Hello everybody.
My original post was deleted since it lack a lot of information (thank you for letting me know), so I’m reposting with a more detailed itinerary.
My husband and I will be travelling in March for our 10th anniversary together, so we decided to make a trip to Japan, which is the country of our dreams (specially mine). We love everything about it, from the nature, the culture, the food, every single thing and we want to have a trip where we can experience as much as possible, but also trying to keep it slow so we don’t spend the trip running between places.
I’m only putting the places/shrines/museums/activities, not the food. So here’s our idea :
# Full itinerary :
Friday, March 15 – 13hrs 30min flight from Paris, we’ll be arriving at Haneda around 15h on the 16th
Heading back home April 5th
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|March 16|Tokyo|Easy day, settling at the hotel, leaving bags and going out around the neighbourhood just to look around and to grab something to eat (We’ll be staying at Taito city), but maybe Senso-ji since it’s really close and maaaybe Asakusa|
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|March 17|Tokyo|TeamLab, Tokyo tower, Hamarikyu Gardens, Happy Pancake for the fluffly treat|
|March 18|Tokyo|Meiji Shrine, Yoyogi Park, Takeshita Street Square and the Shibuya area in general, including the crossing and the rooftop to see the crossing if possible, probably at sundown|
|March 19|Tokyo > Kyoto|Slow morning, travel to Kyoto after lunch, plus settling. Given that we’ll be staying right in Gion, so’ll we’ll probably go no Nishiki Market and sorroundings|
|March 20|Kyoto|Shinto traditional wedding|
|March 21|Kyoto|Arashiyama and Tenryu-ji|
|March 22|Kyoto|Day trip to Himeji castle OR Golden Pavillion, Ryoan-ji and Daitoku-ji|
|March 23|Kyoto|Fushimi Inari and Tofuku-ji|
|March 24|Kyoto|Imperial Palace, Teramachi-Nori, Nijo and Ninomaru castles, |
|March 25|Kyoto > Osaka|Departure for Osaka lat in the morning, we’ll be staying at Namba, so Dotonbori, Hozenji, Rikoru Ojisan|
|March 26|Osaka|Horikoshi, Shinsekai Hondori and Shitenno-ji|
|March 27|Osaka|Daytrip Nara Park, Kasuga Taisha and Todai-ji (I’ll explain later)|
|March 28|Osaka|Osaka Castle and Pokemon Cafe|
|March 29|Osaka > Nara|Early trip to Osaka, we booked a Ryokan for our sort of honeymoon after de Kyoto ceremony, it’s on the mountains with great view and private Onsen, so we want to enjoy as much as possible|
|March 30|Nara > Ise|Trip to Ise, we’ll just chill during the day, walking the village and eating|
|March 31|Ise|Ise Shrine in the morning and Meoto Iwa i the afternoon if possible, if it’s too much we’ll just leave Meoto Iwa|
|April 1|Ise > Tokyo|Early trip back to Tokyo, wondering the streets|
|April 2|Tokyo|Ghibli Museum in the morning, Shinjuku National Garden and general neighbourhood area.|
|April 3|Tokyo|Kokyo Castle, Imperial Palace’s Gardens, Avatar café just to check it out and Kiyosumi garden|
|April 4|Tokyo|Ueno Park and Koishikawa Garden|
March 16 : Is it a good amout of time to see the temple and Asakusa?
March 17 : Borderless or Planet?
March 18 : Do you think it’ll be possible to add Harajuku since is close by or is it too much?
National Museum of emerging sciences and innovation, is it worth the visit? We love museums and science stuff, but we love more the culture and nature prevalence of Japan, so we don’t really know what to prioritise.
Should I leave any neighbourhood out ? Should I include another one? Is it unrealistic to try to get a glimpse on those times?
Is it worth to go the International Manga Museum in Kyoto? My husband is a big manga fan btw
More things to include in Kyoto? We want to include Hokan-ji, Kiyomizu-dera, Maruyama Park and more but no idea how.
For Osaka, TeamLab Botanical Garden?
I’m still confused about how to approach the Nara situation, given that we want to go to the park but also enjoy the ryokan as much as we can.
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If you have any more suggestions or comments, please feel free to do it.
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Thank you!
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2 comments
You’ve already got Takeshita street on your list, and that is in Harajuku, so you don’t have to add Harajuku. I’m not sure I’d bother with Meiji Shrine *and* Yoyogi Park—those on the same site—*and* Hamarikyu, as they’re all similar (albeit pleasant enough) places. Hamarikyu’s the nicest place, but it takes some time to get to; we’ve usually made a day of it, going to Hamarikyu in the morning, then taking the water taxi up to Asakusa.
Be aware that elementary schools finish for the academic year in Japan on about the 20th of March, so everything’s going to be extra crowded.
I’ve never been to borderless, but the past version seemed to be favoured over planets. Obviously you’ll have to wait to see how the new version reviews. But I’m willing to bet the tickets with be much, much harder to get. Currently, if you’re not picky about times, you can wait until only a few days in advance to get planets tickets.
Miraikan can be skipped. For a science and technology museum, it has a lot of very abstract and ambiguous exhibits. For example, I didn’t quite get the point of the Rube Goldberg machine that was supposed to represent natural and man made disasters.