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The original was posted on /r/japantravel by /u/lil_chunk27 on 2024-03-12 21:23:46.

Just got back from 14 days in Japan. I found trip reports on Reddit super helpful and thought it might be nice to write one, sort of pass on the favour.

We are a couple in our 30s from the UK and this was our first visit to Japan. We are interested in food, art, museums and generally wandering, my partner is also really into video games. We really wanted to spend time exploring and enjoying ourselves, but weren’t necessarily aiming for a min/max approach. We are quite keen planners and did a lot of research on things to do in advance, but tried to give ourselves room to adapt and stumble across things. Neither of us are big nightlife people. We saved in advance and tried to put ourselves in a position where we didn’t need to worry too much about spending, but we also did do things a bit on the cheap like just getting konbini breakfasts.

I think I’ve also realized we probably aren’t very discerning since we loved basically everything.

Some thoughts below!

TRAVEL

• We flew with China Eastern Airlines with a stopover in Shanghai. Personally I think long haul flights are something to be endured rather than savoured so to my mind the flights and layover were fine for the price. Quite a funny selection of films on board with 2014’s Interstellar listed under “Hot new hits”. If you fly with the same airline, I would recommend downloading a few movies/shows to your phone to pass the time.
• We used Pasmo passports to get around. I think people generally prefer Suica but we’d read it wasn’t available at Narita and I don’t have an iPhone. I kinda feel it was much for muchness, and Pasmo worked fine and was convenient for us to top up.
• We pre-booked Shinkansen tickets from Tokyo to Osaka, and Kyoto to Osaka. Could not believe the size of the overhead luggage racks on the train - our cases were H75 x W50 x D30cm and fit up there.
• We used google maps to navigate and this worked well for us. We didn’t find the transport system too overwhelming (the station numbering on the metro is genius, why don’t more places have that?), but we DID find Japan’s unreserved love of the shopping centre built into/on top of train stations a bit overwhelming, like just constantly being expelled from a busy train into a Parco was a bit much. We started just trying to find a way out quickly and go from there rather than trying to get to the right exit.

HOTELS

• In Tokyo, we stayed in Sotetsu Fresa Inn Higashi in Shinjuku for the first stretch. The room was really tiny so we did have to regularly pull suitcases up onto the bed, but the location was really convenient for getting around, and also great when we’d had a long day and decided to eat near the hotel. Had a coin laundry and set up luggage forwarding for us.
• In Osaka, we stayed in Hotel the Flag in Shinsaibashi. This was a bigger room with a bigger bed which was nice, and again the location was great for getting around. There was a coin laundry and they did luggage forwarding for us. The only thing here was that the room didn’t have an openable window so it was really warm and dry, we both kept waking up with sore throats.
• In Kyoto, we stayed in Yu No Yado Shoei. This was a Ryokan and was really nice. It was a bit more away from it all but that actually suited us at this point in the trip. It had a tattoo-friendly public bath which we loved, so restorative after so much walking. We went everyday. The only drawbacks were that they couldn’t set up luggage forwarding and there wasn’t a laundry, and we probably should have checked this before booking, but we booked before we knew the luggage forwarding existed. It just meant when we got back to Tokyo we had to go to the hotel near Nippori first.
• Back in Tokyo, we stayed in Hotel Wagokoro near Nippori station. This was a really nice hotel, enough room to pack which was handy. Did not have a laundry but was opposite one, amazing bakery not far away.

PLANNING AND PREP

• We booked flights first and then worked from there on how to split the time and sort hotels. We booked flights when they felt most affordable/convenient to us, but actually think the timing was good - we caught the odd bit of early blossom but definitely felt like we would have found it overwhelming during the busiest periods in some places.
• For hotels we took some recs from the internet and friends but ended up basing the choice mainly on cost and locale as well as online reviews. In Kyoto we wanted to find a ryokan with a public bath which narrowed our options.
• To plan our itinerary, we set up a google map and started pinning things we were interested in over a couple of months, including attractions and places we might like to eat. From there, we started grouping things that were close together into possible day plans, and then put this into the Wanderlog app. We found Wanderlog quite helpful as it flagged when things were closed as we were planning. We did get the free trial of pro and played with the optimization features but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth it, but did like the app. We also updated it at the end of each day to record where we’d been.
• Splitting the time: We settled on bookending the trip with Tokyo as that’s where our flights were from, with 3 full days in Osaka (one of which was a trip to Nara) and 2 full days in Kyoto. I know lots of people say Osaka can be a day trip but we really liked it as a city, I actually would have loved to spend a full day in the Expo park where Tower of the Sun is, as we could have spent much longer in the Ethnology Museum and there were other museums there as well as beautiful gardens. I also felt like our two full days in Kyoto were really touristy and we didn’t see much of the city proper - these were great days and I wouldn’t have skipped what we did, but I was grateful for the day we arrived where we got to see a bit more of the actual city.
• Our main sources for recommendations were Reddit, Google (searches like “things to do Tokyo,” “Shibuya itinerary”), friends. I think it’s sometimes easy to get caught in loops and see the same things again and again, especially with recs on TikTok, and I do wish we’d done a bit more just looking at google maps to see what else was in areas, like in Arashiyama we would have planned in the Orgel Museum if we’d spotted it in advance of actually being there, but it didn’t get mentioned in any recommendation articles, we just saw it on the map when we were there and didn’t have the time.
• Duolingo: we both did 4 or so months of Japanese Duolingo in the run up which was sort of helpful, but I think we should have also done some specific phrase learning for travel. I felt like it would have been useful to know, for example, numbers 1-10 and I just didn’t make it that far in Duolingo, probably used more from the phrase book we took with us than that. Mostly we said please, thank you, excuse me and google translated anything where we needed help bridging the communication barrier.
• Planning food: we didn’t want to do much queueing, so we weren’t sure how much we’d follow recommendations online. We pinned some places to the map and often used them for ideas when we were out, but didn’t stick to them too much. We booked one meal in advance for my partner’s birthday, at Bird Land in Tokyo. In general, we would decide what we were in the mood to eat and just plonk that into google maps and go somewhere highly rated nearby. This likely means we didn’t discover the most interesting spots but ultimately this approach served us well, we enjoyed every meal. Where we ate is in the itinerary below.
• Booking in advance: we booked Umeda Sky, Tokyo Skytree, Sagano Romantic Train in advance. These were useful anchor points for our days but it was nice to not have too many commitments in place. We also booked the Ghibli Museum in advance – we had a few days we could do this which was helpful, and my partner set up booking over 3 devices when it went live. Ultimately I think this is just luck though, he got to be 67th in the queue on one device (others in the deep thousands) and so we got our first choice date. Would recommend having multiple cards you can pay with ready to go as one got rejected for an unknown reason but it worked with another.

PACKING

• We took one big suitcase each and half filled them so we could easily bring stuff back. We took clothes to last a week and then planned to do laundry while away. We did not plan to buy extra clothes there (we’re both tall and plus size). In the end, we could have probably taken a bit more as we did not buy nearly as much as expected (it looks like most “hauls” are clothes and cosmetics which just aren’t huge areas of interest for us).
• We took some medicine with us, like paracetamol, ibuprofen, because we figured it would be easier to take than to find there if we weren’t feeling well. Ibuprofen was good for sore feet.

OTHER THOUGHTS AND CONSIDERATIONS

• It was very dry! Not weather wise but like, the air? We didn’t expect this but especially the first few days in Tokyo it just felt like we were shriveling up, even in the rain. We ended up needing to buy moisturizer and lip balm and we got through nearly all of it trying to make our skin feel less like papyrus.
• Weather was colder than we expected, if you’re going at a similar time I would definitely take a good raincoat and options for light layering. Most shops and attractions have umbre…

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