Hello everyone, this is well a few weeks late. I returned from my first trip to Japan, mainly in Tokyo area with an evening in Chiba. My memory is still quite fresh, I am not sure whether to go into too detail about it as this seems more like a personal journal at this rate.
A TLDR with areas I been to at the bottom.
I was planning to meet my friend there (who arrived a few days early due to him visiting relatives) and explore Tokyo together. However, due to certain circumstances, about half of the time was spent solo. This was also my first time traveling overseas alone too, so I was nervous. It was also the first-holiday trip I took ever since covid happened.
It was an interesting and wonderful experience. The people were approachable and helpful. Although not everyone can speak English, there are able to understand if you are asking for directions toward a location. The food and service are great, and the scenery was nice. I never once felt I was in any danger even at night.
I wasn’t expecting it to be this tiring though, about 6-10 hours spent each day walking about. On Average 10-20k steps per day). I was trying to make good use of my time there, the amount of stairs was quite surprising.
**I stayed in Famy Inn in Kinshicho station** which was affordable, it has all the facilities I required, even a small bathtub. It was close to the train station and plenty of food stores and shopping malls around.
**I prepared** **for the trip** by printing out my vaccination documents and other documents in advance for a quick immigration check-in. Also, planning an itinerary on what locations I would like to visit and how to get there, luckily most are accessible by train.
**My budget** for each day was about 10-15k Yen. Most stores open at 9 am onwards and close at 8 pm but I find myself waking up at 6.30 am to head out and explore. My friend gave me a Sucia card for transport travel in Tokyo. It works for both Bus & Train transport as well as some vending machines.
The flight I took was Japan Airlines and the plane ticket was… well.. expensive because of the Cherry Blossom period. I am from Singapore so; it was a 6-7hrs duration flight, it was comfortable, and the food was pretty good. I was worried that I was gonna miss the cherry blossom period when I arrive, Apparently, I arrived the week after the full bloom period but I got some photos of cherry blossom still.
**Day 1,** on the plane I spied the peak of Mount Fuiji and another mountain before my arrival at Haneda Airport, the check-in process was smooth and fast with the QR code. I purchased an Esim that has unlimited data for 8 days (about 5 to 6k Yen). It works mostly, I have encounters where it doesn’t work sometimes or have slow data. There was a direct bus from Haneda to Kinshicho which was good news for me, and the service staff I encountered at the airport was really helpful.
Upon arrival at Kinshicho, I met my friend and went to Kinshin Park and saw several cherry blossom trees and people having picnics there. It was quite a sight to see. I drop off my luggage temporarily at my friend’s relative place and headed to Asakusa and had my first bowl of Ramen at Ichiran. The ramen was so good.
Afterward, we went to the streets of Asakusa and Sensoji temple. It was crowded with a few people dressed in Kimino around. We then walked to Taito city in Senzoku and looked at the neighborhood. It seems each building are different in design. It seems Japan have a preference for smaller buildings
Late afternoon to evening, so we walked to Sumida mall for Tokyo Skytree, however looking at the long queue in the evening. We decided not to take it up. We returned to Kinshicho and I collected my luggage to check in at the inn. Afterward we had dinner and explored the surroundings of Kinshicho. The Yodobashi shop had a selection of electronics & Toys and gacha machines.
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Day 2, I woke up early in the morning and my friend and I planned to meet in the mid afternoon for Chiba. My plan was first to head to Shinjuku National Park. This was the first time taking a train for me in Japan, luckily there were English names and google maps for directions. Although the entire train map did seem somewhat intimidating.
Since I was early, I went from Shinjuku station to see Keio Plaza Hotel, to the Tokyo Metropolitan Building nearby but I can’t go all the way up due to being too early still. I then headed to Shinjuku National Park and explored almost the entire park. This was one of my highlights of the trip, there were many beautiful cherry blossom trees and other different kinds of trees. The garden was incredibly clean with a greenhouse somewhere inside too. I would love to visit this park in a different season if I get the chance again.
Afterward, I did some shopping, buying gifts and head back to the inn until I met my friend to head to Chiba. We actually took one of the express trains and missed our stop since we can’t read Japanese. After some.. detours, we reached Makuhari in Chiba. The first thing I noticed was how much quieter this place was compared to Tokyo with few people walking in the streets. As my friend I attending the Slipknot concert, he checked in the hotel near the event hall. We walked around the streets and checked out the malls.
After dinner, I headed back to Tokyo, this time heading to Shibuya where I saw the famous Shibuya crossing and Hachiko statue. There were several stores still open past 8pm. I slowly explore my way north to yoyogi park and took a train to Yoyogi have a late night snack before calling it a day.
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Day 3 and Day 4 were solo days for me.
**On Day 3**, it was the day trip tour of Mount Fuiji, lake Aishi and Mt Komagatake I booked online. After heading the meeting point in Keio Plaza Hotel. I met a fellow Singaporean surprisingly. The bus ride to Mount Fuiji was.. well.. abit unfortunate as it is the first day of holiday and there were large traffic jams. Due to time constraints, we can only go to the 4th station, and on that day. It was a cloudy weather so we couldn’t see the peak. It was a nice bus ride regardless. The next part of the tour bring us to a hotel for lunch and to lake Aishi where we took a cruise. We saw several Tori gates from a distance. Afterward, there was a cable car ride up to Mt Komogatake and a bus ride to Odawara for bullet train (Shinkansen).
I messed up by accidentally dropping the bullet train ticket that was given by the tour guide so.. I had to buy another. It was 3.2k Yen, not too bad but.. the pain of losing items hurts more. Seeing a bullet train for the first time was interesting.
I took the bullet train to Tokyo station and wanted to have a meal at ramen street but it was very crowded, I decided to head to Akihabara instead. Eating at a restaurant in the Yodobashi building and walking to the anime street that Akihabara was known for. It appears that there was.. quite alot of R18 content in shops just separated by a different floor or just a cloth.
Another mistake I did that day was blindly taking the staff elevator and going into the staff room. Despite signs. The staff was understandably irritated by it. I wasn’t paying attention and was looking at my phone, it was an embarrassing mistake.
There were quite a number of large arcades around which was one of the few stores still open at that time. But most shops were closed. I did see several maid cosplayers giving advertisement pamphlets, it was already quite late in the night and cold and there were out there still.
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**Day 4** was a busy and tiring day, I went to Ueno Park which had some nice cherry blossoms trees and queued early at Ueno Zoo (At 45mins early the queue started to build up). Once the Zoo open, there was a crowd rush to the Panda enclosure. There was a shoebill stock among other animals.
Afterward was a visit to the nearby Tokyo National Museum to see historic artifacts from Asia and Katanas,Samurai armor and Japan paintings. I went to Tokyo National nature and science museum next but was exhausted by this point. It was more popular with younger audience and the rooftop garden was pretty nice.
In the evening I went to Nakano street to see the Nakano Broadway. Nakano Street has a variety of shops while Nakano Broad way was another place for anime products. There were many Mandarake stores each selling different products from manga, to classic anime figurines, to train collections and even a doll shop. It was already past 8 pm so I headed to Akibhara to explore different parts before heading home.
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**Day 5** I was planning to meet my friend in Odaiba in the afternoon, in the morning I decided to head to the imperial palace however it was closed for entry on Monday, I went to the outskirts for a look at the palace from a distance. Next, I went to Roppongi Hills to take Tokyo City View. From what I read online, it is one of the best spots to view the entire Tokyo since it is in the center. Also, there was an interesting art museum on the same level at the observation gallery.
From there I head to Toyosu and walked to team labs. By the time I reached, the tickets were out of sale. I decided to head to the nearby fish market to have a look. The auctions for fresh fish were already over before afternoon there was still an observation gallery to take a look at the auction area and history.
I then went to Odaiba and saw the 1/1 scale Unicorn gundam. Odaiba island had a few interesting sights. I met my friend and did some shopping in the mall. During the night we went to Kabukicho to take a look at the area before heading back.
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**Day 6 Disney Sea** for the entire day, since this was the school holiday, there were many students here. Using the App, we are able to see the queue timing for rides (Maybe go for the ones with lesser queues first) The rides for popular queues were 2 to 3 hrs long. There wasn’t any extreme rides as most of the roller casters there were quite tame. However, the scenery and designs were nice. Due to bad weather, there wasn’t a light show at night. In total, we manage to seat about 7 rides during that day.
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**Day 7** an early visit to Meiji Shrine in the morning. There was a nearby Meiji Jingu Inner garden that was very beautiful and well maintained. North of the shrine has a Pony park where you could see Ponies training in circles. The Meiji Museum provides the history of the shrine as well as the late Emperor & Empress’s belongings on display.
In the late afternoon, I went to Shibuya and went to magnet city view for a good aerial look for Shibuya crossing. After further shopping, I went to Harajuku to meet my friend and bought shoes. We then explore Harajuku areas including Takeshita street which seems to be popular with Teens & young adults shops. At night we walked back towards Shibuya to see visit the tower records.
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Day 8 I walked along the nearby Oyokogawa park from Kinshicho to Sumida mall to visit the aquarium. The highlights were the various jellyfish there with fur seals and a penguins.
The rest of the day was shopping at Akibhara. As this was the afternoon, the stores were open and lots.. of time were spent exploring and shopping there. There were animal cafes, maid cafes and game related cafes. I spent about 4 hours in Radiokaikan as there were like 8 levels worth of shops. It seems even after spending the rest of the day there, it was not enough to explore the entire Akibhara.
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Day 9, it was the day of my flight back. I went to Kinshin park in the morning and saw most of the cherry blossoms were gone and took a direct train to Narita airport. It seems the train service for this express train comes every hour. After checking in the luggage, I did some shopping to use up most of my remaining cash on hand before taking the flight back home.
Most of the gifts I brought back were snacks, or personal T shirts and souvenirs like keychains from Museums. I should have bought more snacks since there were delicious.
Well that is about it, I would love to visit Japan again but preferably Osaka next. I would like to see visit the outskirts more as it seems peaceful and quiet there.
TLDR: Fun and interesting experience in Japan.
Some things I learned, It seems shops open at 9am and closes at 8pm, Popular tourist attractions may be out of tickets if queued late. For visiting Mount Fuiji please check for non cloudy weather.
If there is a holiday, there may be overcrowding or traffic jam leaving Tokyo. There will be many change for small coins when purchasing products. There may be different trains at the same station.
Overall location visited,
Day 1: Kinshinscho->Asakusa->Taito City -> Sumida -> Kinshicho
Day 2: Shinjuku -> Kinshicho -> Makuhari -> Shibuya -> Yoyogi
Day 3: Mount Fuiji -> Lake Aishi -> Mt Komagatak -> Bullet train Tokyo Station -> Akibabara
Day 4: Ueno Park -> Zoo -> Tokyo National Musuem -> Museum of natural science and history -> Nakano -> Nakano Broadway -> Akihabara
Day 5: Imperial Palace outskirt -> Roppongi Tokyo City View -> Toyosu area & Fish Market -> Odaiba -> Kabukicho
Day 6: Disney Sea
Day 7: Meiji Shrine -> Inner garden -> Museum -> Shibuya -> Harajuku -> Shibuya
Day 8: Sumida Aquarine -> Akihabara
Day 9: To Narita Airport.
Thanks for reading.