Trip Report: Week 3/3 in September, Hakone, Tokyo, and other things learned

Hello all. I’m back for my last trip report post from my trip in September. I’ve done the other two in parts so you can read about Tokyo, Nikko, and travel to Kyoto here (https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/16hn4z6/trip\_report\_week\_13\_in\_september\_arrival\_tokyo/), and Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Hiroshima, and travel to Hakone here (https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/16xfob0/trip\_report\_week\_23\_in\_september\_kyoto\_osaka\_nara/).

This is the last post where I’ll finish out Hakone and Tokyo, plus I’ll toss some general things I learned from the trip at the bottom.

When we left off, we had just arrived in Hakone after a long transit day coming from Hiroshima.

**Day 15: Hakone – Mount View Hakone (Ryokan)**
So the day prior we made our windy way into Hakone, and we stayed in Mount View Hakone. This ryokan has public onsens and there are private ones you can reserve. I don’t remember if it has in-room onsen but ours did not. You also eat in a shared hall (vs in your room) but the areas in the hall are sort of walled off so you do get privacy. Meals are BIG (but maybe I’m just not used to ryokan luxury!).

Today we followed the usual Hakone route that I’ve seen others suggest. First that involved navigating down to Motohakone via connecting bus routes, where we wandered a bit for light shopping. We had also gotten the Hakone Free Pass digitally on our phones (because I missed the ticket counter at Hakone-Yumoto station). I’d say for a full day it’s 100% worth it, partly for the cost savings and partly because it’s so convenient to just flash the phone app and not have to work with change. This covered our full Hakone day and the following day getting back to JR.

First main stop was the floating tori gate next to Hakone. Now I had heard the wait for photos would be like 20 minutes, but it was a whole hour for us. :/ I’m not sure if we got there too late in the day (11am?) or if it’s because it was Respect for the Aged Day, which perhaps is a bigger holiday than I thought. Due to timing we just did a pit stop for ice cream at Hakone Shrine but didn’t actually explore it fully.

Next was crossing the lake to get to the ropeway. In a previous thread I posted here, someone said to skip the pirate ship.. but honestly, we needed to get across the lake for the ropeway anyway, and the Hakone Free Pass covers the ship… so do the pirate ship! There’s one other boat type (looked more yacht-like) but honestly the pirate ship gave us joy.

We got to Togendai Station and got in line for the ropeway (covered by free pass). Like Miyajima, this place also gives you fans, and we liked this design better so we actually kept this one. You go a couple stops up to Owakudani for Boiling Egg Valley. Very sulfur-y smelling, and pretty cool to see! Very different from most Japan things we saw so I’d recommend. Make sure to get the lava boiled eggs, one of the first buildings had 4 eggs for 500 yen.

Our last push was taking the ropeway one more stop and a tram down to the Open Air Museum. We only had an hour so we were speeding through, maybe 90 minutes could’ve felt more comfortable. Cool art around, and the Picasso building was a highlight. You get a slight discount with the free pass.

So after running through the major Hakone items, we returned to our ryokan.. and were PLEASANTLY surprised that there was a matsuri across the street! I believe it was called Susuki Matsuri. This was definitely in my top 3 experiences of the trip. There were lots of food vendors, a stage for acts, and kids running around in yukata. I’m so glad I could see this in person, and it was funny seeing connections to my own USA/east coast county fairs haha. And to top it off.. after dinner, there was a fireworks show at the matsuri that we watched from across the street out front of our ryokan, …and my boyfriend proposed and is now my fiance! Definitely cemented the day as the best in our trip. 🙂

Lessons: 1) I assumed there were no festivals for us because September didn’t seem like a big time for them in Japan, but maybe there are good resources out there for finding smaller ones in case you want to see something? We lucked into this but I don’t we’ll get that lucky next time! 2) Just saying, a long Japan trip is a pretty nice idea for a proposal. 😉

**Day 16: Hakone -> Tokyo, Akihabara – Hotel Century Southern Tower in Shinjuku**

After a nice breakfast, it was time to head out to Tokyo. Our Hakone Free Pass gave us free bus access for another day, which we took one stop away from Hakone-Yumoto to do some final shopping down the strip as it seemed there were a good number of places there. As our trip neared its final days, we definitely started buying more on the food and gift side for us and others (and it helped we had forwarded our luggage from Hiroshima to Tokyo so we weren’t lugging suitcases around at this time). Then, Hakone-Yumoto back to Odawara, then JR to Tokyo. We stayed in the same hotel as when we started (the location is just too good!).

For our last few days in Tokyo, I purposefully left them pretty open. Either we’d want to revisit places, or we’d want to see new spots, but I didn’t want to lock us down too much. In this case, we had missed Akihabara at the beginning of the trip, and that had potential to be a revisit spot, so we headed there after some chilling in Shinjuku.

Akihabara: The one definite visit was Super Potato as we are both gamers. Whether you buy things or not, it’s a cool sight to see! Besides that, we didn’t need too much of a plan since there are spots everywhere. We split our time between arcades (claw machines and arcade cabinets were big for us), and some of the anime/gaming/figure stores (for us or gifts for friends). We also really liked Bic Camera (it’s basically just a mega department store), and we made sure to get a glammed up purikura photo (the fiance wasn’t convinced at first, but he came around once he saw how wild the final results are).

Lesson: If you’re able to get a ton of days in Tokyo, keep parts of them flexible. In some cases we revisited spots, in other cases we just looked up a spot the evening before and researched what was around.

**Day 17: Nakano, Harajuku, Shibuya**

Nakano wasn’t on our original list of must-sees, but this was on a runner up list and we decided to spend our morning here. The main thing is the shopping area north of the station (not sure if it has a name?) which leads into Nakano Broadway. The former is good for general shopping (we bought a great sake set from a small pottery place), the latter is good for resale gaming and anime merch. Even if you don’t buy, it’s cool walking around the area. There are plenty of food spots as well before broadway – we got resolving bar sushi.

The afternoon we went back to Harajuku for yukata rental! I cannot recommend Sakaeya Kimono enough. The yukata plan is pricier than their kimono rental but you get to keep your yukata (or you can just rent kimono for cheaper but it depends on the season if it might be too hot). Both options also come with a tea ceremony and photos which we really appreciated. The owner is great! That said, if you’re looking for kimono/yukata rental, I also saw a ton of them in Kyoto (especially around Arashiyama), so that could be a good option as well being around the more traditional Japan area (though I didn’t research their plans/prices/offerings too deep).

After some final Harajuku strolling, we headed down to Shibuya to find… the elusive love hotel. My fiance did some digging and heard of a place called Love Hotel Hill which supposedly has a ton around in Shibuya.. that said we only really found 2, maybe because they were SO obnoxiously candy themed on the outside. Sweets Hotel Chocolat and Sweets Hotel Ruby sit facing each other so you can choose a side. Honestly the decor here was WILD. We ended up going with chocolate and were met by a singing/talking tree. There’s a machine you use to select a room that shows prices and eventually drops out a key (very privacy focused as you don’t talk to an actual person). And we got free macarons on our way in! Decor in our room included giant wall macarons, donut pillows, a waffle cone bench, a chocolate drip design sink, a shower and tub (no chocolate theme sadly), a burger telephone, and live fish in a neon tank. I think there were some room freebies, and you could order food (though I questioned how good that would be in a love hotel..?). Room rate seems to be by the half hour, depends on the room quality. Interestingly I think I saw some ads for girls’ nights or karaoke nights or something like that so I guess they will take anyone willing to pay, and you could probably swing in for 30 minutes just to take a look if you wanted!

**Day 18: Asakusa, Kanda, Akihabara**

We had a big goal today: get a woodblock print. There was a great place in Kyoto we saw but didn’t buy in time before they closed (I think I wrote this in my previous post). So I went hunting for big print spots. Reddit recommended Mokuhankan in Asakusa, and Hara Shobo Print Department in Kanda.

Asakusa we honestly didn’t see too much of. I think there is a big shrine in the area that we ended up missing, so if you visit the area properly you could take a look. However we did wander to find a lunch spot and ended up at a place apparently the locals know because a woman walked up to us, who we TOTALLY thought was judging us for some reason, and asked us a bunch of curious questions because she’s a tour guide and wanted to know how we found a local spot. Wow! I guess that’s a reminder that just wandering and entering will find you some interesting spots. And that’s besides the fact that we got interviewed by some TV show looking for foreigners to eat sweet potato spread on toast.. I have no idea how much of an idiot I sounded like haha.

On Mokuhankan, this spot is awesome. I already knew their Ukyio-e Heroes collab because I go to US anime conventions and have bought a couple of prints there. Seeing them in person was cool, but they also have a nice selection of other prints too. Some are more colorful, some less. Some are printed by David Bull himself. Some are reproductions. Some are vintage resales. So there’s a little bit of everything. I prefer the modern colorful styles and got a woodblock print reproduction of “Bamboo Garden, Hakone Museum” by Toshi Yoshida.

My fiance was still looking for one he liked so we wandered over to Kanda. Hara Shobo Print Department was the place recommended, plus we wandered east down the street and popped in whatever bookshops looked like it sold prints. Overall these were less colorful, more traditional, often women, samurai, fighting scenes, but we wanted more nature or animal designs (which might be more modern?). Overall Kanda might be good if you want more classic woodblock print types.

Finally, a last revisit to Akihabara, and that’s another good reason to keep extra time available in Tokyo! More shopping, gaming, claw machines, etc. We also met up with one of my long-time friends who recently moved to Japan to teach english so it was nice to hear a bit from someone living in the area!

Lesson: Here’s my +1 for Mokuhankan if you want woodblock prints. It’s a bit $$ but the quality was nice and they can ship things home for you (imo it was worth saving the risk of bending the print on our flight).

**Day 19: Going home :’) out of Haneda**

The final day! Not ready to go home but ready to sit back on our couch for some gaming again. We headed to Haneda somewhat early because 1) we didn’t want to lug luggage anywhere else after checking out, and 2) Haneda has a pretty decent shopping and restaurant scene in the international terminal. There’s also a mail dropoff if you have any last-minute postcards like we did! And don’t forget the info desk next to United which has final stamps, and there’s a nearby Miku vending machine for your flight needs. Before security, I recommend checking out the restaurant row and shops around there, and there’s an outside viewing point and a shrine + bridge on the higher levels. Once in security, there’s a ton of $$$ stores (think Gucci), but you do eventually find the cheaper souvenir shops. This is the final chance to stuff your bags with snacks so go wild!

\—

And that’s the trip! One last thing I wanted to do was write up a list of tips or other things I learned that didn’t really fit into the previous sections:

* We went with 2 carry-ons (full) and 2 backpacks (mostly empty). We left with those full + a full duffel (previously rolled up in my luggage) + a full Muji suitcase (less than carry on) + the bag from airport purchases.
* We tried to pack light but we still overpacked a bit. I brought 3 shorts, 1 jeans, 1 pants. I should’ve done 2 shorts and considered 1 longer pants vs 2 (but it was also way warmer than expected). I think I packed 9-10 days of tops/dresses and could’ve done 1 less if needed. We did hotel laundry in Kyoto and Hiroshima.
* Most hotels came with tons of toiletries! No need to bring most unless you use specific products like moisturizers etc.
* Luggage forwarding was incredible. I think it was something like 3000-5000 yen each way sending 3 suitcases. You could go without but the luxury felt nice.
* I had heard Google Maps wasn’t good for navigating train stations and knowing the right exits, but in my experience it worked well. It directed us to the best exits, it often gave car recommendations for quick transfers, and I sometimes used it to see what platform our JR ticket would use since the ticket didn’t have it printed (you can see this in the station, but this is if I wanted to know where to zoom for a transfer ahead of time).
* Shinkansen have reserved cars and non-reserved cars, not sure if this is obvious but I didn’t know
this. I think it depends on the train type (ex. Nozomi, Sakura) so you can check that to see what options you have. At least once we realized an earlier train was fully non-reserved, not sold out, so we could hop on sooner (JR reservation website doesn’t say this). However, if all reserved cars are taken, I would look for a different train because I assumed the non reserved cars would be really busy (but idk how true this is).
* Next places we’d want to visit that weren’t represented here: Kanagawa, Nagoya, Nagasaki and other north spots like Hokkaido, more time in Kyoto and Hiroshima, Disney (ok that last one is just me, but I heard DisneySea is great for food and drinks)
* Pokemon Go Plus + rocks in a country with big cities and awesome transit.

..and that’s it for real! Thanks for following if you read all threads. 🙂 As usual, feel free to comment to share other thoughts or ask questions.

Week 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/16hn4z6/trip\_report\_week\_13\_in\_september\_arrival\_tokyo/

Week 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/16xfob0/trip\_report\_week\_23\_in\_september\_kyoto\_osaka\_nara/