re in the midst of a trip to Japan and I wanted to write up how our trip has gone. I saw a previous September post write things one week at a time, so I’ll plan to share our trip in 3 parts. I figure that’s a good way to split things up and write as we go, but it also means you might want to come back to later posts in case there are bigger things we learn along the way. 🙂

I can be a bit wordy, but hopefully that is good! Feel free to comment with any questions you have as I’ve love to answer them.

Our total trip includes these spots: Tokyo, Nikko, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Himeji, Hiroshima, Miyajima Island, Hakone, and back to Tokyo.

I am 28F traveling with my boyfriend 28M. We have done some self-learning lessons with the Genki workbook but we are far from Japanese pros (but know enough for some reading and sentences).

**Day 0: Flight – DC area to Haneda – Hotel Century Southern Tower in Shinjuku**

We had a direct 14 hour flight to Haneda, which is great but that flight is LONG. Standing up and stretching every few hours really kept the “over ten hour flight depression” off though so I’d 1000% recommend that for anyone. Easiest with an aisle seat. We also happened to upgrade to United Premium Plus which had more space and a little care package. In lieu of that I’d still recommend the standing + bring moisturizer especially for your hands after washing (that was in the care package).

For better or worse, the flight’s entertainment system was broken (ugh!) but that meant we spent most of the flight in low-power mode (closing your eyes and pretending to sleep). Melatonin gummies gave me at most an hour of sleep, but either way staying low power mode was helpful as we ended up being up for 24 hours by the time we got to the hotel. And in the end, this got us relatively close to Japan time by day 1.

I kept a TODO list for Haneda when we landed in case I was so out of it on arrival. This was helpful for getting our bearings. First tasks: get cash for ATM and put some into Welcome Suica cards right next to it. We were going to pick up our 14 day JR passes but the line was really long, but they recommended picking up at another office which we did the next day.

From there, we were awake enough to attempt the Haneda line to the Yamanote circluator (though I’ve heard others recommend the limo bus). Hotel Century Southern Tower is a 5 minute walk from the station, just make sure you leave on the South (or maybe SW) side. This hotel is TALL and gave us a good view of the city, to the point that we didn’t feel the need to buy Tokyo Skytree tickets later on. Would recommend!

Dinner was just grabbing some quick snacks at the Family Mart a minute down the road, this became our go-to for quick bites.

Lessons (which I might add in most days): sleep as much as possible on the plane! Though YMMV depending on home location. We had to shift 13 hours so it had potential to be bad.

**Day 1: Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya**

Shinjuku – We started the morning with some sandwiches and coffee at a nearby cafe then wandered Shinjuku a bit in the morning for a couple of tasks. First was get our JR passes from the JR office in Shinjuku – we happened to get there 10 minutes before open which was great because the line formed out of nowhere at 10am. After that, we went to Kinokuniya bookstore as I wanted an Eki Stamp book, but they were sold out until October. 🙁 I spent the rest of the day trying to find one and just went with a small plain notepad to get stamps that I can paste in elsewhere later (scrapbooking?). Still a great bookstore! Played some crane games then took the Yamanote down to Harajuku.

Harajuku – Lots of shopping, obviously. Some favorite highlights were a sock shop near the entrance, B-Side Label, and Kiddyland. We also just wandered some side streets to get a vibe of the neighborhood. If you need a place to sit, there’s a 2nd floor food court near the end of Takeshita Dori which was a blessing at the time. By the time we had made all the rounds, we were pretty exhausted for Daiso, so we got some vending machine drinks and tried to take it easy, and this is when we discovered, where are any benches??? Literally can’t find them. We found a small wooded area next to “I’m donut?” that some others were sitting in so that helped. Starting to feel the ache of 10k steps.

Shibuya – We walked to Shibuya since it was only \~1 mile away. Stopped by Tower Records (cool for the music fans) and another Kinokuniya (no luck there on the eki stamp book). Saw the crossing and waiting in a polite line for a photo with Hachiko’s statue. I realized for all my planning, I did little planning for restaurants, so we went with the first thing we could find which was a mostly-desserts spot in Shibuya 109, but hey the omurice was pretty good (or I’ve just never had omurice). Shopped there, stopped by Don Quijote for a wild experience, then we were ready to head back.

Then my biggest failure of the day.. trying to find eki stamps! I can ask “eki sutanpu wa doko desuka?” but when people respond in full sentences, I blank out. Got instructions but later on realized I should’ve had them speak into google translate (we have internet through Ubigi esim). It was the end of the day and we were tired so after a while I just gave up and we left. Later on I realized there are sites out there for noting where these stamps are, which was helpful for the future.

Lessons: 1) Do your research on where eki stamps are. 2) If you REALLY need to understand a full response, consider using live google translate with data. 3) Perhaps do some light planning on restaurants you want to hit. :\~)

**Day 2: Tsukiji Outer Market, teamLabs Planets, Ginza, Pokemon Cafe, Tokyo Station**

Tsukiji Outer Market – We had the choice between Toyosu market and Tsukiji market. From a previous post I had heard someone say Toyosu might only really be worth it if you have the 5am fish auction tickets, which we did not have. I also heard Tsukiji Outer Market is sort of like a tourist trap, but honestly I’m ok with those sometimes as we are tourists. We got some good street food here, delicious, but learned walking and eating is frowned upon, so try to eat at the stall you purchased the food at.

TeamLabs Planets – This was next door to Tsukiji so we headed here afterwards. We bought tickets the day before and there was still availability, but YMMV depending on the day. I think there were really cool interactive exhibits here, but I think this is the sort of thing you either love or hate. Reminded me a bit of Kusama’s infinite mirrors but more interactive.

Ginza – We passed through Ginza on our way to our Pokemon Cafe reservations. This is around the time I realized a lot of places people recommend sure do have a lot of shopping, which makes sense, but to me there felt like less to do? Again, YMMV depending on where you like to shop. We went to a multi-level shopping mall for some window shopping and lunch. Itoya was really our only stop, super cool stationery store.

Pokemon Cafe & Tokyo Station – I won’t detail how to get tickets as others have written about this, but I got tickets a month in advance. I think it was a cute experience but certainly catered more towards kids (though you could see other young millennial tables around). Definitely gimmicky but it’s something I wanted to hit! Also Pikachu comes out and does a surprise dance? We were kind of shocked in the “wow this is happening” sort of way. Ha! After that we finished up with a shopping stroll around Tokyo Station before returning home.

On an unrelated note, I had brought a rubber massage ball from home for this trip. This was around the time we started massaging our feet with the ball most evenings, and I think it helped.

**Day 3: Ueno Park, Tokyo Skytree/Kirby Cafe**

This unfortunately was the day I think I most misjudged the timing to take for different things, as we had also planned to hit Akihabara at the end of the day but ran out of time. Other areas were pleasant though! Part of this might be that we’re sort of late risers, and/or we don’t want to hit the rush hour train rush, so you might want to get earlier starts if you want to fit in more.

Ueno Park – our first big burst of greenery in a city with mostly buildings. The weather was good in the shade too. Got a set meal at a lunch hall to start off the day then wandered around looking at the shrine and just vibing with the park. I also had a big collection win, as I finally found 2 Ueno Park stamps here! This was in a modest information building in the middle of the park, and I sort of suspected it might have stamps. Two designs for Ueno. Plus, a little later I found the locations of the two Pokemon manhole covers (which I only realized existed around the same time I found eki stamp location sites)..

There are lots of museum options in the area, but we went with the Tokyo National Museum. We probably spent 2 hours there but that was not enough to see everything, but it was enough to see most of the main building and part of one more. Perhaps 3-4 hours would’ve been enough to see the garden and the asian building. The main building had a cool ukiyo-e “make your own” area which was a cool experience.

Tokyo Skytree – At this point we had a Kirby Cafe reservation (2nd and last stop on the character cafe train), so we dedicated \~an hour to leaving the park, taking a train, then taking a dedicated Skytree tram. There are other posts that detail how to get tickets but this again involved an August 4:45am wakeup to get tickets. In the end, this was definitely another cute cafe! I think the Pokemon one had a bit more substance since there’s an actual performance in the middle, but I appreciated the cute vibe of the area here as well. Though this is another time I noticed most tables had a small child with them.. hmm!

Skytree itself I knew little about except that it was a mall, and once again I am impressed with Tokyo malls. There are so many little stalls everywhere! Of course we needed to check out the character shops at the top, then we really just wandered and took everything in – even window shopping is fun.

After this though, it was already \~7pm or so and we’ve usually been getting exhausted at 10pm, so we decided to head back instead of seeing Akihabara at the end of the day. Thankfully I set very few plans for our last few days in Tokyo (1 partial day, 2 full days, 1 exit day) so Akibahara will probably just be our first stop once we’re back in a couple of weeks.

Another side note for today. This is around the time we started hearing about an incoming typhoon heading for the Tokyo region. This is around the time I started keeping an eye on the news, but we didn’t see anything alarming yet that forced us to change plans.

Lessons: 1) You can’t do it all! I’m glad I baked in some flexibility with our schedule (whether it’s “we can do x, y, or z” or “we can do this or we can skip and that’s not a problem”). 2) Download the NERV app for emergency info.

**Day 4: Daytrip to Nikko**

With the incoming typhoon, we made a judgement call morning-of whether we’d go to Kyoto a day early or take our day-trip to Nikko. In the end, it didn’t seem like the trains were getting cancelled yet and the storm wasn’t set to land until the next afternoon, so we took our chances and kept our Nikko excursion.

I’d call myself a chronic over-planner, but in this case I was reminding myself of what to do in Nikko (franticly googling on the train, I had only written down a few notes). As it turns out, it’s super easy to just dip in and find lots of things to do. Also, the official Nikko website has a 1 day itinerary we ended up following which was very helpful. We were there roughly 11-5 which was enough time to do the 1 day itinerary items.

First, the station. I had reserved a late shinkansen back to Tokyo while on this train so we picked up the tickets using our passport number at the ticket printer. (Side note, this is where I learned the reservation was not necessary, and the reason 5pm/6pm trains were unavailable was because most of the trains were free seating. But we had this as a backup so that’s fine! At this point I could only find that unreserved train info when we were back at Utsunomiya station on the rotating signs).

We decided to walk the 30 minutes to the Shinkyo Bridge, and whew, one thing I didn’t know was it was a slight uphill walk the whole 30 minutes. I don’t regret it because I could see little shops and souvenirs along the way, but after our first few days really feeling it, AND the sun was beating down, well my boyfriend was just happy he bought tenugui the day before. There were also lots of buses driving past so if that’s not your cup of tea, you can probably take something that gets you really close, or get the Nikko pass (which we didn’t think was necessary for us with JR but YMMV).

The park with all of the shrines itself was great, and nice and cool once we got there, which was a relief. And the best part with this area is you can just kind of figure out what you want to do along the way. The worst part was, again, I didn’t realize it was so hilly, so I got my first time fitbit award for 50+ floors climbed in one day.

We started with the triple ticket which gets you into a garden and 2 temples. The garden was pleasant and cute, and there was an indoor museum area with seats (we were getting strategic). The temple itself was gorgeous, and our first time really seeing one that big. Grabbed some food on our way to Taiyu-in Temple.

Now, about Taiyu-in. Let me say, again perhaps this is just from going with the flow, but I did not know it would have SO. MANY. STAIRS. Just as you think you’ve crested the last of them, there are more looking your way. In the end I think the last area was pretty cool so high up, and I liked the little details we saw along the way, but this might be something to skip if you’re tired, have knee issues, etc. Unfortunately this was not the only time during our trip where we misjudged how many stairs a location/activity had.

Finally, finishing up with a walk around Futarasan Shrine. We decided not to do Toshogu next door due to the price + having walked a lot already but appreciated it from the outside (feel free to let me know if that’s a major miss). Then we walked to the Kanmangafuchi for a last walk through there. The area doesn’t seem to tell you when it “ends”, so we wandered a bit before turning around. Then for leaving, we walked 10-15 minutes to bus back to the station and took the Nikko line back (but not before finally finding an eki stamp – woohoo! It is to the right side of the ticket gate before you cross).

We ended up vibing at an Utsunomiya station food hall for dinner with ramen. This is the magic of the JR pass, as I had ushered us to the next train before we realized we needed to eat. The “unlimited” in and out here was appreciated, especially since we’d already made mistakes in Shinjuku station going through the wrong turnstile and having to pay to get back out.

Lessons: Unless you do this stuff all the time, do more research than I did on how many stairs certain locations have! This really ended up biting us in the butt later in the trip as well.

**Day 5: Heading to Kyoto – The Royal Park Hotel Kyoto Sanjo**

Now, THIS is the day the typhoon started to hit. Thankfully our Shinjuku hotel was a 4 minute walk from the JR lines, but we really had to run out in decently heavy rains, with some wind gusts, with at least one umbrella (not ours!) breaking and hitting us on the way over. Again, this was a judgement call on our end as we weren’t seeing trains canceling and we were heading out of Tokyo that morning before the worst hit in the afternoon, but YMMV and I encourage you to keep up with news if you travel during typhoon season. For us in the future, we’ll probably avoid September and aim for October (also for cooler temps).

For traveling, I’ve noticed Google Maps is pretty helpful with sharing routes with times and platforms, and I sometimes pair that with talking to a JR Office member just saying where I’m going.

The Royal Park I believe I also heard as a recommendation from this subreddit and it was good for us! Fairly close to the subway and Gion, and it was <one block away from Nishiki Market which was great for some easy shopping and food after our travels. One thing I noticed this day is the market seems to close down shops a bit around 6, but food spots seem to still be open. We paired this with a walk over to Gion to see nightlife, but we didn’t really see much – I think we didn’t walk far enough into where the actual nightlife stuff seemed to be.

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Now with that written, this is pretty long so I’ll stop here! Next post I’ll do Kyoto, Osaka, and the start of Hiroshima (where we are heading tomorrow, so I’m a bit behind in writing 🙂 ). Feel free to post comments or questions, or share things in Tokyo that we should know for our return trip!

Overall lessons from this post: plan your plane sleeping situation; google maps on Japan data is a lifesafer; keep flexibility in mind, whether you need to shuffle full trip pieces or just stop a day early if you’re a bit tired

Overall spoilers for next time: our legs are REAL sore, so again, keep those stairs in mind..

Thanks for reading!