Hello everyone, my girlfriend and I are going to Japan next month and just did a rough itinerary of what our trip might look like. I’m hoping I can get some recommendations and reminders for important things regarding travel. Here goes and thanks in advance!
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Before our trip: We will be filling out our visit japan paperwork, reviewing the side bar information (etiquette, basic Japanese), downloading the papago app, adding SUICA card to apple wallet
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Day 1: Land in NRT around noon, find portable wifi, send our luggage to our hotel in kyoto using forwarding service, follow signs for the low cost bus (LCB) hop off at Tokyo station, look for a one way JR ticket at a ticket booth (any tips on what these look like?) and hop off at Kyoto station. From here we make our way to the hotel over in Gion area. Probably grab do a light wander find something to eat take a benadryl and call it a day.
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Kyoto
Day 2: Fushimi Inari Shrine early in the morning, attempt to hike up as far as we can. Come on down the hill and make our way to Nishiki market and do some wandering. We were thinking of renting Kimonos but still looking into it being offensive or not/how its seen culturally.
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Day 3: Check out bamboo forest, walk around, check out Sagano romantic train hop back on the shinkansen and make our way to Shinjuku. Again, find something to eat do some wandering around and call it a night!
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Tokyo
Day 4: Ginza/Shinjuku day! We’re not big shoppers except for the fact that I love UNIQLO so we’re going to head that way and check out some shopping in the Ginza area. Probably make our way back have a picnic at Shinjuku park (I’m aware it will be chilly) then have a night out in Shinjuku – Golden Gai, memory lane for food and drinks
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Day 5: Enoshima/Kamakura day trip, not to sure what we will do here but it looks amazing so we’re set on a day trip here
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Day 6: Shibuya day! Nothing really concrete, I’m sure we’ll find stuff as we go but other than the crossing and the sky tower we have no real directed wandering.
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Day 7: Fuji Five lakes area day trip (Kawaguchiko?). In particular we want to see the Honchou street cables view point, the lakes, and the pagoda viewpoint. We plan on taking the Shinjuku Expressway bus early in the morning and then heading back to Shinjuku. Considering renting bicycles and making our rounds to find some interesting stuff. Maybe open to checking out Fuji-Q
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Day 8/9: Unsure really, most likely figure it out as we go but I’m hoping some recommendations help direct this!
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Day 10: Make our way from Shinjuku back to NRT for our mid day flight and get home
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Okay so thats where we are at so far I was hoping I could get some input to fill in the rest.
\- My girlfriend is vegetarian (she will eat fish every now and then and will be eating copious amounts of it on our trip) and I am somewhat picky with meats, I don’t like chewy meats like shrimp (not religious so I’m willing to try but I usually resort to chicken breast or shredded/ground meats). Is there any vegetarian/tofu/Japanese dishes that are native to Japan that we should keep an eye out for? any breakfast dishes we should try? – things other than the classic udon, ramen, gyoza, sushi, tempura that we will certainly have a lot of
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\- Any particular districts/towns we should check out in Tokyo/Kyoto? To help guide your recommendations i’ll have you know we are very simple, non fancy people. We love a good cocktail bar (Trench bar is on our list), unique bars (found champion bar on tiktok), and some thrift shopping as well!
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\-We are not very big on big attractions as you can tell by our lack of temples planned to visit in Kyoto. We really love to try new things and experience new cultures when we travel. I guess what I’m trying to say is there any big points of interest we should absolutely be adding to the list? Perhaps any areas I will be completely mind blown at how different it is from the united states?
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I think that is all for now but if you made it this far thanks for reading and I thank you in advance for any recommendations/tips!
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