Hi all!
M&F early 30s travellers in Japan for 21 days. We love markets, parks, food, long walks, weird stuff etc
We do have some days to be determined, perhaps with an Onsen visit that must be tattoo friendly.
All opinions/advice welcome 🙂
**Here’s the itinerary draft** (If an item has a TBD since we’re not sure where should we go)**:**
1 day
* Arrival at Narita Airport late afternoon
2 day
* Tokyo Shibuya
* Shinjuku
3 day
* Ginza
* Imperial Palace
4 day
* DisneySea (full day)
5 day
* Sensō-ji
* Sumida Park
* Tokyo National Museum Ueno Park
* Nezu-jinja Shrine
6 day
* Karts activity
* Yokohama
* Chinatown
7 day
* *TBD*
8 day
* Arrival at Osaka Airport afternoon
9 day
* Universal Studios (full day)
10 day
* Dotonbori
* walking city center
11 day
* Osaka Castle
* Shinsekai
* Shopping district
12 day
* Nara Park
13 day
* Kyoto city center
14 day
* Bamboo Forest
15 day
* *TBD*
16 day
* Osaka Cooking Class
17 day
* Fly back to Tokyo
* Akihabara
18 day
* Tour Mt Fuji
19 day
* *TBD*
20 day
* Koto City
21 day
* airport flight back home
​
Thank you all!
5 comments
Instead of taking flights in between prefectures, you might want to consider taking shinkansen/local trains instead. Or you might want to land at Osaka and end the trip at Tokyo. Overall cost should be cheaper than taking domestic flights.
Is there a reason why you’re planning on flying between Tokyo and Osaka rather than taking the bullet train?
As for onsens that are tattoo-friendly, I don’t know too much since I don’t have tattoos myself, but I recently visited Kinosaki Onsen which is an onsen town north of Kyoto. I loved the vibe there. There are 7 public onsens and from what I read, they are all tattoo-friendly.
Question, did you apply for tourist visa? And if so then how long did it take for you to get accepted
like everyone else might have suggested, look into getting the Railpass which is the train pass that is exclusive to foringers and includes a good chunk of the train lines that you would use to get around in the major city hubs. The pass includes the bullet trains which are comparable to flights, and you would waste less time checking in and out of flight. Also you will get to experience the trip from Tokyo > Kyoto > Osaka and have it be pretty cost efficient. The passes also include the JR lines which encompasses the main loop lines in Tokyo and Osaka.
for your TBD trips I recommend taking day trips with that pass to Kobe, to try our Kobe beef teppanyaki, and Miyajima or Hiroshima From Osaka.
what I recommend most travelers do on their first day in Japan, or 2nd day is to go to the fish market since they open up early and you will most likely be so jet lagged that you would wake up at the odd hours anyway. Not sure if the fish markets are still open, I’ve heard that they closed a few years ago but I can’t imagine that the restaurants would be.
I’d recommend staying two nights in Yokohama and then continuing by train to Osaka, rather than doubling back from Yokohama to Tokyo and then flying to Osaka.