This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/japantravel by /u/ahhtibor on 2024-03-29 00:09:50.
Hello, solo male traveller here, just back from three weeks in Japan, still in a bit of a daze so this might be a bit all over the place, but we’ll see how it goes. I visited Tokyo, Nikko, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Fukuoka, Osaka, back to Tokyo for home.Pre-trip planningI’ve been saying I wanted to visit Japan for years but kept finding excuses, but in Sep I finally just went ahead and booked the flights, meaning no turning back! I spent about a month planning where to go, and booked the hotels in October using Booking.com and paid for them over the next few months after paydays to spread out the cost. I opened a Chase bank account as there’s no charges for withdrawing (£1500 monthly limit for charge-free, but didn’t come close to withdrawing that much). I also booked a few workshops and visits ahead of time that I’ll come to later.
Packing
I pride myself on packing lightly, but even I cracked at the last second and took an extra jumper and t-shirt that I didn’t really need, then literally walking out of my house grabbed a pair of gloves (good idea) and a headlamp (ridiculous idea - I knew I was going to be doing some trekking and suddenly thought what if I get lost in the Japanese wilderness at night? I ended up forgetting to take it on the walks anyway)
I ended up packing:
1 x pair of shoes - Merrel Moab 3 GTX comfiest shoes I’ve ever owned. Bought in December and broken in ahead of March trip.
5 x pair of socks - schoolboy error in spending all that money on quality shoes then taking standard socks. Walked so much (example) and got a couple of blisters, so bought some quality walking socks. Should’ve bought them first with how much I was walking.
1 x pair of jeans
1 x lightweight walking trousers
4 x lightweight jumpers (sweaters)
5 x t-shirts (3 cotton, 2 polyester running t-shirts that wrap up small)
5 x boxer briefs
1 x beanie
1 x coat
1 x ultralight foldable backpack - highly recommend, wraps up as small as a pair of socks and great for daily use
1 x plug adapter - didn’t really need, hotels had USB slots for charging. Ended up forgetting it anyway later in the trip.
cables for charging
iPad for reading
toiletries
The finished bag. Pretty happy with that, meant I didn’t have to use luggage forwarding as it was easy to carry on public transport. I wish I’d packed a collapsible umbrella. Didn’t realise how much it rains in Japan - hotels have umbrellas you can borrow but they’re full sized and can be a pain to lug about if it stops raining. Most places have storage for umbrellas as everyone uses them. Bought a cheap one at Uniqlo.
Useful apps - Papago, google translate, japan wifi auto-connect, naviguide, safety tips (didn’t need thankfully), Ubigi esim - bought the 10GB plan, used about 6GB, worked fine. Tried setting up in England night before I left but it kept crashing my phone which was a bit worrying, but when I landed I turned phone back on and it automatically connected and started working.
Did the Visit Japan Web thing the night before the flight, strongly recommend doing this. Flew from Heathrow for 14 bastard hours in economy, landed 9am at Haneda. Don’t know if I just got lucky but it felt like we were the only people there, breezed through customs thanks to the visit japan web thing, longest wait was 10mins to get my checked bag. Got cash out of the ATM, bought a welcome suica card from the machine next to the ATM and loaded cash onto it, five minutes later I was on the monorail into Tokyo listening to Death in Vegas and Jesus and Mary Chain like an absolute cliche. Marvellous.
Tokyo - six nights
I had six nights in Tokyo staying in Akasaka. I can’t remember exactly why I picked there (booked all hotels back in October not long after booking the flights) - I think I’d read that it was a bit quieter than other places and I thought it might be a less overwhelming way to ease into the trip. I quit drinking nearly 10 years ago so bars and whatnot obvs aren’t important to me, so can’t comment on that sort of nightlife, and I can’t really compare it to anywhere else, but I thought the area was great. It had plenty of life to it, great restaurants, three subways within 10 mins walking including one literally across the road from the hotel (Sotetsu Fresa Inn).
A note on hotels - I stayed in 2/3 star hotels with a couple of nights in 4 star. Prices were between £40 - £60, all were perfectly fine. All I needed was a bed and a shower. Rooms were generally small but no problem for a solo traveller, showers were all great. Some had Japanese breakfasts included which I liked. I found that Japanese people like to eat as early as possible so if you give it an hour it’s a bit quieter and there was always food available.
I loved Tokyo. Honestly I could’ve spent the entire three weeks there happily - there’s so much to see and to do, such a lively and amazing looking place, the public transport is amazing. The subway is a little overwhelming at first but you get the hang of it pretty quickly - I found it easier to look at station numbers rather than names, so for example if I was going from Akasaka-mitsuke station to Ueno on the Ginza line I’d be going from G 5 to G 16. But as has been stated a million times on here, google maps is all you need. Just be aware that sometimes it underestimates the time it takes to transfer between lines, so take that into account if you have a specific booking you need to make. But the great thing is if you miss one train there’ll be another in like 3 minutes. Sometimes the trickiest thing was finding the best exit but even if you take a different one than the one recommended you just have to cross a road or something, it’s not like you end up in fucking Narnia or something.
What I did. Museums - Metropolitan Art, National Museum, NM of Modern Art, National Art Centre, Mori Arts centre. All worth visiting - I felt Met Art was a bit smaller than I was expecting, there seemed to be several galleries that weren’t open unless I was being a moron and couldn’t find a way in. National Museum had some great stuff though I wasn’t that impressed by the special exhibition. Mori Arts was probably my favourite of the lot, had an interesting ecological exhibition. It’s also on the 52nd floor of the building so you get some great views over Tokyo.
Teamlab - I did both Borderless and Planets. I’d booked Borderless the week before and could only get 3pm on a Weds. I arrived at 2.30pm expecting a big queue but they let me walk right in. It was quite busy but not overwhelmingly so, and I really loved it (shoutout to the staff whose job it was to keep wiping off the fingerprints in the mirrored room, a Sisyphean task if ever there was one). I spent probably 90 mins there - it’s worth going back into rooms you’ve been in as they change over time. It would be an amazing place for kids too I bet. I went to Planets the next day and I have to say I was a little underwhelmed. Maybe because I liked Borderless so much I had high expectations, but it all felt very rushed and it was like being forced through each exhibit with little time to explore and some of them were pretty much the same as Borderless too. I was through the whole thing in half an hour - I spent much more time queuing up. This did have an unexpected benefit in that having more time meant I visited the nearby Maraikan Emerging Science museum which was amazing! Lots of interactive stuff with English explanations - if you’re travelling with kids definitely add that to the list.
I’d had a day trip to Okutama planned (more on that later) which had to be cancelled because of overnight snow, so I had an unexpected day. I went to Ginza - spur of the moment visited the aquarium there and didn’t like it, there were either a million fish in a little tube or one lonely fish in a small bowl. They weren’t even particularly interesting, just a bunch of slightly different goldfish. Felt sorry for them mostly.
As it’s such an impressive looking building I decided to go up the Skytree and was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. I got a ticket for sunset but if I did it again I would get one for later when it’s already dark. The sun basically fucked off without even a tip of the hat, or maybe it was too cloudy. Then it was just waiting for all the lights to come on, but when they did, wow, Tokyo does look amazing, and being that high up really gives you a perspective at how big the place is. Went to Senso-ji after that, it was fairly quiet at night. I happened to be there on a Sunday afternoon - it was not quiet.
A note on crowds - while researching where to go I’d come across so many comments about hordes of tourists everywhere that it was making me a little anxious, but honestly, it’s not that bad. Yes, it can get busy, but wherever you are there’s always an empty little side-street you can duck down if you get a bit overwhelmed. I didn’t experience anything worse than tourist hotspots in London, Paris, hell even Bruges on a weekend. Just make peace with the fact that you’re visiting one of if not the biggest tourist destination in the world. There are going to be people. Dotonbori on a Saturday night was probably the busiest place I went, it was like a slow-moving queue at times, but again, you can take a side-street and catch your breath. You’ll be fine.
I took a day trip to Kawagoe which I’d thoroughly reco…
Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/1bq9oie/trip_report_3_weeks_tokyo_nikko_kyoto_hiroshima/