Our Japan itinerary for three, 2 adults and a teenager. Dec 25 to Jan 9th. Went in only having hotels booked, figured out trains and food and attraction admissions on the fly to leave room for spontaneity. This is what we did.
DAY 1- land Narita airport. N’Ex to Ueno station. Check in Hotel
DAY 2- Tokyo: morning walk in Ueno park, Tokyo Station, Imperial Palace Gardens, Ginza for Muji and fancy window shopping, Asakusa and Senso Ji.
DAY 3- Tokyo: another morning in Ueno park, then Tokyo Skytree, bought same day ticket. My kid says this was her favorite day of the whole trip.
DAY 4-check out, train to Kyoto, check in Hotel. Walk around Gion. Shinkasen was great, a bit of a learning curve, buy ticket from a real life person for your first time. It was also busy because this was getting close to New Years.
DAY 5- Kyoto: Arashiyama day. Got there early, enjoyed mild crowds at Bamboo forest, walked down to the bridge and across to the Monkey Park (we loved to see wild monkeys, very cool) then back through cool Arashiyama neighborhoods until we made it to Otagi Nenbutsuji temple. This was one of my favorites.
DAY 6 (New Years Eve)- Kyoto: slept in, and then went out in the afternoon walking Gion and temples at night for New Years festivies, Yasaka and Chionin were really fun this night.
DAY 7 (New Years Day)- Kyoto: Went to Fushimi Inari at 830am, it was already sort of crowded. Walked every path we could, going right to the top. Found many quiet spots even with the crowds. Went back to hotel early to rest and was there when we felt the earthquake, we were fine, definitely a new experience for us.
DAY 8-Kyoto: Nara day trip. Visited Todaigi and the big Buddha and the museum. Also walked around the park feeding deer and spent some time on the shopping streets leading to the park.
DAY 9- check out Kyoto, train to Osaka: walking Dotonburi at night. Found a bit of a seedy area behind the main area, but interesting.
DAY 10- Yasaka Namba Shrine visit which was a quick but satisfying stop. Osaka Aquarium, worth it for the price. Very crowded, but good. Walked more around Namba and Dotonburi.
DAY 11 check out Osaka, train to Kinosaki, first train error. Bought a ticket thinking it was arriving in Kinosaki for 3pm, but actually was arriving at Osaka station for 3pm. Oops. Long lunch later we made it, used our hotel onsen and went to bed.
DAY 12. Kinosaki: This town is bliss. Totally beautiful and the onsen tour in a Yukata is fun, sort of like trick or treating
DAY 13. Check out Kinosaki, train to Osaka, visit the Shimano Bike museum, then jump on a Shinkansen to Tokyo. Visiting the museum was a last minute decision and made for a clunky day, buy the museum was worth it and the trains are awesome so it was totally doable.
DAy 14. Tokyo. Shibuya, Shinjuku and Meiji Shrine. Big shopping day, I’ll never recover from that mega Don Quijote. But filled our bags with some cool things.
DAY 15. Check out, fly home from Haneada
We mostly just ate things that looked good. We try not to wait in line for food anywhere in the world, so definitely did not do that in Japan. Found the overall quality of food excellent. And so affordable. We ate lots of street food, lots of 711 or Family Mart. Found lots of cute izakayas and one great experience in a sushi restaurant. Learned to love ordering from a machine, so funny but also efficient. There’s thousands and thousands of restaurants, so I really think all diets can be accommodated, we were just looking for good, cheap and easy foods.