Our Japan itinerary for mid-May + a few questions

9 comments

1. I’d take the itinerary for Day 11 and combine it with Day 13. This frees up the 11th for more time in Kyoto where there’s a huge amount for you to see and do, including Gion, Nishiki Market, Pontocho Alley. It’ll also be faster for you to make the day trip to Nara from Kyoto as opposed to Osaka, make sure you take the express and not local train.

2. Pokémon center will be booked. Or already booked. It’s a month ahead reservation.

   I mean the cafe *****

3. Just thinking – but wouldn’t it be more efficient to do Odaiba when you do the Team Labs experience? Same area etc etc.

4. I wouldn’t go to Disneyland / DisneySea on days 1 & 2 unless you are staying at the resort? Give yourself at least 1 day to familiarise yourself with Tokyo and getting around before going.

   1 night at Hakone is fine. I would consider doing 2-3 nights at Kyoto as there is probably more to see there than Osaka on a first time visit. You can do Nara as a day trip from Kyoto as well.

5. For the express pass for Universal Studios: I was there just a couple days ago during Golden Week on the busiest day you could pick. I had no express pass. Easily got a Nintendo timed entry. The longest I waited for a ride was probably about 30 – 40 minutes all day, with most waits being under 20 minutes. I rode all the popular rides.
   The longest wait I had was actually the food lines, they were absolutely horrible. It felt impossible at times to get anything to eat or drink.

6. Pokemon cafe and sumo tournament are sold out.
   Have you reserved ?

   Your Tokyo itinerary seems not efficient.
   You should divide East, West, South.

   East: Pokemon cafe(Nihombashi pokemon center), Akihabara, Sumo tournament, Oedo antique market,

   Also skytree( better version of Tokyo tower)and Soramachi( shops and foods under Skytree)

   West:Seems fine on Day5

   Meiji shrine, shibuya, Harajuku, Takeshita

   [Here I answered to other itinerary to go around west side.](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/13agvdq/6_days_in_tokyo/jj75c2o/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&utm_content=1&utm_term=15&context=3)

   South: Odaiba, Team lab

   Oedo antique could be with south. Transit is easy.

7. You can easily ship your luggage from one hotel to another, the front desk will help you. I just sent mine today from Kagoshima to Tokyo, one stupid large bag and one medium bag for ~40. It’s also super easy to take it on the Shinkansen, if it’s normal carry on size, or you book an oversized luggage seat. But medium size luggage fits above your seat no problem.

   My favorite side quest from Osaka is the Himeji castle, and get the garden add-on. The castle is beautiful and you can walk through the whole thing and there’s tons of great historic information. And the view from the top can’t be beat. The garden add-on is cheap and it’s something like 10 individual themed gardens which are gorgeous. They’re located right next to the entrance to the castle. It’s only like an hour outside Osaka and definitely worth it IMO.

   A couple other suggestions, get Google translate and download Japanese for offline use. It can instant translate through the camera everything, even hand written signs and menus work most of the time. Buy a passmo card for easy access to 99% of the public transportation you’ll encounter all over the country. If you want data while you’re here download an eSim such as Ubigi, it’s $17 for 10 gigs of data for 30 days, I’ve used my phone constantly for maps, social media, translations, web browsing, etc. and still ended up with 3 gigs left over. Finally Google maps is pretty amazing for navigating public transportation.

   Have fun, Japan is awesome!

8. I recently came back from a trip where we went from Tokyo —> Hakone —> Kyoto and sent our luggage straight to Kyoto from Tokyo.

   As someone mentioned before, it is super easy to send your luggage! I contacted my hotels beforehand to confirm that they were able to send my luggage for me (they used yamato luggage delivery). When you’re at the hotel, the front desk will gather information, when you check into the next hotel, when you want it delivered etc. they take care of the paperwork and you just pay the fee depending on your luggage size. It was super easy and convenient! Usually it can take around 1-2 days to arrive at the next location.

   When going to Hakone, I highly recommend getting tickets to sit in the observation car on the Odakyu Romance train that leaves from Shinjuku Station and arrives at Hakone-yumoto station. It was such a relaxing train ride with beautiful views.

   Another tip, we arrived at Hakone-yumoto in the morning and wanted to get some sight seeing done before heading to our hotel. We only had backpacks but there’s a counter at the yumoto station that will also send your bags/luggage to your hotel in Hakone the same day. We were able to sight see hands free and when we checked into our Hakone ryokan our backpacks were already there.

   Hope you have an amazing trip! Hakone was one of my favorite parts of our Japan trip.

9. Here to help with second hand luxury vintage – in Tokyo it’s everywhere. I had a few stores saved down that I’d frequented before, but just keep an eye out as you wander around, found myself popping into many other stores anytime I spotted a Louis/Chanel/Hermes in the window.

   Save ‘Ragtag’ locations in your Google Maps – there’s a big one in Harajuku, and ones in Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ginza and a few other areas. ‘Kindal’ is another secondhand ‘chain’ I went to (got an LV scarf at one for about a quarter of the RRP) – generally close to RagTag stores, with locations in Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku, Ginza.

   Both RagTag and Kindal have a mix of clothes, bags, accessories from a broad range of luxury designers.

   ‘Brand Off’ in Ginza only had bags, and a great mix of brands (got a cute Loewe bag from here). ‘Brand Collect’ have a few outlets too, and mostly bags with some clothes.

   Ginza has the most store that have secondhand luxury handbags, quite a lot of stores dedicated to Hermes/Louis Vuitton/Chanel in particular. I would just pull up google maps and search for “Second Hand stores” and that’s a super easy way to find places to check out.

   For novelty, check out ‘Vintage QOO’ and ‘AMORE vintage’ in Harajuku/Omotesando. The latter have one store dedicated to LV and one store dedicated to Chanel. The range is just so incredibly impressive! And everything is in amazing condition.