Good day all. spent 10 days travelling in Japan as a solo traveler (24 April-5 May). Did an itinery based mostly on nature and art tourism plus some shopping. Encountered some shortfall including a nasty food poisoning/possible unknown food allergy day which threw a wrench into my original schedule I still managed to accomplish almost all of what I wanted to accomplish on this trip.
Will link to my original itinery post as well to give an idea of what changes were made as well as some tips and discoveries I made although nothing genius or unique i can imagine but hopefully helpful advice
**Day 1**
* Arrived at Narita and headed to collect pocket wifi from Japan wireless (pretty good provider and throughout the trip I had no issues at all)
* Took the Narita express to Shinjuku where I had a late breakfast of Hamburg steak at kabukicho before checking in to Hotel Gracery Shinjuku
* Did not experience that bad of a jet lag so headed out to Akihabara and decided to have Lunch at Jiromaru before heading back to Shinjuku
* Headed to golden Gai as I was informed by my hotel that Sushi Tatsu (Omoide Yokocho) was fully booked on the day and settled on Halo Book club which was a really chill bar with English speaking bartender who helped me to translate and enabled me to communicate much better with the locals. The drinks were relatively cheap and they had some exotic spirits not found in my country was even given a free snack of I think it was black beans.
* Had Dinner afterwards at Omoide Yokocho at a random Yakitori store and headed back to the hotel for a rest
**Day 2**
* In the morning enquired if the hotel could help get me to a hospital as I had trouble swallowing and a creeping nausea with Diarrhea during the night , the hotel staff was really helpful despite being a trainee and helped me to get a Taxi to an English speaking clinic where I managed to see a doctor and they suspected allergy or food poisoning and gave me medicine to control my symptoms which really helped (Maybe it was those black beans as this is not something I have in my country) so no hospitalization was needed
* I had to switch hotel as Gracery had no vacancy and I booked Hotel Shinjuku Washington nearby so thankfully the distance was quite easily travelled and managed to put my luggage there
* was supposed to head to Rikugi-en but since it was heavily raining and i was feeling a little under the weather headed to Ikkebukuro instead to check out the trading cards shop and lunch at a random soba shop
* headed back to Shinjuku for a light Soba (couldn’t remember the name but it is quite a famous one by the south exit specializing in handmade soba) and retired for an early night
**Day 3**
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* Felt a lot better after the previous day and headed to take romancecar to Hakone. Left my suitcase with Shinjuku Washington as I will be checking back in on Day 5
* After reaching Hakone I Headed to Gora park which was absolutely breathtaking and Hakuun-Do which was the Teahouse located within
* Tried to visit the Hakone Museum of Art but it was closed on that day so I Decided to have lunch at Gora Grill and brewery
* took the cable cars up to Owakudani as I thought to try to complete the round course but I couldn’t make it on time as i had to make dinner time at 6PM
* Checked in and Had Kaiseki dinner at Hakone Suimeisou which was absolutely accommodating as previously I wrote in stating that I cannot take Pork they replaced all the pork with beef dishes which was definitely appreciated
* retired for an early night as I was still abit sickly but 90% ok
**Day 4**
* Booked the Shirasagi Onsen before breakfast and had a good soak
* After Kaiseki breakfast at Suimeisou I set out to complete the round trip and stopped by Hakone museum of Art and the Shinwatei teahouse inside
* along the round trip walked to Narukawa art museum from Hakone-Machi where I had lunch at the café inside with a splendid view of Lake Ashinoko
* Had Dinner and retired for the night after a soak at the public open air bath
**Day 5**
* Woke up early to have a soak in the Onsen once again before checking out and decided the previous night to push my romance car timing back as I wanted to walk the market street
* Took the Romancecar back to Shinjuku and went to New Matsusaka for lunch
* checked into the hotel and managed to book sushi Tatsu for Dinner via hotel
* went to Ikkebukuro once again to run an errand for a friend at one of the card shops
* headed back to Shinjuku for dinner at Sushi Tatsu and shopping for cards at Yellow Submarine, Fullcomp and Amenity Dream
* headed back to the hotel to rest for the night
**Day 6**
* Headed to the Barons for breakfast before Checking out of Shinjuku Washington and took the highway bus to Kawaguchiko
* bought the 2 day pass as I would be in Kawaguchiko until tommorow and headed to the Shibazakura festival which was another great sight for nature lover. I Had lunch at the festival stores set up which was a great experience as well before heading back to kawaguchiko.
* Took the bus to the sightseeing boat ‘Appare’. Tried to rush for the ropeway but was told I would only have 15 mins to myself and decided against it and instead took a bus to kawaguchiko Herb hall and checked in Shiki no Yado Fujisan
* Took the last bus out for dinner at a ramen chain and back to retire for the night
**Day 7**
* Checked out and took the bus back to Shinjuku and where i left my suitcase at dormy inn before heading to Tsukiji
* Had late breakfast at a grilled squid stand and grilled seafood stand at Tsukiji before leaving
* headed to Shibuya where I went to shibuya crossing, shibuya 109 and had lunch at a Hokkaido ramen store specialising in sweet corn as a side dish
* headed to Akihabara to run an errand for a friend before heading to Odaiba
* headed to Odaiba via the Shimbashi station and Yurikamome Line and headed to Gundam base to and Gyukatsu for dinner
* rushed back to Akihabara as i had an appointment at Kurand Sake market which is a really chill place especailly for foreign travellers as staff can speak english and their recommendations are great
* retired to dormy inn which really surprised me. because despite being labelled as a budget hotel it was one of the best hotels I stayed in throughout the trip. The amenities were all good with free night ramen, coffee and a manga corner with some of the most popular series made the stay really great (stayed up late to read manga)
**Day 8**
* Went to the rooftop onsen at Dormy inn and checked out before shifting my luggage to my last hotel stop which is Remm Akihabara.
* Had breakfast at Nadai Fuji Soba and coffee at Sarutahiko Coffee at Atre 1
* headed out to Ueno park and visited the private garden
* headed to Ameyoko street where I had lunch at a humble izakaya that served really cheap and tasty Shio- based Yakitori and wandered around until about 3:30 before taking the train to Ashikaga
* Headed to Ashikaga Flower park where I saw the wisteria on display. I am really glad that I went to the night time viewing rather than the daytime as i originally intended as it was really stunning at night especially with the lightings. Had dinner of Gyukatsu at the wisteria craft beer at cafe wisteria and had the wisteria cider which was also fantastic
* headed back to Tokyo and retired for the night
**Day 9**
* started the day with breakfast at portal Cafe
* headed to Shinjuku to try to find a replacement carrier bag for mine whose zipper broke
* headed to Takadanobaba station to visit Hareruya tournament Centre
* headed to Kanda for late lunch at Kikanbo and walked to Akihabara
* Did shopping for souvenirs before heading back to hotel and calling it a day
**Day 10**
* Had one last breakfast at Nadai Fuji Sob
* took the Narita express back to the airport and headed home
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**Tips and shortfalls encountered**
**General tips**
1. If you are leaving for a daytrip and wish to lighten the load you can pack for a field pack and leave the other items and electronics in your luggage and pass it to the concierge of the next hotel you will be checking into so far the hotel has kept my items safe and it really helped me on my daytrips
2. For airline tickets especially discounted ones it is better to buy direct from the airline. I bought 2 tickets one-way for this trip one directly and another on trip both tickets were unfortunately rescheduled. The ticket from the airline allowed me a FOC change of date and time whereas trip offered me a refund if i did not want to accept their replacement date and time but when i checked for 1 way tickets the asking price was nearly 3x the refund amount
3. It is pretty expensive to do touristy things in Japan compared to other parts of Asia. Almost anything touristy (parks, museums) are gated behind entry fee which while usually being 1000 yen or below can really add up. I spent nearly 20k yen in entrance fees throughout the trip
4. For credit card VISA seems to be having issues in Japan so it will be good to have a Mastercard. I own 2 debit cards one under VISA and one under masters with both being enabled for overseas usage but I was never able to use the VISA except for Hareruya which I suppose had to ensure they accepted all credit card providers due to their strong international customer base.
5. Always try to get hotels to book ahead even for restaurant that google/youtubers claims to be ‘secret’ as you are likely not the only person to have done the same search and usually the ‘secretive’ place is secretive because they are small and does not sit many
6. queuing for international pop culture products like Disney and Pokémon can be really time consuming and if you are determined to queue for them try to give yourself 1-2 hours especially in holiday season where seasonal exclusives are available
7. For trading card games availability ranked based on what i see at Ikkebukuro, Shinjuku and Akihabara
Yu-Gi-oh! —> Pokemon —> Duel masters ——> new Gundam game —-> weis schwarz ——> Magic: the gathering
**Shortfall**
1. I grossly underestimated the time I will be spending in parks and museums. The musuems in Japan I realized often comes packaged with gardens and if you are a fan of those it will add to the time
2. I grossly underestimated how much I spent on entry fees and didn’t account for that when doing my cost excel sheet which really shocked me when i did a check between my excel sheet and the money i had left on Day 9
3. it was quite tiring to hotel hop. Some hotels have great daily deals especially for single traveler so I decided to try it out to get a feel on which hotels would be good to stay in on subsequent trips
4. During my trip to Ashikaga I missed that the Tokyo bound train connections came only once per hour despite the schedule being right next to the gantry. I feared that I would have to walk to Akihabara from Ueno or grab a taxi but thankfully Japan’s rail system runs later than the one in my country
5. my biggest underestimation the time it would take me to move around, queue for stores, wait for seats etc i realized when comparing to my original itinerary found below I was about 30% off
6. when looking for a new bag I really made a mistake looking at Shinjuku and Harajuku as it is an upscale neighborhood/shopping area and most items offered there are international brands which is actually pretty common in my country. the real deals are at places like Ameyoko street
Original Itinerary: [https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/12ccizc/itinerary\_check\_10\_days\_food\_and\_nature\_traveler/](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/12ccizc/itinerary_check_10_days_food_and_nature_traveler/)
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Thanks all for reading my trip report and a link to my original itinerary is found above if you wish to compare what I wanted to do Vs what I actually did. This was a really great trip despite all the shortfalls and I look forward to visiting again either next year or the following year
1 comment
Thanks for taking the time to type all that out.
What country are you from?