Hi all I’m going to Japan with a friend (39f, both introverts, I’m lgbtqia+) going to be in Japan the first two weeks of October! We’re both writers who like nature, walking/biking, food, music/theater, shopping, books, and quiet time. I’m also a latin dancer and apparently there is a bachata/salsa scene in Tokyo! We’re not really excited about a lot of temples or museums or stuff like DisneySea, and we want to have a general idea of where we’ll be with options we can decide on on the day. Here’s what we’ve got:
10/1: landing late afternoon. We’re staying in Shinjuku, and I think we’re just going to our hotel, grabbing some dinner, and walking around Shinjuku. Maybe drinks at Cafe Lavanderia or wandering down Golden Gai.
10/2: Morning bike tour of Central Tokyo to get some exercise and the lay of the land; we start and end by Hamarikyu Gardens. We’ll be done by 11:30-ish, so I was thinking maybe Hamarikyu Gardens, lunch in or around the Tsujiki Fish Market and checking out Ginza (esp the Ginza Itoya stationery store) and Hibiya Okuroji mall (and the Mizuno dye factory store). Evening: Open but probably turning in early
10/3: Lazy morning, find fluffy pancakes for breakfast. Afternoon: Shopping in Shinjuku, Harakjuku, Shibuya. Evening: maybe a traditional kabuki performance at Asakusa or listen to records at Bar Martha?
10/4: Morning: Maybe check out the Shinjuku Gyoen National Gardens, lunch and jazz at the Shinjuku Pit Inn. and spend the rest of the day out in Shimokitazawa. I’m excited about local music somewhere around here (Shelter or Mosaic?), seeing movies at Tollywood.
10/5: Shinkansen to Nagano, local trains to Shiba Onsen where we are staying at a ryukan. We’re staying walking distance from the Snow Monkey Park, so I was thinking we would go earlier in the day and go back to the ryokan to relax. We’re doing a traditional dinner at the ryokan, and then we have time to check out the town and maybe do the 9 onsen route.
10/6: early breakfast and head out on the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route. We’ll probably do the shorter hike around the lakes at Murodo. QUESTION: should we plan on staying overnight at Murodo or Toyama? We can take a bullet train from Toyama to Kyoto but I think that might be a brutal schedule.
10/7- 10/11: We’ll be based in Kyoto but our plans are pretty open. Right now we’re thinking two days in Kyoto, one in Osaka, day trip to Nara, day trip to Hiroshima (maybe). We will definitely see Fushimi Inari Taisha and the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, and we’ll go out to Nara. We’re looking for places to do a food tour and a tea ceremony. Beyond that, maybe a Bunraku puppet performance, Kuromon Ichiba Market, maybe the Nazakachiko neighborhood in Kyoto, Okunoin cemetery night time walk. Osaka seems to have a lot of international musicians come through– Sam Smith will be playing while we’re there! My friend kind of wants to do a day trip to Miyajama Shrine, but that’s a maybe.
10/12-10/13: Back towards Tokyo! Do we have a hotel? Nope! Do we know what we want to do? Not really! I’d like to go bachata dancing at El Cafe Latino and maybe do a cooking class. Should we stay somewhere outside of downtown Tokyo? Should we stop overnight at Mt Fuji or just break for a half-day visit?
10/14: We have a 6:30 pm flight out of Narita, so we have time to do some last-minute Tokyo stuff before we fly home.
Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks!
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Also apologies for the typos I was trying to subtly write this during a meeting