Trip Report – 17 days in Japan in October 2023

I am writing this trip report 4 days after arriving home from Japan (while stuck in my room with covid). This trip was an actual dream. For reference, I had been to Japan twice before – one time with my sister and cousin, another time as a solo trip and now this time with my brother. My brother had always wished to come along with me on one of my trips but never had the funds and now that we are both adults with adult money, it seemed like a good time to go. We had been dreaming about this trip ever since 2020 when we watched the Super Nintendo World nintendo direct in lockdown. Apologies for the long post, but I am using this as a way to document my memories and thought I might share.

**Preparations:**

We booked our flights five months in advance with Japan Airlines. It was my first time flying with them and I loved it. The food on the plane was very good. We also like that Japan Airlines allowed us to have 2x 23kg checked luggages, which we utilised on the way home.I booked all our hotels on Booking.com when they became available three months in advance. We paid for all the hotels once we arrived at check in. I liked that these had free cancellations.We bought a 10gb plan on Ubigi for our E-sims for $26AUD and installed them a couple of days before we left. Although I had a slight panic when I got off the plane and it did not work until we had left customs – I guess there is little reception in that side of the airport. It began working itself and we had no real problems until our Disneyland and Universal days when the data was spotty. We only used 6gb out of the 10gb for the 17 days, which is pretty good. We used hotel wifi for uploading photos and watching videos, which would have saved us a lot of data.

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**Itinerary:**

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**Day 1 -**

We took a 9am flight from Sydney to Haneda airport, arriving at 5pm. First time flying with Japan Airlines and the food on the flight was sooo good. We took a taxi from the airport to Uguisudani. We grabbed a 711 dinner and settled in for the night.

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**Day 2 -**

We walked to Ueno park and ate our 711 breakfast overlooking the view. We explored the park until the JR ticket office at Ueno station opened and we exchanged our JR passes. We had to wait in line for about 15/20 minutes. We then walked through Ueno to Akihabara and spent the day shopping. We went to some fun arcades with retro arcade machines. We went to lots of Book offs, Hard Offs, Super Potato and other video game shops. We had some Coco Curry for lunch to refuel (we loved it, so cheap)

Then we went to Kanda to visit a small local shop who our mum often chatted to on instagram through google translate. The shop owners were extremely lovely and we spoke to each other through a translate app on their phone. They handmade a lot of the items in their shop and all their stock was so lovely. We took the train back to the hotel. Even though I am used to being on my feet all day, the sheer amount of stairs did a number on my legs (probably didn’t help that we walked up 8 flights of stairs to visit Mandarake but we were running on pure excitement)

After a short rest at the hotel, we caught the train to Tokyo Skytree where we had reservations for the Kirby Cafe at 8:15pm. We explored Solamachi shops until our reservation time. We really enjoyed the cafe but I think we enjoyed the cafe merch more.

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**Day 3 -**

We caught the train to Harajuku and took a quick walk through Takeshita street before stopping at Kiddyland in Omotesando (so unbelievably busy on a weekend) and Popmart. We went to Harajuku Gyozaro for lunch which was recommended to us and it was one of our favourite meals. There was a big queue out the front but we got in within 10 minutes. The food was so good and so cheap. Our waiter was really sweet and gave us a note with these cute characters on them saying thankyou and he kept coming back to it to add a little extra bit to it, or to colour something in, so much so that he was ignoring customers waiting to pay just so he could add some more detail to the drawing. It was quite funny.

We then continued walking to Shibuya where we hit up Shibuya Parco to visit the Nintendo store, which was very fun but ridiculously crowded on the weekend (none of the other Ninendo stores we visited were even half as busy as Tokyo, including the newly opened Kyoto store). We visited the Shibuya Crossing then made our way up to Shibuya Sky for our 5:20pm slot. This was pretty magical. We only spent about 40 minutes up there before making our way back to the hotel.

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**Day 4 -**

It was a rainy Sunday in Tokyo this day. We had heard that they were reshowing the Super Mario Movie again for a special promo in 4D at certain cinemas. So we booked tickets online in the morning to see the movie at Grand Cinema Ikebukuro. This turned out to be one of our absolute favourite memories of the trip. We did not expect it to be such an intense experience – it felt like being on a rollercoaster for 90 minutes. The seats did not stop moving or swaying, water was sprayed on your face, bursts of air went off next to your ears, the back of your seat punched you and little brushes that tickled your ankles. It was honestly more fun than any 4D ride at Universal and Disney. We spent the rest of the day visiting arcades and visiting Sunshine City mall before heading back to the hotel and grabbing dinner in Ameyokocho.

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**Day 5** \-

We had our hotel ship our luggages to our next hotel in Osaka for us this morning then we set off to walk to Asakusa to visit Sensoji temple. It was a gorgeous day and still fairly quiet in the morning. We enjoyed lots of little street food snacks before trying our first conveyor belt sushi at Kura Sushi. We only had to wait about 10 minutes for a table. It was an enjoyable meal but probably wouldn’t want to wait a super long time for it. We caught the train back to Shibuya to continue shopping for the afternoon.

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**Day 6 -**

We made our way to Tokyo station to catch the bullet train down to Osaka. We ate our bento boxes on the train and saw Mount Fuji, which was pretty special. We got super lost trying to navigate from Shin Osaka station to our hotel at Universal and we ended up giving up and grabbing a taxi at Umeda station. We checked into the Park Front hotel, grabbed some Universal merch and got ready for our next two big theme park days.

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**Day 7 -**

We lined up out the front of Universal at 7am and everybody got let inside at 7:30am. We went straight to Super Nintendo world and got let in without any passes. We went to Mario Kart (most amazing ride). We went to Kinopios cafe and got a timed entry ticket for 10:45am, so in the meantime, we went on Yoshi’s adventure and we bought our mario wristbands and completed as many interactive games as we could until our Kinopio cafe time. We loved the food at Kinopios cafe, it was so delicious and it was nice to sit down in a nice, quiet spot. We continued mini games until we unlocked three keys on the app and got to do the Bowser Jr’s challenge. I think the wristbands are worth the money as they really enhance your experience within SNW. We loved collecting the different stamps and tried to unlock as many as we could by doing different things. I booked a return entry to Super Nintendo World on the app for the evening, so we decided to leave around midday to explore the rest of the park.

We watched the No Limit Parade while we waited for our Biohazard (Leon Route) entry time which I booked on the app in the morning. I had no idea what to expect for this ride – I knew it was more like a maze but holy shit. It was so intense. We ran from room to room with these characters chasing us. Thank god there were staff dressed as police officers in each area guiding us through (even though we couldn’t understand what they were saying). It was one of the craziest experiences of my life. For some reason, nobody else had booked the Leon route at the same time as us, so it was just my brother and I, which made it so much more scary. We then rode the Amazing Spiderman ride (which my brother HATED but I loved) before going back to Super Nintendo world and lining up for a popcorn bucket and riding Mario Kart again, meeting Toad and grabbing some of the Yoshi snacks.

We had a quick look at Hogwarts in the dark before heading out to the streets to see the zombies interact with the crowds. It was so crowded (it felt almost dangerously crowded in some areas) but we loved seeing so many people dressed up in full-on halloween costumes. We walked past the Halloween concert with Hami Kuma and we couldn’t believe how much people get into it. It was really fun to see.I can’t lie, it was super crowded and the sun was blaring down on us at USJ this day. There was super long queues for EVERYTHING – even getting a bottle of water at a vending machine, or to go to the toilets, lining up for a snack could take up to 30 minutes. We still had the best day ever but you have just got to go into it prepared. The next day, we felt more prepared as we ditched the funny headgear for proper hats and made sure we kept our fluids up.

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**Day 8 -**

I headed into USJ around 9am this day to ride some rollercoasters while my brother slept in. I rode single liner for Sadako’s curse (so intense) then I used my Express pass to ride the Harry Potter rides before meeting up with my brother. We rode Jaws, then went to see the Waterworld show. Had some lunch at the Happiness Cafe. (Tell me why the theme park food at USJ is just so good. We were so shocked) We used our Express pass to enter back into Super Nintendo World to ride Mario Kart and Yoshi one last time. Then, we checked out all the different zombies wandering the streets. We both agreed that you definitely get your value for money for your tickets to USJ. There is always some type of entertainment, whether that be a parade, a performer, a character to meet, food to eat or a ride to go on. It was pretty non stop and to get access to all of that for like $90 – it was pretty great.

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**Day 9 -**

To say we were exhausted after USJ is an understatement. We had a chill morning doing our laundry, then took the train to the Nintendo store Osaka. It was so quiet here compared to Tokyo so we could have a better look at things. We grabbed some okonomiyaki and yakisoba for a late lunch/early dinner and had a restful evening. We planned to explore more of Osaka this day but we really needed the rest.

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**Day 10 -**

We used our hotels luggage shipping service to ship our suitcases back down to Tokyo before we jumped on the train to head to Kyoto for two nights. We walked around Kyoto and went to Nishiki market to grab some food (far too crowded for me and the food was just okay), then we went to my favourite stationery shop, Travellers Factory and Kiddyland before having a restful early night and ordering uber eats (we were really surprised that you paid cash on delivery)

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**Day 11 -**

We woke up really early and decided to walk the streets of Kyoto while it was quiet before 7am. The streets were silent and the sun was rising. It was very peaceful. We walked past Yasaka shrine, Hokan-ji temple and then Kiyomizu-dera. The streets were bare besides a few photographers. After walking over 10,000 steps before 9am and also realising that nothing was open, we decided to rest back at the hotel for an hour, then we made our way into the main streets of Kyoto for some shopping. We thought it was quite funny that all of the streets had speakers on them that played classical music. We don’t know if it was just a Sunday morning thing, but it was weirdly relaxing.

We wanted to go to the newly opened Kyoto Nintendo store and found out that you needed to get timed entry tickets at a separate location (an underground tunnel at Shijo train station entrance 10). We spent about 20 minutes looking for this entrance and ended up finding it and getting timed entry tickets for 12:30pm. The tunnel had Nintendo artwork on the walls and it was a great spot for photos. After some more wandering around Kyoto and seeing some shrines and also having the best wagyu burger of my life (at a restaurant by the river called Kacto), we head into the Kyoto Nintendo store. The checkout line wrapped around the entire store, so much so that you couldn’t look at things because the people checking out were standing in front of it.

After another rest at the hotel, we went out for some Ichiran ramen for the first time and we loved it. We then tried an icecream place next door to it, but we had Matcha ice cream and lemon ice cream but it was way too bitter for our taste.

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**Day 12 -**

We made our way to Kyoto station to catch the bullet train back to Tokyo at 10:30am. Unlucky for us, we got trapped on the bullet train for almost an extra 2 hours because there was a fire nearby the track in Nagoya, and they had to check that there was no damage to the tracks. So we arrived in Tokyo a lot later than anticipated and were tired, hungry and a bit cranky. We thought we had missed our Team Lab Planets entry time which was at 2pm but we decided to catch a taxi there anyway and see if they would let us in, which they did – no questions asked. The exhibition was really fun and we had a great time. It took us about an hour to get through it all.

We then caught three different trains to get to our hotel, the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay, near Disneyland. While we were trying to find the coin laundry in the hotel to do our laundry, we found a massive Namco arcade on the same floor, which we had all to ourselves while we waited for our laundry to finish (this was the highlight of our day). We also accidentally caught the Disneyland fireworks from the lobby of the hotel on our first night while waiting outside for Ubereats. Pretty special.

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**Day 13 -**

(I can safely say that these next two days were the best days of my life. Might write a longer post on these later) We rode Poohs Hunny Hunt, Beauty and The Beast, Roger Rabbit, Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain, Star Tours, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, It’s A Small World, Monsters Inc, Peter Pan, Phillar Magic, saw the Electrical Lights Parade, Jungle Cruise and Space Mountain. The Halloween themed food and drinks were a big highlight for us. We didn’t expect to love the Disney food so much, but it was delicious. We also thought we might take a break back at the hotel during the day but we were too excited, we didn’t stop for any breaks at all. We were there from 7am to 9pm. Such a fun-filled day.

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**Day 14 -**

We went on Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Nemo Seariders, Indiana Jones, Raging Spirits, Jasmine’s Flying Carpets, Sinbads Storybook Voyage, Magic Lamp Theatre, Toy Story Mania, Big Band Beat, the Electric Railway, Aquatopia, Transit Steamliner Boat, Soaring, Tower of Terror and saw the Believe Sea of Dreams show. We paid for Priority Passes for some of these as it saved us so much time lining up. We also saw the fireworks as we were leaving which topped off the awesome day.

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**Day 15 -**

We caught a taxi with all of our luggage to the Muji Hotel in Ginza, for our last two days in Japan. I spent the afternoon shopping while my brother rested. We had lots of gifts to buy.

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**Day 16 -**

We stayed in the Ginza area again this day and just stocked up our suitcases to the brim with souvenirs, snacks and cosmetics. It was good to dedicate the last couple of days to shopping because our suitcases got very heavy. We had some ramen and gyozas for dinner at Ippudo.

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**Day 17 -**

We did some last minute shopping at Daiso for snacks (so cheap) and checked out of our hotel at 11am. We had some time to kill before our flight so we went to the Art Aquarium Museum Ginza because it was right next door. This was nice for a few photos but I wouldn’t recommend making your way out here for it. We realised we had finished looking at everything in 30 minutes, so we walked through it again to try and kill more time. We actually really liked the gift shop though and ended up buying a lot there.

We made our way to Haneda airport 5 hours before our flight because we ran out of things to do besides shopping in Ginza. Haneda airport was crazy busy on a Saturday just after lunch. It took us over an hour to drop off our bags (we had checked in online) and the security line wrapped around the airport. Luckily, we had plenty of time after dropping off our bags to check out the shops, grab a super delicious pork katsu meal set (Katsusen Tonkatsu) and use up all our cash on Gachapon. The airport was significantly quieter in the afternoon and there was no line at all for security when we went through.

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**Accommodations:**

We stayed at Landabout Hotel in Uguisudani for the first 5 days of our trip. We loved that we were a 2 minute walk from the Yamanote line and super close to Ueno. It felt like a pretty quiet part of town, away from the hustle and bustle and we loved being able to walk to Ueno park in the mornings. We could also walk to Asakusa and Akihabara, which we did. The hotel was fairly new and had a modern vibe which we like and the rooms were quite basic but we were okay with that.

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We then made our way to The Park Front Hotel in Osaka, right outside the entrance of Universal. This location was A+++. And the price was honestly so good, about $280 AUD a night. So worth it after a long day at a theme park to walk straight into your hotel. Also we had a great view of the river and we could see into the Universal and watch the shows, which I didn’t think we had to even pay for.

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In Kyoto, we stayed at a small hotel called Gion Misen Furumonzen, located in the Gion district. This hotel was so lovely and the rooms had a traditional vibes but with proper mattresses, not tatamis. Also a great location as it was right next to Sanjo station and within a 10 minute walk to Pontocho alley for food but also about 20 minute walk to Kiyomizu-dera.

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Back in Tokyo Bay for our Disney part of the trip, we stayed at the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay. This hotel was really worth it in my opinion. The beds were A+++. After sleeping on super hard mattresses the rest of the trip, this bed was heaven. Also, we had a great view looking at the Toy Story hotel and the monorail line, as well as Mount Fuji, which was a great surprise on the first morning.

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For our last couple of nights in Japan, we went back into Ginza to stay at the Muji hotel. It had been a dream of mine to stay here. It was a great location for doing last minute shopping. I loved all the free amenities they gave you – like a free essential oil which you got to pick on check in for your room’s humidifier.

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**Transport:**

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We used Suica cards that I had saved from my previous trips and loaded them up with 10,000 yen each at Haneda airport. Even though both had been used within the last 5 years, one of them came up with an error while trying to recharge. A kind worker noticed us struggling and she took my card away and fixed it in two minutes and I could put the money on it. We never had to recharge our cards during the trip – I would say 10,000 yen was the perfect amount for us as we had about $10 left on it when we got to the airport. We used our Suicas to pay for vending machines and some 711 purchases, so we never had to deal with small change.

We bought our JR passes before the price increase. I don’t think we ended up saving any money by using the passes in the end tbh, but there was some peace of mind for us knowing that if plans changed or we were running late, we wouldn’t be out of pocket.

We took a few taxis during our trip – to and from the airport, once when we got lost in Osaka, and a few times to our hotel if we had bags with us. I’d heard people say that taxis in Japan were expensive, but compared to taxis and Ubers in Australia, the prices were super reasonable and saved us a lot of stress.

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**General tips that helped us along the way:**

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Pack as light as possible. Aim to do laundry every 4 days so you don’t have to bring so many clothes. Don’t bother bringing amenities because the hotel provides them all.Bring a fold up duffle bag with you. Handy for doing laundry but also for putting all your clothes in on the way home to check in if you have 2x checked luggage allowance. That way you have more room for souvenirs on the way home.If moving from city to city, send your suitcases to your next hotel. Before booking each hotel, I confirmed that the hotel desk could assist with this. It was super easy. We would take our suitcases down to the front desk on the day before we left and they would fill out all the paperwork for us and it would arrive at our next hotel and be in our room. Make sure you have cash on hand when shipping the luggage, as most hotels only accept cash for this. It cost us about $25 AUD per suitcase. They even wrapped our suitcases as we didn’t have hard shell suitcases.

Wear a mask! Everywhere you go is so crowded and people are sneezing and coughing everywhere. Even though I was religious with my mask wearing, I still caught covid on the flight home, but I do feel grateful that I wasn’t sick during the trip at least.

The AUD to yen exchange was in our favour for this trip so everything felt so cheap. We loved the fact that you could buy a nice cold bottle of water on the street for $1.20, compared to $4.50 at home. We went a bit crazy with our shopping but we both came home with lots of money to spare, as we overbudgetted for food. Food was just so cheap and so delicious.

For Aussies, we really liked using our Up bank card over in Japan. The conversion rate was super decent and it made it so easy for us to split the costs of things with the slice feature. It was accepted everywhere and it had free ATM withdrawals, which we utilised. We brought Wise cards along with us, which was good to have as a backup but Up bank was so good. We liked to keep cash on us though because we did end up spending ALOT of coins on gachapon and claw machines. We became very addicted.