Hello all, my wife and I are going on our honeymoon to Japan (2 week cruise, week in Tokyo). It’s always been a dream of mine to go, especially to see the two Gundams (wish I had time to go see the Nu Gundam in Fukuoka and the Gundam exhibits) so I am really looking forward to it. Unfortunately a combination of decision paralysis and inexperience is making planning the trip a bit difficult. Both me and my wife have only been outside of the country to Toronto, so not very experienced planning something like this and was hoping for some help.
I have a list of things that I have found and thought one of us would enjoy, but planning out when to do what or if we need more things is an issue.
A bit about us:
I’m a giant nerd who dreamt of working in video games as a kid (so naturally I’ve sold my soul to regular software development). Been into anime since I saw Gundam Wing in the 90s, have also gotten my partner into it as well, but neither of us collect figures or anything (though I do build Gunpla). Wife is a foodie who loves horses more than anything. We are both introverted but do enjoy activities that get us out of our shell.
Before writing up this post all of this was one big list of stuff to do, so it is all able to be adjusted. I just tried to throw it into a more organized fashion so it would be easier to help.
ITENERARY: Tuesday is pretty much the only day I have a structured plan already since I have reserved teamLabs for that day. The rest can be moved currently, as I haven’t booked the reservations.
**Kushiro** Japan day trip off boat. We are waitlisted for a shore excursion (had a credit) to Lake Akan, but need things to do if we don’t get off the waitlist.
**SUNDAY Tokyo Day 1** (arrive on boat at 7 AM Odanbashi Pier Yokohama)
7AM: Arrive Odanbashi Pier Yokohama
7-12Noon: Disembark at some point. This is causing it to be hard to know what to plan for as I have no idea how long a cruise typically takes to disembark.
Eat before catching a train to hotel? Any suggestions near the pier/station?
Travel to hotel (Hotel Gracery Shinjuku) and setup pocket wifi.
Eat after dropping off bags at hotel. Uobei or Artinia (if it is early). Open to suggestions as well!
We were thinking of doing a food or bar tour but weren’t sure if it was worth the price.
Golden Gai at night.
Monday (may have to switch this to another day since Yoyogi is closed on Mondays unless I find a new horse thing to do) :
Take bags to the other hotel (Also in Shinjuku, my wife wanted the experience of staying in the Godzilla hotel just for the night).
Walk towards Meiji Shrine, stopping at a cafe on the way. I was recommended Coffe Punkto, but open to suggestions.
Stop by the Yoyogi Pony Park (if not monday)
Meiji Shrine
Lunch (someplace in Parco? Not sure, but other ideas were: Uogashi Nihon-ichi and Pork Vindaloo Taberu Fukudaitoryo. As always, open to suggestions!)
Shibuya Parco/Shibuya Scramble/ Hachiko
Eat dinner at Kumachan Onsen (7-8 ish).
Not sure about the rest of the night. Any nightlife in Shibuya we should check out?
**Tuesday:**
Breakfast (no clue where)
teamLab Planets 11 AM
Lunch (teamLab has a vegan ramen place might try that, though thats gonna be ramen two days in a row.)
UNICORN GUNDAM!!
Kawaii Poop Museum
Gundam Base Odaiba
Explore Odaiba
Walk across Rainbow Bridge
Dinner (thinking Zauo Shinjuku for the catch your own fish experience)
Feel like we need more stuff on this day.
**Wednesday:**
Breakfast (no clue where)
Yokohama Gundam Base + Cafe + Moving Gundam show
Not sure what else nearby we could get into.
Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum (we want to try lots of different kinds of ramen, as it is scarce where we live. So this seemed the best idea.)
Ghibli Museum maybe, not sure where that would fit into any trip since it’s off by itself.
Definitely need more stuff this day.
**Thursday:**
Akihabara day I think.
Breakfast/lunch at Kisaburo Farm (or Eorzea Cafe and dinner at Kisaburo?)
Kanda Shrine probably. I heard there is a pony.
Take in Akihabara! No clue where to go or what to do. Kinda just going cause we have to or our anime-watching friends will roast us?
Go to an Arcade? Highrose Entertainment Yard or GiGO?
Owl Cafe (unless we do a different animal cafe at some point, or a maid cafe) Though apparently, we may want to skip animal-related activities since they are poorly treated.
M’s?????????
Dinner (either Eorzea or Kisaburo)
Karaoke? Either in Akihabara or in Shinjuku. Not sure where to go specifically in either.
Friday: (Last full day in Tokyo)
Tsukiji Market in the morning
Food there, but no clue where.
Free day to go back to things we liked a lot, or maybe a day trip to Hakone?
Saturday:
Flight is at HND at 4:20, not sure what to get into before that. I assume we should be at the airport 2 hours early like the states.
I feel like we have a lot of open time on some days, but also don’t want to be stuck to a schedule that will stress us out. Any suggestions on what we can or should change? I am planning on booking things on Monday for the remainder of the trip.
Also just some general questions/concerns:
1. My wife isn’t the best with chopsticks. We were thinking of bringing a travel fork with us in case she has issues using them, but we were concerned that this may be disrespectful.
2. If we buy too many things to fit in our suitcase, is it easy for us to ship stuff back to the US?
3. Would ya’ll recommend any food/drink tours? We were concerned about being out of our element the first day or two we are there and thought that could help.
4. Not Japan-related, but any recommendations for a first-time flyer and first-time cruisegoer? I’ve never been on either and am a bit nervous.
Thank you in advance for any and all help! Will be sure to post a recap of the trip when we have returned!
2 comments
No one will be offended if you have a travel fork, and it’s a good idea to bring one. Many restaurants *do* have forks, but many do not, and she’ll end up having to eat with a spoon.
These days, Tokyo is nearly overrun with cafés. You probably do not need to concern yourself with reserving one or planning ahead to find one. For example, we live in a residential, non-tourist area relatively far from the nearest station, and there are four cafés within 100 meters of our house. Expand the circle to 1 km, and there are probably 50. Generally, you can expect all of them to have entirely acceptable to excellent coffee. In 30 years in Tokyo, I’ve only had bad coffee once, and that was nowhere near Tokyo.
You probably don’t need to plan where to eat most dinners, either. If I’m not mistaken, Tokyo has more restaurants per capita than any other city in the world, and by a pretty good margin, especially in the busy districts you’ll be in. Again, in 30 years I can only remember one time I had bad food. Keep in mind that restaurants in hotels and department stores are substantially more expensive than restaurants in other places.
As for horses, I can’t help you. We live near what I assume is the biggest equestrian park in Japan, the site of the 1964 and 2020/2021 Olympic equestrian events, but it is not yet open to the public (or wasn’t two weeks ago, when I last walked by) because the stands for the Olympics are still being dismantled. Our family did go to the Yoyogi pony place about 5 years ago with our child. I’m not sure I’d go out of my way to see it even if I loved horses.
It doesn’t seem to me as if you’ve planned too much (especially as you’re on your honeymoon): there are interesting and memorable things to see everywhere in Tokyo.
Hi!
In terms of cruising, you can check out Japan Guide for things to do near Kushiro, like visiting the Marsh Sanctuary: [https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e6792.html](https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e6792.html)
The big thing I’ve heard about cruising is you need to make sure you are there when the boat is ready to go. I believe if you do a tour through the cruise, you are guaranteed to be there in time, but if you do things on your own, you need to be aware of return times. You should probably watch a Youtuber who specializes in cruising to find out more info on cruising in general and disembarkation. I have never cruised, but I have watched a few videos. I find Emma Cruises delightful.
Generally, it is cheaper to pay additional baggage fees and bring your extra souvenirs home with you. So if your flight allows you to bring 1 check in per person, and you are up to 2, they generally charge you like $50, which will likely be easier than shipping. For shipping you need to go to the post Office during opening hours, buy a box to ship your items and then pay to ship your items. Maybe it’s changed, but last time I did this it was cash (Japanese yen) only. I use to ship things to myself more, now I just pay for the extra bag., though I also tend to have fewer issues because I now travel with my daughter, so I get two check ins. We do buy a lot. But two 30x19x11 suitcases can hold an awful lot.
The cheapest suitcases can be found at Ginza Karen.
Before I get into the itinerary I would add as a caveat to u/dougwray said that, while there are hundreds of cafes in Tokyo, themed cafes, particularly anime/manga ones can be quite hard to get into and frequently do need reservations. The same can be said for really popular on instagram or reddit cafes. Cafe Re-issue is really popular. It’s not the drinks, it is the latte art, and you are waiting to get coffee there for that.
I believe you have listed the Squeenix Cafe Artina and you will need to look into how it works for eating there and its hours. I know more about the Pokemon Cafes and Kirby Cafe, because that is where my daughter likes to go.
A lot of cafes in Japan have late hours by American standards and open at 11. You will have to spend some time looking ahead of time, if you are looking for places open in the morning.
Have you thought about going to Yokohama Station, storing an overnight bag, and forwarding anything larger to hotel 2 in Shinjuku and visiting the Ramen museum and Gundam then? I kn ow both will be more popular since it is a week end, but you are also already in Yokohama.
[https://www.yokohamastation.com/yokohama-station-lockers-luggage-storage-and-delivery/](https://www.yokohamastation.com/yokohama-station-lockers-luggage-storage-and-delivery/)
You would hopefully not be as jet lagged as someone flying because you were on a boat.
What sort of breakfast are you looking for? A large American style one? Just something fast and easy? If you want a big traditional western breakfast buffet, you want to see what your hotel offers and pay for breakfast there. If you’re looking for cheap and fast go to a combini. In general a lot of sit down restaurants don’t open for breakfast in Japan. You can go to a family style restaurant like Dennys or Saizeriyas’ There are lots of bakeries selling pastries as well. It really depends on the price range and what you are after.
So Monday is a Shibuya and Harajuku day.
Tuesday is Odaiba
Wednesday we can try to find something that works for you. However, if you don’t have tickets for the Ghibli Museum now, you are not going. Tickets sell out within hours for the entire month and you can’t just walk up to it and get in. If you like Totoro and are looking for something beyond a little merch, you can go to Shiro-hige’s cream puff factory. The Daita branch has a small cafe.
Thursday is Akihabara (and yes most animal cafes in Japan are not terribly concerned with animal welfare. If you really want to do one, look for a domestic pet rescue that also fosters and has adoptions. If all the animals there are not cute babies or young, that is also a good sign.
So for additional things to do, here are some thoughts and questions:
do you want to go to an onsen? Generally unless you rent a private one or stay someplace with a private or in room one, you’re up for a really long day trip, or you and your partner are the same gender, most naked onsen are gender segregated. If you are tattooed, you might also run into issues there if you’re not using a private onsen. Yunessun in Hakone is a possible solution, though it is not very traditional but wins points for being cheezy.
If you like older anime (aka pre-2010) you might want to go to Nakano and check out the shops there. There are also a ton of anime stores in Ikebukuro and a Mandarake in Shibuya. There is a Capcom Cafe in Ikebukuro, but I don’t know how hard it is to get a reservation, I just went in to buy merch. They do switch out what series it is themed on fairly often.
Lots of themed cafes have very mediocre food. About the only ones I can think of that had good food were the Limited time Pikachu Tea at the Strings Harajuku and the Kirby Cafe, but I am pretty sure all October reservations are way gone.
The actual Squeenix office is boring unless they have changed it a lot since ’09.
Make sure you feel comfortable taking public transit. Most stations have a lot of English, but you do need to sometimes stop and look around and not freak yourself out. Here is some info on the Port of Yokohama: [https://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/cruise/detail/019/index.html](https://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/cruise/detail/019/index.html)
Good luck!