Firstly, thank you to everyone who posts their itineraries, because they were a big help! Also, thank you to those here who provided feedback on my itinerary. I ended up adding to it significantly since posting — perhaps too much, as I’ll show.
I went with my partner — we are both in our twenties, and this is my third time in Japan and her first. I’m happy to provide photos or extra details for any questions people have. Please excuse me giving up on the time-based format halfway through…
##Some general notes/lessons learnt:
– Must-have apps for us were **Wanderlog** for itinerary management, **Google Maps** and **Japan Official Travel App** for getting around, **Japan train card balance check** to check IC Card balance, and **Google Translate**. Also, a credit/debit card that uses app codes instead of SMS verification codes is really helpful and saved me a few times when my normal number wasn’t active. Basically any **card transaction made on a Japanese website** will require a code as part of the ‘3D Secure’ standard.
– If you get your SIM card mailed to you in advance — don’t forget to bring a SIM removal pin! It would have saved us some time if we’d had one and been able to change our SIMs while waiting to deplane. If not, SIM sellers in the airport should have some available for you to borrow (or buy for ¥100).
– Regardless of your stance on masks and adherence to mandates/norms that do or don’t exist, we found the Fitty masks, available from any konbini, to be very comfortable to wear for long hours. They have straps made from the same material as the mask itself, so it didn’t hurt our ears nearly as much. Finding masks of N95/P2 standard was much harder as adherence to these standards this isn’t specified on most masks.
– 2 nights was generally not enough for us in anything but a small/specialised area (e.g. a hot spring town). We stayed in Osaka, Onomichi and Kyoto for 2 nights each. We wanted to see all these places to *some* degree, and this timeframe allowed us to use a 7-day JR Pass for heading into and exiting Kansai. In retrospect, we didn’t feel as though 2 nights was sufficient to feel ‘rested’ and planted in any one place — we ended up spending the first day in each place preoccupied with getting there, the second day on a compacted schedule, the second night packing up, and the third morning focused on leaving. In future we’ll be sticking to 3+ nights per place unless the place is designed for overnight stays.
– Google Maps walking directions are laughably optimistic. I’m far from the first to mention it, but one highlight was when it thought we could change at Shinjuku Station from a JR line to the Marunouchi Subway Line within 3 minutes. That particular transfer took 20 minutes of bewildered crowd-dodging and sign-following over a decent distance. Google Maps may know the floor plans of train stations, but you’ll need to set it to ‘slow walking speed’ (if you can find that option) to get any sort of achievable walking estimates.
– Apart from that, it also rarely correctly knew which direction we were facing.
– Airbnbs certainly have their strengths, and we appreciated the interesting décor, convenient locations, and app searching process. However, for our next trip to Japan we will stick with hotels for one reason — having a front desk that’s able to receive forwarded luggage would have saved us hours on this trip. Front desks in general, and the ability to ask staff questions immediately — even if through a translator app — also helped us many times.
###**Day 1 — travel and settling in**
– \~7pm landed in Narita. We had screenshots of Visit Japan Web but the staff wanted the actual website screen. Baggage collection was quite fast. The trick of filling in a paper customs declaration form worked out well, there was no one in the paper line.
– 9pm checked in at **hotel MONday Asakusa**. A clean and new hotel right near a local shopping arcade. Only downside was that the beds were quite firm and thin, but as a 2-star place for ¥6750 a night, we were quite impressed overall. Asakusa is a lovely area — super walkable, tourist-friendly without being a tourist trap, and full of dining and shopping areas. Only downside is the confusing overlap of train lines and buses… the old truism about staying near a Yamanote Line station does still ring true.
– 9:30pm dinner at [Kibitaro](https://goo.gl/maps/qk9JfgrVg4YbfbW88). Very good chicken ramen — exactly what we needed. We kept passing local eateries and izakayas that seemed closed or inactive. This was perhaps a sad indication of the impact COVID had had on the small food operations.
– Early night after that. We had been up since 3am!
###**Day 2 — Asakusa, Toyosu, Nihonbashi**
– 10am breakfast at [Halekura](https://goo.gl/maps/AAQ5LdSXXJU1qKEUA). Really charming place. Toast was the perfect consistency. Excellent for breakfast. The side streets around here are [picturesque](https://i.imgur.com/7QVBSv7.jpg)!
– 10:45am walking around the Hisago-dori shopping arcade, Senso-ji, and the surrounding area. It was a beautiful clear day and the perfect time to take a walk. I tried amazake at [Junosuke](https://goo.gl/maps/6AwQdgPvUVsFzvV96) (the logo is really cool). Senso-ji is of course gorgeous and full of people. We got so much enjoyment here (and enough of a late start in the morning) that we decided to skip Tsukiji for this trip.
– \~12:30pm slowly made our way towards **teamLab Planets**. I intended to try the driverless Yurikamome line, but it was a lovely day so we walked from Toyosu Station instead.
– 1:30pm we entered Planets. Long queues, but they manage the quotas well. It felt populated but not overly crowded. There is knee-high water at times so dress accordingly. We felt it was a very good experience overall, I’m sad we couldn’t go to Borderless as well.
– \~3:20pm my partner surprised me and took us to [Tsujihan](https://goo.gl/maps/7PvjmMkHZsMHmEXx7), which specialises in sashimi/seafood rice bowls. The queue was only about 20 minutes thankfully, and they took our orders while we waited. I forgot that my partner was paying, and (in mild urgent panic) ordered the Big Boy™ kaisendon (I can’t remember the name). It turned out this came with an extra serve of uni (sea urchin!) which I quite enjoyed, in small doses. This was one of several food experiences where we felt ourselves having to focus and make an effort to pay attention to the flavours. Kaisendon is not loud or explosive like my beloved Sichuan food. This was arguably ‘softer’ in flavour than sushi, as it didn’t have the acidity of vinegared rice. Excellent experience overall, and don’t forget to save some of the entrée sashimi for the sea bream stock at the end!
– \~4:30pm it was already dark (!) so we headed back to Asakusa to the big Don Quijote near the Asakusa Tsukuba Express station – five floors of chaotically organised consumer goods. One of my favourite things to do in Donki is to find the many products with [“weird stock photo” energy](https://i.imgur.com/vQ5pqdx.jpg) and this one did not disappoint.
– Afterwards we just relaxed in the hotel, had a late konbini supper, and enjoyed the latest in JP TV advertising.
**Things we planned but didn’t get to:** Tsukiji Outer Market, Hamarikyu Gardens, cruise from Hamarikyu to Asakusa up the Sumida river
###**Day 3 — Ueno, Akasaka**
– Have no idea what took us so long to get up this morning!
– 12pm: after lazing a bit, scrapbooking and a light konbini breakfast, we headed to **Ameya Yokocho**. Passed by the whisky tasting bar and I now regret I didn’t try some Yamazaki or something else similarly hard-to-find back home. There were some watch shops here that I wanted to check out, but they didn’t have the kind of dress watch I was after.
– 1pm: Lunch at [Ramen Takahashi Ueno](https://goo.gl/maps/78314S2THoJRN7gH9). A really interesting shio ramen with flying fish broth that my partner loved. The noodles were excellent.
– 1:30pm: Stopped at Marishiten Tokudaiji Temple — a charming smaller temple with a nice goshuincho design. Grabbed a little rake souvenir as well, since we weren’t going to be able to make it to the O-tori Jinja festival as planned.
– 2:15pm: Explored **Ueno Park** and a few temples/shrines inside. I got a [goshuincho](https://contents.hotokami.jp/img/images/20180314-092144_J6wqT3xHAh.JPG) at Shinobazu-no-ike Benten-do and was very happy with the included [goshuin](https://i.imgur.com/J0DmCl3.jpg). We spent an hour or so here excluding travel time, but we only explored like a third of the place, let alone any of the museums.
– 4:30pm: Made our way to Akasaka for a pole class my partner had booked from 4:50-6:00pm. I spent some time wandering Akasaka, looking for dinner spots, and practicing my night/low-exposure photography. I would definitely come back to Akasaka, I liked the vibe.
– 6:45pm: Back to Asakusa station to explore the adjoining underground shops. Very cool atmosphere. I just hope it doesn\’t go the way of Harajuku Station and be renovated…
– 7pm: Grabbed some [takeaway takoyaki](https://goo.gl/maps/Azn53iKcnRuVSFMi7) and headed through Nakamise Street and the Senso-ji grounds on our walk back. The sight of the [Kaminari Gate](https://i.imgur.com/l4T7pRp.jpg) and the [pagoda lit up at night](https://i.imgur.com/dHev3UW.jpg) is not something to miss, and it’s usually deserted too.
– 8pm: Late dinner at the long-standing [Otafuku](https://goo.gl/maps/Cbx7PiM7Uf77qB87A). Oden is generally a cheap food, but this seems like one of the fancier places to get it. For my first time getting oden, I was very impressed. Excellent décor, and the ingredients tasted so fresh and vibrant. We recommend it!
**Things we planned but didn’t get to:** Shibamata and Yamamoto-tei, Tokyo National Museum, Minatoya and other food in Ameyoko
###**Day 4 — Asakusa (again), Aoyama**
– 9am: Another beautiful day in Asakusa, and we couldn’t resist another stroll near Hanayashiki on the west side of Senso-ji. We spent a good 30 minutes at the adjoining gachapon store, and strolled among the Sunday food sellers at Senso-ji. We then happened upon [Asakusa Kagetsudo](https://goo.gl/maps/uR55nBaRUiQENLyN9) right at opening time with no queue. Very luckily timed — the texture of the cream melonpan was perfect and so was the sweetness. I immediately wanted another despite the substantial size…
– 10:15am: Got [goshuin from Senso-ji and Asakusa-jinja](https://i.imgur.com/8ljN78R.jpg). I particularly liked the contrast between these — the former (pictured right) with long stylised lines, and the latter (left) with such neat and controlled strokes. We then explored the other shops around Senso-ji’s west side.
– 11:30am: Back to [Halekura](https://goo.gl/maps/AAQ5LdSXXJU1qKEUA) again for brunch. It was at this stage we decided to postpone our Yokohama visit (we will return next trip!) and have a quieter day, especially as we’d need an early night before our 7am train the next day. We spent some time sketching and researching and enjoying the peaceful surroundings.
– 1:30pm: Headed to the **Nezu Museum** in Aoyama — we arrived at 2:15pm. We’d have saved this journey for when we were staying in Yoyogi, but we wanted to go before the museum closed for December. This was a great choice — the building’s architecture is [very cool](https://i.imgur.com/e5iVwYt.jpg), and the gardens are [absolutely beautiful](https://i.imgur.com/McFzx9P.jpg) and definitely benefited from the autumn colours. Even on a Sunday, it wasn’t crowded. A kindly older man helped us take a selfie in front of the lake, and trying to explain a smartphone camera function in limited Japanese was an amusing test. The museum collection itself was interesting and very sophisticated, with a great exhibition of huge landscape paintings from the 1600s, but the garden was the most memorable part for us. As with other well-funded museums of this ilk, the gift shop is also full of high-quality souvenirs and is a great spot to buy postcards (¥150) and other souvenirs.
– 4:40pm: Grabbed some more takoyaki outside Asakusa station and headed back to the hotel to pack. I went to drop the suitcases off at the Yamato Transport office, and happened to walk through **Hoppy Street** on the way. Outdoor seating for bars/eateries seems rare in Japan, and seeing so much of it in one place — and fully occupied — made Hoppy Street seem really lively and fun, even for a quiet introverted type like myself. I cursed our relative lack of energy in not going there already, and added it to the list for next time.
– 6:30pm: Instead we grabbed dinner at a mazesoba (brothless noodles that you mix with toppings) place called [Maruichi](https://goo.gl/maps/PEj4FxKZg7hjk4Ge8). I ordered the “mapo tofu mazesoba” as mapo tofu is a favourite dish of mine — it was HUGE and decadent, with pork backfat, cheese, chilli, spring onions, mayo and chopped garlic along with the tofu. I could see this catching on in Australia as a ‘drunk food’ similar to how halal snack packs are.
**Things we planned but didn’t get to:** Yokohama — Minato-mirai, Cup Noodles Museum, Chinatown, O-tori Jinja Festival (which would have started at midnight on day 5)
###**Day 5: Travel to Hakone**
– Early start at around 6am, in order to make it to our 7:37am Hakone Romancecar at **Shinjuku Station**. We were right to leave ample time to make it through Shinjuku Station — the transfer took 15 minutes on its own. I had reserved tickets on the back deck viewing window, but really wanted the front deck where you can see the “driver’s view”. If you want the driver’s view seats, they sell out like front-row concert seats. **You need to be on the booking website at 10am Japan time, exactly one month before the trip**. Because of some confusing information, I got on the website at around 12:30pm, and there were only very few back deck seats available, and only on the 7:37am. (Be sure to also specify that you’ll pay by credit card when you book, otherwise your tickets will be cancelled unless you can pick them up in person within a week. The view and the train itself were both very cool to do once, but given the booking process I think we’ll stick with the regular Romancecar seats next time.
– 9:30am: Headed from Yumoto to Miyanoshita on the scenic Hakone-Tozan railway. We spent some time [taking photos](https://i.imgur.com/2Nixlds.jpg) at Miyanoshita Station, then visited [Naraya Café](https://goo.gl/maps/dKvgcpEinwBicNDP8) for a late breakfast. You can choose to eat at a table with its own onsen footbath! It’s a charming place with very good food, well worth the stopover if you’re on the way.
– 11:30am: Headed to Gora Station, grabbed some katsu for lunch, and debated what to do. The tea ceremony house inside Gora Park was closing for lunch (and as I later discovered, ceremonies are best when you can be sure they’re speaking your language), so instead we decided to go to the **Hakone Museum of Art**, because it was supposed to have a nice moss garden. It did indeed — but like the Nezu Museum, the garden outperformed the collection slightly.
– Side note – we wasted **a lot** of time trying to make sense of the buses around Hakone. All the Google Maps directions are in Japanese, so you need to pay close attention to bus numbers and stop locations. We spent a lot of time deciphering the Japanese directions with Google Translate. At least we didn’t waste money per se, as we had the Hakone Freepass.
– 2pm: Went to the **Pola Museum of Art** hoping for a nice nature walk and some unique art pieces. I was especially excited to see Monet’s Waterlilies. Though the Pola Museum advertised itself as having a huge collection, the amount we could actually see was quite small. The main exhibition was a Picasso exhibit, and neither of us could muster any more than grudging token appreciation for *him*, so we finished with the museum itself quite quickly. But by the time we headed out to the famed nature walk, it was already starting to get dark, so we curtailed the walk in favour of visiting [**Choanji**](https://goo.gl/maps/jjD2hZR2A8cSKb397) before night fell completely.
– 4pm: Mistakenly walked to Suwa Shrine, which is right next to Choanji. Deserted and beautiful, we were in and out of it in 15 minutes.
– 4:15pm: Choanji was excellent, and we enjoyed looking at the statues, which are all amusing caricatures of old monks. Night was falling though, and there didn’t seem to be anyone available to give us a goshuin, so we resolved to explore more in the morning.
– 4:45pm: Missed our bus due to Google Maps geolocation confusion, but made it to our ryokan at 5:30pm (just slightly too late for the free check-in drink….). [Tensui Saryo](https://goo.gl/maps/6TdanYG1xVVnSgbq5) is a very nice ryokan, and it luckily had one English-speaking staff member who could check us in. We got a room with private open-air bath, and I do think we overpaid compared to the surrounding places, but if you take price out of it the experience was still excellent. Unfortunately, now having tried the private bath, I learnt that my favourite kind of onsen is one with lots of space. In retrospect, I wish we had time to take advantage of the bookable onsen instead of just our bath. But we enjoyed the mountain view, the free beer, the hot bath and the beautiful yukata that we borrowed.
– 7:45pm: Kaiseki dinner time. We had little idea of what to expect but were very excited. The service was excellent as expected. Perhaps even too generous — I ordered a whisky neat, expecting around 30ml, but was served at least 150ml of whisky in a tumbler glass! That was one service error I certainly didn’t complain about. My partner, formerly of the culinary arts, is generally unenthused with fine dining and its values and trappings, but this kaiseki dinner convinced us both that on holiday it’s absolutely worth splashing out once on a really good meal. We got the impression that the plates themselves were selected just as carefully as the food. It was the best sashimi we had on the trip and the best meal of the trip overall, and we left our plates absolutely clean.
– 9:15pm: Back at the room (and quite tipsy in my case) we had one more quick soak in the bath before heading to sleep on the extremely comfortable beds.
**Things we planned but didn’t get to:** Lalique Museum, Gora Park, Open Air Museum
###**Day 6: Hakone and Osaka**
– Breakfast at 7:30am. I wasn’t ready for the feast that this turned out to be. I consider myself fairly open-minded with food, but I am not used to such a huge amount this early in the morning. It became a slog to eat, which was a shame, because I didn’t want to waste anything.
– Check out at 9:30am after brief morning soak.
– 10:15am: Arrived at Choanji to explore further and get goshuin. Very beautiful and worth the stop by.
– 11:20am bus to Togendai Station. The weather was rainy and very cloudy, so the pirate ship would not have been very fun. As a compromise, since we’d already gone off schedule, we took the Hakone Ropeway from Togendai to Owakudani, and then took the bus from Owakudani back down to Yumoto. (Note that this bus wasn’t covered by the Freepass and cost ¥1000 due to the long distance covered.)
– At Yumoto, we stopped by the Evangelion shop for souvenirs. The main street of Yumoto seemed very full and busy, even on a Tuesday morning. We then took a train back to Odawara to catch our 2pm Shinkansen to Osaka.
– Arrived in Osaka around 5pm to some very [atmospheric rain](https://i.imgur.com/S3PP9BD.jpg) lighting up the Namba streets. Unfortunately, we had some issues with the Yamato Transport luggage forwarding service. Because we had booked an Airbnb with no manned front desk to receive luggage, we had to have the luggage delivered to the Nest Yamato counter in Namba Station. Except it wasn’t delivered there — it was in fact at the Namba distribution centre about 20 mins walk away. When I dropped off the suitcases at the Yamato office in Asakusa, the destination Nest Yamato office wasn’t in their system, and I think the staff had trouble finding the correct place to send it. I imagine it would have been much easier if I’d just provided a hotel address. Because of this (and after learning about the problems with Airbnb generally) we decided to stick to hotels with front desks for future bookings.
– Checked into the Airbnb, got our bearings and some soba near Kuromon Market, and headed towards Hozenji Yokocho and Dotonbori. The famous areas of Dotonbori (near the Glico sign etc) were super crowded, and instead we found that the most memorable parts of this area that still had the ‘neon nightlife’ feel we were looking for were closer to Hozenji Yokocho. It was still great to see the [colourful outdoor signs](https://i.imgur.com/hllRCIq.jpg) of Kinryu Ramen, Kani Douraku etc. though.
**Things we planned but didn’t get to:** Togendai Pirate Ship, Hakone Shrine, Amazake Tea House, Odawara Castle
###**Day 7: Kuromon Market, Denden Town, Shinsekai, Namba**
– 9:30am: Our Airbnb was right outside Kuromon Market, so we got breakfast there — oden, seafood skewers, takoyaki and okonomiyaki. Unfortunately, we found that the food options in Kuromon Market were quite touristy and comparatively expensive for middling quality. We later found there were better options at the restaurants directly outside the market. It seems to be popular for locals as a fresh produce market, but unless you HAVE to have street food, I’d go elsewhere for a local meal.
– 11:00am: Headed towards **Denden Town** and had a good look for Yakuza/Ryu ga Gotoku and Nichijou merchandise. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any. We even looked in the doujin section (!) of Mandarake, and they had only one available. We really did like Mandarake, though — the art book sections are excellent, even if the organising system is hard to get your head around. But we were able to show the staff the cover of a specific Nichijou art book we wanted, and they found it for us instantly — so don’t be afraid to ask!
– Spent a nice hour in the Taito Station arcade, trying out rhythm games, Initial D and claw machines. The claw machines even accept IC Cards if you don’t have change — the ingenuity is devilish.
– 6:00pm: As night fell we headed back to **Hozenji Temple** to pray and in hopes of getting a goshuin — they were sadly closed. We nevertheless decided to try kushikatsu at the nearby Kushikatsu Daruma — it was as I’d heard it described, but it did not wow us. We had heard it was a ‘must-try’ food in Osaka, but though it is a novelty to see many different things deep fried, the batter was quite plain and only became properly tasty after we added a lot of condiments.
– 7:30pm: We headed to **Shinsekai** for a stroll and to visit Spa World if we had time. The old Shinsekai Arcade was very atmospheric after all the shops had closed, and the famously decorated shops of Shinsekai were great to admire from outside.
– 8pm: We decided against Spa World (as we’d been at a hot spring just yesterday) and instead headed to karaoke in Namba, specifically the [Sennichimae-nigo branch](https://maps.app.goo.gl/6UX7XUJ1ZMennrsG7) of **Jankara**. I would recommend this chain, as they have an iPad in each room for ordering food/drinks (as opposed to ordering through the phone), and though it’s in Japanese we could still work it out using Google Translate. We also got lucky having a staff member who spoke some English at the front desk. Nomihodai and 2 hours karaoke cost us around ¥7000 from memory — it was probably the most fun thing we did all trip.
– 11pm: Stopped in at a friendly izakaya local to our Airbnb for some late-night oden and ponzu oysters. Oysters make a surprisingly good drunk food…
**Things we planned but didn’t get to:** Doguyasuji, Minoh Falls
I’d better leave it there before I hit the character limit! Tune in next time for Onomichi, Kyoto and Tokyo once again.
9 comments
Hi, may i know is Hotel MONday Asakusa very inconvenient to get to from JR line?
I had no idea and app like Wanderlog existed. It seems great! Did you use the free version? Does it have any major limitations?
Nice log. How did you find the weather that time of year? Was is too cold to want to spend significant amounts of time outdoors?
Great Post, How is the weather in Japan Mid November to End of November?
Thank you very much for the report!
One question about dining: I am going to Japan for sakura season. Food is one of my focus areas when traveling. Did you make reservations at many of the spots you mentioned or did you just walk in?
I don’t want to lose spontaneity by making lots of reservations (which is hard anyway as a foreigner), but still want to enjoy great food.
Great report! I have Tensui Saryo booked for a night March end, so I’m really happy to hear about your review, especially of the kaiseki dinner.
Question about the Karaoke place- did it have English songs? One of our party is not familiar with even anime so I’m looking for a karaoke place in Osaka with English songs too, and your recommendation sounds so fun.
Really looking forward to part 2!
>Basically any card transaction made on a Japanese will require a code as part of the ‘3D Secure’ standard.
Was that the case for withdrawing cash from ATMs, for paying by cc at some place or for using the cc to pay stuff online? Thanks in advance!
>Basically any card transaction made on a Japanese will require a code as part of the ‘3D Secure’ standard.
Just to double-check seeing as I’m heading to Japan in a few weeks, are you saying that no matter where you use your credit/debit card, and regardless of what card it is, it will always require a multi-factor-authentication code? Is that something which has happened in the past few years? I didn’t have any issue using cards like Starling and American Express when I was there in 2019.
Just means you need to visit more! 💯. My wife and I have visited countless times. I suggest you use Klook. You can get a ton of things for travel and it’s fast.
I know you are on vacation, but as a fairly seasoned traveler, waking up early is the best way to avoid crowds. We were able to do a ton of things before noon and before the “tourists” arrive.