Hi there! I recently came back from my first trip to Japan, which I visited with my sister. We organized the travel schedule and everything on our own, because we wanted to tailor our experience to our specific needs and interests. For this reason, I think this report might not be super interesting for most of the people planning a trip, but I decided to share it anyway.
I’ll start saying that we decided to spend most of our time in Tokyo, with a very small trip to Nagoya to visit Ghibli Park. We wanted to avoid the stress of moving among different cities, and Tokyo already had a huge list of places we wanted to visit. We decided to stop in Kakegawa on our way to Nagoya to visit a bird park, but overall our main focus was on Tokyo.
Before posting our travel schedule, I’ll share a few notes and tips I feel might be useful or interesting:
1. **Japan Rail Pass**, subway and train tickets: since we mostly stayed in Tokyo, we decided not to purchase a JRP. Instead, we opted for buying a Welcome Suica at the airport and buying two 72 hour Tokyo Subway Tickets. This way, we used the subway tickets every time we could move using the included subway lines, opting for the Suica card in all the other cases. Overall, we spent about 14.000 yen in total in 12 days, except for the Shinkansen tickets to and from Nagoya. Regarding that train, we purchased the tickets on the same days we used them, opting for the basic fare with no reservation, as we were only travelling with a backpack for that segment of the trip. We had virtually no problem finding accommodation on the train even without reservation. Every Shinkansen has a few cars reserved for tickets with no reservation, and people make ordered queues on the platforms before the train arrives. Even in the worst case scenario of a full train, you can remain in the queue and wait for the next one, as they pass pretty frequently.
2. **Hotels**: even if we only stayed in Tokyo, we tried three different hotels, located in Shibuya, Minato and Taito. In this way, we explored different areas of the city, and avoided long commuting times for visiting everything we wanted. Also, we opted for a traditional hotel for our final stay, and even if it was incredibly beautiful and a great experience I’m glad I didn’t have to sleep on a futon for 11 nights because I’m not really used to that.
3. **Luggage**: our plane tickets included 2 big luggage and a cabin bag. We knew that moving around in the subway with two big luggage would have been very hard, so we decided to organize as follows. We arrived in Tokyo with only one luggage and a backpack each, to make the trip to the first hotel as painless as possible. Then we purchased two other luggages during our first days of the stay, to be used for souvenirs and food. When we left our first hotel in Nagoya, we used a shipping service to send one luggage to our second hotel in Tokyo and the other one to our third one. Then, when we moved from the second to the third hotel in Tokyo we rented an Uber, since they were relatively close. 3 days before our departure, we sent one luggage each to the airport, so we never had to move around with more than one luggage each. Overall, each shipment of one luggage cost around 1500-2000 yen, so we felt it was worth the saved energy and time (not mentioning the stress we avoided). We used a couple of times the train station lockers. They are pretty useful, but we made the mistake of not writing down their exact location inside the station and it took us almost 40 minutes to find the right locker at the end of the day.
4. **Money**: we paid all our hotels before departure except one, for which we had to bring money in cash. Apart from that, the only situation in which we couldn’t pay with card was to charge our Welcome Suica and on buses. We also had dinner in a couple of cashless places, so I guess that having a lot of cash is a recommendation that would apply more outside Tokyo than in the city.
5. **Conbini**: the real life-savers of the trip. They allowed us to have quick dinners when we were too tired to go to a restaurant, and we always purchased a few extra items for having breakfast in the morning (we never included breakfast in our hotel reservations). There is absolutely no need to bring an umbrella with you from home, as they are available everywhere at a very cheap price and they are also very cute. Their bathrooms are also often very clean. The only suggestion I have is to try to avoid eating only in the conbini, as it might be a very tempting option but wouldn’t allow you to enjoy all the options Japan has to offer.
6. **Walking**: we were prepared to walk 10.000 steps per day, but in the end we almost clocked 20.000 steps per day. I had two pairs of shoes and changed them every day, so I avoided blisters even if my feet were very tired. All our hotels provided ice for resting the feet during the evening, so I suggest you ask for it if you think it might help you to feel a little better.
7. **Planning the trip**: the first thing we did was to create a list of all the shops, monuments and places we wanted to visit, and then a second list of restaurants and cafes we wanted to try. We also spent a couple of weeks looking for online articles, reddit threads and Instagram posts in search of inspirations. We then divided the list into things we were sure we wanted to do/visit and optional things. We used Google Maps to place pins of everything, with different visuals for food places and activities. Then we made small aggregations depending on the location of the different places, and picked a day or half a day for each group of activities.
8. **Moving around**: Google Maps was our best friend when it came to understanding public transport. I know some people have trouble using it outside Tokyo or for locating stores, and I agree that if a shop is located in a very tall building with multiple floors it might be hard to find it using Google Maps. However, it’s very precise in terms of suggesting which bus or metro or train to take. A super useful feature is showing which train car is the best one, depending on how close it is to the correct exit of your arrival station. Following those directions, and the suggestion of which exit to be taken, has saved us a lot of time. We also used UberX a couple of times, and the price was very reasonable
9. **Flights and Jet Lag**: we managed to almost-completely avoid jet lag issues by trying to avoid sleeping outside the normal sleeping schedule of our arrival location. We landed in Tokyo at 11am after a 16 hours trip with basically no sleep, and we walked around until 10pm avoiding any kind of afternoon nap
10. **Vegetarian food**: I almost never had issues finding vegetarian alternatives wherever we went, except once in Nagoya. However, that was expected, as it was a traditional restaurants serving only a specific kind of dish. I also had planned to visit a couple of plant based restaurant, but unfortunately we had to cancel because the schedule was too packed
11. **Weather**: even if we were in mid November it was incredibly warm at day. Most of the time around 20 degrees. I’m not sure this was normal, because we were supposed to see some ginkgo yellow leaves (at least during the last days of our trips) but most of the trees were green. Also, when we visited Mt. Fuji 4th station (2000m high) there was 10°C, which is kind of worrying for me. Partially unrelated, it was weirdly complicated for us to offset the carbon offprint of our trip, but this is a whole different story
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Day-by-day trip report
**November 11th (Haneda, Harajuku, Shinjuku, Golden Gai, Omoide Yokocho, Hanazono Shrine)**
**-** We arrived in Haneda at 11:30am. After retrieving the baggage, we purchased our Suica Welcome cards and two 72 hour Tokyo Subway Tickets per person. Then we travelled to our hotel (Nippon Seinenkan Hotel) for checking and leaving the luggage
\- The baseball court next to our hotel was hosting a match, so we purchased drinks from the stadium café and watched a few minutes of it
\- Our first 7-Eleven visit! We purchased a small late lunch, and realized it was too late for our original plan to visit Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden and its Greenhouse. Instead we walked around Harajuku and visited a few shops
\- We took a train to Shinjuku and visited Lemon Shinjuku (a store with second hand cameras) and BOOKOFF
\- Dinner in the standing sushi bar Uogashi Nihon-Ichi. Our first Japanese dining experience, with a few vegetarian options!
\- Golden Gai and Omoide Yokocho, only as visitors and not for dining
\- Attending the Tori no ichi celebrations at the Hanazono Shrine
\- Second conbini pit-stop and returning home for sleeping after almost 40 hours of wake
**November 12th (Nazu Museum, Shibuya, tea ceremony)**
**-** Breakfast at TREE by NAKED Meiji park, it wasn’t planned but a very happy discovery
\- Bus trip + stopping in one Lawson to purchase an umbrella because it was raining
\- Nazu Museum visit. Absolutely worth it, one of the most beautiful places we’ve seen in Tokyo. We decided not to stop at the tea room but we dedicated more time to visiting the garden
\- Micasadeco & Cafe Jingumae for lunch! They serve huge fluffy pancakes. We had to wait outside for about an hour but in my opinion it was worth it
\- Afternoon in Shibuya! We visited Nintendo Tokyo, Shibuya Pokémon Center, GBL Miyashita Park, Mandarake and Shibuya 109. We were already planning to come back the day after to complete the visit
\- We had a reservation at Sakurai Japanese Tea Experience, which I strongly recommend because we had a beautiful time
**November 13th (Meiji Jingu Goyen, Yoyogi Park, Shimokitazawa, Shibuya)**
**-** Explored Meiji Jingu and Meiji Jingu Gyoen, plus the Yoyogi Park. We had breakfast in the cute cafe at the entrance of Meiji Jingu (CAFÉ Mori no Terrace)
\- Lunch at Seafood Bar Ermitage Yoyogi, in a really cute neighborhood. We didn’t have a reservation
\- Took a train to visit Shimokitazawa. The Shiro-Hige’s Cream Puff Factory had a big queue so we avoided it, but we walked around the area, visited the Bonus Track and the B-Side store
\- Rested for a while at the hotel while using the washing machine
\- Back to Shibuya where we had a reservation for Shibuya Sky
\- Visited the Shibuya Magnet One Piece store and the Hachikō Memorial Statue
\- Dinner from our favourite 7-Eleven
**November 14th (Mt. Fuji-san, Owakudani Valley, Lake Ashi, Hakone Shrine)**
**-** For this day we had a reservation for a guided day trip
\- 4th station of Mt. Fuji, trip made by bus
\- Hakone ropeway to the Owakudani Valley, maybe the favourite place I’ve seen outside Tokyo!
\- Short cruise to Lake Ashi
\- Hakone Shrine, very nice but with the worst bathrooms I’ve seen in my life
\- Returned to Tokyo with the bullet train, we stopped at Muji to purchase our second luggage.
\- The evening was dedicated to ship our luggage to the next hotels and put in our backpacks the necessary for the two upcoming days
**November 15th (Kakegawa Kachoen, Nagoya)**
**-** Checkout from out first hotel and second breakfast at TREE by Naked
\- From Tokyo Station we took a bullet train to Kakegawa
\- We left our backpacks in the station lockers and purchased a good and quick lunch inside the station (they have an incredible melonpan)
\- Long visit in Kakegawa Kachoen, a park dedicated to birds. In the park it’s possible to see owls, penguins and tons of other different birds
\- Back to the station, we retrieved our backpacks and travelled to Nagoya, where we stayed at the Nikko Style Nagoya
\- We had reserved a dinner at ひつまぶし 一葉 for a traditional meal from Nagoya
**November 16h (Ghibli Park)**
**-** The day was dedicated to Ghibli Park. After check out, we left our backpacks in the Nagoya station lockers and took a train to the park (it took about an hour)
\- The three different areas of the park (plus the fourth that will open soon) are not super close to each other. The Dondoko Forest is especially far away, so please take this into account if you have a packed schedule as we did. Also, there is a bus connecting all the different areas, but it’s hard to spot so make sure to ask where you can find it
\- Overall, the park is nice but I felt it was a little too performative. There are tons of “esthetic” places where people enjoy taking pictures and selfies, but not many interactive nor informative spots. You will likely find long queues just to take photos in the most popular areas
\- The shop is full of beautiful things if you are Ghibli fan, so that was a nice plus for me
\- After our visit we had onigiri just outside the park (ロタンダ風ヶ丘 北口カフェテリア)
\- We took a bullet train back to Tokyo and headed to the Hotel 1899 Tokyo, which is a tea themed hotel
\- Small dinner from a conbini next to the hotel
**November 17th (Tsukiji Outer Market, Haute Couture Cafe, Kosoan, Tokyo Tower, Pokémon Café)**
**-** We woke up VERY early to a small typhoon alert, but we had to leave the hotel anyway because we had a reservation for a guided tour of the Tsukiji Outer Market
\- Even if it was rainy and windy, the market was full of people
\- Of course there was fish everywhere, but also a lot of interesting vegetarian food: broth, vegetables, nuts, fruit, pasta and so on
\- Make sure to visit also Tsukiji Uogashi a building that is reserved to restaurants sellers during certains hours but open to everybody else in other time slots (this is what our guide told us). On the upper floor there are also free seats to enjoy your purchases
\- Lunch at the Haute Couture Cafe, a small cafe completely covered by (fake) flowers serving good-looking pastries and drinks. Perfect if you would like to take some fancy photos. You will need a reservation for this
\- Our afternoon tea was at the Kosoan tea house, another place I loved! We didn’t have a reservation and it was lovely to spend some relaxing time over there
\- Sunset on the Tokyo Tower! Such a wonderful monument, but probably my least favourite view if compared with Shibuya Sky and Tokyo Sky Tree
\- For dinner we had a reservation at Pokémon Cafe, so we visited the adjacent Pokémon Store and then enjoyed a Pokémon themed snack before collapsing at our hotel
**November 18th (Akihabara, Jimbocho)**
**-** We were extra tired, so we rested a little and then took an Uber with our luggage to our last hotel: The Edo Sakura
\- From that, we moved to Akihabara, were we planned to spend the day. Among other places, we visited (コスプレ衣装どっとこむ, TAITO Station Akihabara, Super Potato Akihabara Branch and AKIHABARA KOTOBUKIYA)
\- Personally, I haven’t enjoyed this visit a lot. Maybe because I’m not super updated about the most recent Japanese gaming and anime trends, but also because there were a few situations that made me feel uncomfortable in terms of crowd and how certain shops were organized.
\- We had a quick unplanned break in the Vault Coffee, a cozy place considering how central it is
\- In the same area we had a reservation in an Owl Cafe (which doesn’t serve food, but only allows you to meet different kind of owls)
\- After that, we moved for a quick visit to Jimbocho Book Town. We arrived a little later than we wanted, and many places were closed before what Google was suggesting. It was still worth a visit
\- Dinner at Front du Chaton, again not planned but a nice discovery
\- We raided a beauty shop we randomly found while walking to the train station, I think it was a Kimuraya Drugstore
**November 19th (Pokémon Center, Sunshine Aquarium, Ghibli Museum, Nakano Broadway)**
**-** Morning in Toshima City! We visited the Pokémon Center Mega Tokyo, Kiddy Land and other shops on the same floor and the Sunshine Aquarium
\- We had a reservation for the early afternoon in the Ghibli Museum, so we decided to have lunch directly inside the museum itself. It was really good!
\- Photos are forbidden inside the museum, which I found refreshing after the long queues in the Ghibli Park. The visit was pretty cute, but again I found myself a little disappointed because I was hoping to find more information about the creative process and the teams involved in the creation of the movies
\- Before returning to the hotel we visited Nakano Broadway, but after many days of visiting similar places we weren’t super impressed. It was still better than Akihabara in a certain sense in my opinion
\- We had a quick dinner at Ramen Nagayama. I have to note that there was no vegetable broth alternative, which makes the place not really vegetarian friendly
\- We shipped two of our luggages at the airport, to make the subway trip easier
**November 20th (Yanaka Cemetery, Sensō-ji, Nakamise Shopping Street, Hie Shrine)**
**-** In the morning we spent some time writing postcards and resting a little
\- While waiting for our first bus, we had a couple of fresh onigiri in a place that is not marked on Google Maps. The address is 2-chōme-3 Shitaya, Taito City. Highly suggested!
\- We wanted to have lunch at Benitsuru, another pancake place. There was a huge waiting list (booking for another day is not possible), so we marked our names and then visited the area while waiting
\- Walk around the Yanaka Cemetery and then we visited the Sensō-ji, where I received the worst O-mikuji ever
\- After our pancake-based lunch, we went back to Nakamise Shopping Street in order to buy some gifts for family and friends. I wish we had more time to spend there, it was really nice
\- We spent a couple of hours meeting with a friend, and after that it was dark already. The Hie Shrine was closed, but we visited it anyway and I’m glad we did because there was nobody around and the night lights were impressive and really nice
\- We tried to visit the Jingu Gaien Ginkgo Avenue but the trees were still green! However, we had a nice snack in the Kihachi Ayoma Flagship
\- For dinner we went to GYOPAO Gyoza in Roppongi, a really nice experience with many vegetarian (but spicy) alternatives
**November 21th (National Museum of Nature and Science, Ueno Park, Sky Tree, Kirby Cafe)**
**-** Our plan was to visit the Ueno Zoo, but we weren’t super happy with our previous experiences in parks and places with animals so we decided to skip it
\- Breakfast at Kayaba Coffee, a lovely place serving delicious sandwiches
\- We visited the National Museum of Nature and Science, something you can’t miss if you like dinosaur expositions!
\- Also, Ueno Park hosts the only two Pokémon themed manholes in Tokyo, so make sure you find them
\- Small lunch in the park at EVERYONEs CAFE, which was good but possibly the worst meal we had in Japan (the level was very high!)
\- Sky Tree time! We opted to visit the upper deck, and it was worth it because the view was stunning. However, it was very crowded and the curved glasses made it very hard to take good pictures with no reflections at sunset
\- We shipped our postcards in a post office close to the Sky Tree
\- We had a dinner reservation at Kirby Cafe, which was probably my favourite themed cafe of this trip. The prices weren’t very high and the location was super cute
\- Shopping in the Sky Tree Town, including Donguri Republic (which is a Ghibli themed store) and the Pokémon Center
\- Once back to the hotel, we made our luggage, estimated how much free space we had and then visited a conbini to spend all the money we had left in our Suica Welcome to buy snacks to bring back home
**November 22th (back home)**
**-** Our trip back home took about 35 hours because the second plane was cancelled. The longest flight was 15 hours, and I managed to stay awake by watching 6 movies and reading.
\- I highly suggest to purchase or bring headphones with an audio jack, because the one provided by the flight provided are very painful
5 comments
how hard was it to get tickets to the different areas of the Ghibli Park? did you buy them online as a foreigner? I thought they were only allowing foreigners to visit the main pavillion, has that changed?
Finally someone who posted about visiting Nagoya! I’ve been back for about a month now but I cannot stop thinking about that part of my trip! The castle was memorable well, everything about the trip was!
Thank you for your trip report, it was very informative. Can you maybe go into more detail about the situations in Akihabara that made you uncomfortable? My wife and I are planning a trip and she can be a little sensitive to that type of thing in certain situations, so we’re just trying to be as prepared mentally as possible. Thanks so much.
Ghibli park is annoying. It’s not obvious where to wait or what order to tackle the exhibits and the time is limited. But it’s still pretty cool
Thank you for this detailed report. Very helpful.