8 Day Trip: Tokyo, Lake Kawaguchiko, Osaka, HIMEJI, Kyoto and Enoshima

My partner and friend recently got back from our trip to Japan a few weeks ago. For my partner and I, this was our first time in Japan so we crammed a LOT in.

**Day 1:** Arrived at Narita airport just before 7 PM. Met up with my friend and we grabbed our JR passes and purchased SUICA cards. Took a Taxi to our hotel where we encountered our first translation issues, but honestly it wasn’t that bad. Dumped our bags, grabbed some to-go dinner from a Family Mart, then headed back to the hotel and clocked out for the night.

**Day 2:** First stop was **Akiba shrine**. We tried entering but there was someone at the entrance who wasn’t allowing us in. From the Google Lens translation of the sign they had out, it seemed to be some sort of farmer’s market. We weren’t sure if it was for locals only, or if they were asking for an entrance fee so we skipped this. We then headed towards **Asakusa Shrine** and **Senso-ji Temple**. Senso-ji Temple in particular was great, it was bustling with visitors. We next headed to our start for the **Monkey Karts**, which was the highlight of our trip. The tour guides were friendly and it was fun getting dressed in costumes. I understand this is a supposedly controversial activity for locals, but I didn’t get that impression. So many locals were waving at us and taking photos, they looked happy. We did have maybe 2-3 cars get impatient and speed past us, but they were far exceeding the speed limit. The Monkey Kart was a surreal and amazing experience that I personally highly recommend. We next ventured to **Akihabara** and went to stop for lunch at the Maid cafe, but the lines were so long we decided to find a McDonalds instead (we at least got a glimpse of how surreal the cafe was inside)! After lunch, we visited a **GiGo arcade** and spent some time playing retro games. We spent the remainder of the afternoon shopping in Akihabara and ended the day with an **all-you-can-eat A5 Wagyu buffet at Ginza steak** which was sublime.

**Day 3:** First up was **TeamLabs**. We actually arrived a session earlier than our designated start time, but they let us in anyway. This was such a cool experience and I would recommend it even if you have no interest in art like we do. Next up was **Tokyo Tower**, which was impressively big in person. We pay 3000 Yen to go all the way to the top. On the very top level, I was wrestling with my fear of heights, but the views were absolutely impressive and the looking out the glass elevators was both terrifying and mesmerizing. I would definitely recommend at least heading up to the middle deck. We then made a visit to **Shibuya Scramble** which was amazing to see so many people! We then tried to find lunch in Shibuya but we had a hell of a time finding anywhere that didn’t have a line, it was a bit overwhelming and our feet/legs were beginning to be in agony from all the walking. We eventually found somewhere near Drunkard’s Alley where we got a brief respite from the walking and were able to fill our bellies. After lunch, we headed to **Takeshita street** and here we spent some time at the cat cafe, which is highly recommended for any cat lovers! We next went to the **Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden** but it was unfortunately closed, which was a bit frustrating as it showed as open when we checked online. Oh well! Our final destination was **Memory Lane** for dinner and drinks. I was really looking forward to interacting with the locals and bartenders here, but I was thoroughly disappointed. In both bars we visited, we were seated next to tourists who kept to themselves. The bartender in the first stop spent the majority of the time outside of the bar trying to entice other customers, so it was painful to even order anything let alone interact. The food at both bars which is mandatory was absolutely awful, the kebabs were fatty and gritty. The bartender at the next bar was extremely rude to us for no discernible reason. All I can think of is he’d had bad impressions from other foreign tourists. We felt unwelcome so after the second bar we left. I’m sure some of the other bars would’ve been better experiences, but I was very disappointed with our experience at Memory Lane.

**Day 4:** We check out of our hotel and take the Shinkasen + local trains to **Mt. Fuji Panoramic Ropeway at Lake Kawaguchiko**. We had all of our luggage with us so it was very painful dragging it with us. There was a decent 45 minute wait for the ropeway but it wasn’t too bad. The cable car is fast but it had impressive views of the lake. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see the peak of Mt. Fuji, but the views nonetheless were spectacular and it was very cheap for the round trip by cable car. I’d highly recommend this, just leave your luggage in a storage locker! Our next stop was **Arakurayama Sengen Park**. Learning from the last stop, we stowed our luggage in coin lockers (which turned out to absolutely be the right choice) and made the arduous climb up. My partner with asthma really struggled climbing to the top here, which was made worse by how exhausted we all were from days of doing 15K to 20K steps daily. We pushed through though and made it to the top. The views were spectacular from the top! I would definitely recommend this, just make sure you don’t have any heavy luggage and you’re at least moderately fit. We were meant to then go to Oshino Hakkai Springs, but since we had booked a bus to MISHMA I realised we were out of time so we unfortunately had to skip this. We had dinner at MISHIMA station and arrived at our BnB in Osaka just before 11 PM, exhausted.

**Day 5: Shitenno-ji temple** was the first stop. We only spent \~30 mins here but it was a worthwhile stop. We were going to make a quick stop at Shinsekai Market, but we had decided to sleep-in and skip this stop so we headed straight towards **Universal Studios**. We rushed straight towards Super Nintendo World which was absolutely packed! This was my second favourite part of the trip as a huge Nintendo fan. Anyone who loves Mario or gaming in general absolutely needs to visit here! We had the express pass so we were able to skip the huge line for the Mario Kart AR ride. This is definitely catered more to younger kids unsurprisingly, and with my AR glasses not properly secured for most of the ride it was disorienting. After spending way too much on the interactive wristbands and merchandise, we left Super Nintendo World after a couple hours as it was honestly too packed at that point to do anything. We had an express pass for the flying dinosaur however we were pulled aside for the chair fitting, which they were nice about. My partner and I are certainly overweight, but we’re not massive so I was a little surprised since I hadn’t ever had issues with rides outside of Japan. The staff were nice about it, and I did seem to fit fine but they gave us 50/50 odds on fitting on the ride. To save ourselves from potential embarrassment we skipped this, which was a shame as the ride looked incredible. Again, the staff were very courteous and I don’t feel they were trying to be rude. We finished up Universal with the Hogwarts area which was spectacular, it was like being in the movies. Harry Potter fans must visit here! I spent way too much on a wand, and waited \~30 minutes for a butterbeer (which was delicious, but disappointingly non-alcoholic). We left Universal and were meant to end the day exploring Dotonbori, but at this point doing almost 30K steps this day, with all the walking throughout the trip my partner and I regrettably tapped out and went back to our accommodation while my friend pressed on. Dotonbori is the one thing I do regret missing out on, but with how sore we were I would’ve done the same thing again.

**Day 6:** started the day off with **Osaka castle**, which was incredible to behold from the outside. Inside was an interesting museum with many floors. It’s worth visiting, but don’t expect this to be some kind of authentic castle in the interior. We next headed to **Nara Park** which again was one of the highlights of the trip. Feeding the deer was incredible and it felt like a once in a lifetime experience like the go karts. Note the deer can surround you and we have heard in some cases they can be aggressive (we saw a couple fights between deer with no people involved) but our own experience was incredible and I never felt in danger. We visited **Todai-ji temple** which was one of my favourite temples on the trip, as well as T**odai-ji bell tower**. We also visited **Kofuku-ji temple** which was partially under construction. This was extremely underwhelming especially for the entrance fee, I wouldn’t recommend paying to see this. We grabbed mochi from the **Nakatanidou Mochi Pounding shop** which was “unique” in flavour but definitely worth trying, before making our way to the **Tempozan Giant Ferris Wheel**. I was pretty much paralyzed by my fear of heights for the majority of this, with my partner and friend having to take videos on my behalf! When I was brave enough to look around, the views were absolutely breathtaking and it is something that shouldn’t be missed! We went during sunset which was astonishing. Finally, we ended the day with shopping at dinner at **Ttenjinbashisuji Shotengai**.

**Day 7:** We check out of our BnB. I realized I lost the JR passes for our Shinkasen seats this day for my partner and I, so we go with plan B and wing our way to HIMEJI. We took an express train (non-reserved) to HIMEJI station and surprisingly it only added about 30 minutes. **HIMEJI castle** was by far our favourite castle or building in general on the trip. It was absolutely massive, and unlike Osaka castle the interior felt far more authentic and old (it had been restored heaving in the 50s but you can’t really tell). I HIGHLY recommend making the detour to HIMEJI like we did, I absolutely loved it! We then managed to get unreserved seats on the original Shinkasen we booked (luckily) and dumped our bags at our Ryokan in Kyoto, which was super cool (but incredibly uncomfortable for sleeping)! We headed to **Fushimiinari shrine** during sunset which was stunning, even with thousands of people (including us) trying to get their most aesthetic Instagram photos. Definitely don’t miss this!

**Day 8:** My partner and I head to **Kinkaku-ji** while my friend heads to the bamboo forest. Kinkaku-ji was very underwhelming, especially for the long standing bus ride we endured to get there. The golden temple on the water was nice to see, but with hindsight I would skip this and do something else like the bamboo forest. We headed to **Nishiki Market** where we explored for a bit and got plenty of gashapon as souvenirs. We had lunch at Wendy’s (we were craving Western food by this point) and had a nice chat with another Australian family who was also visiting Japan. Finally, we headed to the **Higashiyama district** which felt like walking through Japan hundreds of years ago, especially with so many people in Kimonos. We didn’t get much time here unfortunately but this is worth the visit, and probably worth renting some Kimonos for photos! We took a Shinkasen to our BnB in **Enoshima** and found a restaurant that was still open in walking distance to our hotel. We had a fantastic dinner during our last night in Japan, and enjoyed a lot of alcohol.

**Day 9:** The dawn of the final day. We spent a good amount of time getting lost around the wonderful beach town of Enoshima, before making our way up the **Sea Candle**. We got a brief glimpse of Mt. Fuji before it was shrouded in clouds again. The views of the beach here were incredible. We explored some of the shrines such as **Grand Torii of Enoshima Jinja Shrine** then we made the trip back into Tokyo, where we got to **Tokyo Ramen Street**. The lines here were crazy even \~2:30 PM, but we got in and dined on some incredible ramen! My friend wanted to make a final last stop back at Akihabara where we did some final shopping before parting way. We made our way back to Narita airport and eventually back home to Australia.

**Sorry for the incredibly long post! This was such an incredible trip, and although our feet and legs were so often sore, I am so glad we were able to squeeze so much in! I would do it all over again if given the chance. I can happily say this was the experience of a lifetime, and although it’ll probably be a while before we return, I can’t wait to explore even more of Japan some day!**