Trip Review - 2 Weeks in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara
Hi, I want to share my experience of exploring Japan for 2 weeks. Some basic info:
1st August - 14th August. 6 days in Tokyo, 2 in Kyoto, half day in Nara and the rest in Osaka.
Went with my mild-shopaholic sister cousin and senior uncle with frail knees.
Stayed in a hotel Ginza for my days in Tokyo and a hotel in Shinsaibashi Osaka in Kansai.
Rent an unilimited portable Wifi before departing, didn't buy any Japan sim card.
Bought ordinary JR passes from 6th August - 12th August.
My take on Japan after visiting:
Japanese are just like us. Some of them are rude, some of them are nice. But the slight difference is the rudeness level is, to me, not that rude (cold or aloof?) while the nice Japanese people are super duper nice. There's almost no in between.
Do not try to take trains in more crowded stations on rush hour in Tokyo. I repeat, don't. It's almost literally sea of people, you can barely breathe in there, let alone walk.
If someone says most Japanese people can speak English, they're lying. The majority of people I spoke to could barely, just barely speak basic English.
If you're planning an itinerary, take into account whether the people accompanying you are shopaholic or not. My sister does not enjoy temples or shrines very much and likes shopping more so we barely touched those in Kyoto. In addition to that, a lot of points from my original itinerary weren't done because shopping was very time consuming.
DO NOT VISIT JAPAN IN AUGUST IF YOU CAN'T STAND HEAT. It's really hot in Japan. Best time to visit after talking to Japanese people is in late October / November. April is nice too but be prepared for a flood of tourists in famous areas.
Most entrances and exits to and from train stations only have stairs. No escalators or elevators. Be prepared when carrying lots of luggage.
I don't recommend buying JR Pass if you are planning on taking a similar route like I did. It doesn't pay off unless you go somewhere else like Hiroshima / Kobe / Himeji.
Try Onsen and go to Mt. Fuji. I didn't get the chance to do both of those.
I didn't book a hotel in Kyoto because I didn't want to be bothered with moving and repacking luggage. Turns out I was right. The only downside is if you go to Kyoto for several days in a row, each one is almost a one hour trip from Osaka.
I recommend trying out egg sandwich, cup noodle curry ramen, miso soup potato chips and shrimp cheese baked rice from Family Mart. Convenience stores are your best friends.
1st August
Flew from Singapore (transit) to Japan. It took around 4 / 5 hours and arrived at 7 A.M. in Haneda Airport. The airport was certainly quite big, but I had expected it to be more modern than what I saw. The first thing I did after picking up our baggage was to exchange my JR pass vouchers at JR office. Very long queue, around 1 / 1 and a half hour. Also bought Suica cards from the office and reserved shinkansen seats for my trip from Tokyo to Osaka on 7th August.
For additional information, the three of us brought 2 suitcases each person, the small one was for souvenirs and the big one was for clothes / shoes / etc. We got on a train from the airport to Shimbashi station, which is near the hotel we booked. Getting those suitcases on the train was very inconvenient, both for us and for other train passengers because the train was a bit packed. Later we arrived at the hotel at 10 A.M., joyfully thinking that we finally could get some rest in the hotel room, but reality is harsh. We weren't allowed to check in until 3 P.M. I know it was my fault for not researching beforehand what time to check in, but still. The flight already did a number on us with sleepless night on the plane, and walking from the station to the hotel in a hot sunny day while dragging suitcases successfully drained every last bit of our energy. Hence, we just grabbed something from Mister Donut nearby and just sat in the hotel lounge waiting for the check in time. It wasn't the best way to pass time, but we were too tired to care anymore.
After getting some rest, in the evening we strolled around the main street of Ginza. High end shops scattered every corner of the street as expected, but the highlight was 12-storey Uniqlo and GU. Grabbed a few UTs that can't be found in my country's Uniqlo, it was worth it. Dinner was at Ippudo ramen, it was quite average and Ichiran ramen tastes better. At 8 P.M., shops were starting to close to my surprise. Didn't know shops close that early in most of Japan. Later that night I went into Family Mart for the first time. Thankfully it's connected to our hotel's first floor. God, do they have everything we need (and want). Tried Onigiri, which was one of my to do list in Japan. It was meh, nothing really special about it. I can see it being a practical food when you're in a rush but there are much more better choices in the convenience store, namely the sandwich. Their egg sandwich was delicious, I wish I could buy and eat them all. Also forgot to pay the bill with my Suica card, could've avoided getting small coin changes. Trying to pay with coins I'm not familiar with is painful to say the least. The cashier guy was kind enough to help me pick the coins.
2nd August
Went for a trip to Odaiba by Yurikamome train mainly to see Teamlab Borderless. Couldn't get up early enough so unfortunately no Tsukiji market. We arrived there at 10:30 P.M. I didn't see anyone queuing for tickets at the ticket booths, so if you couldn't buy the tickets in advance, it is possible to buy them on site without long queue. At first, you may think many people means hours of waiting, but not in this case. We got in after a half hour wait. If you ever doubt whether the attractions are worth the ticket price, then I can convince you that they are. Teamlab Borderless definitely lived up to the hype, no disappointment was shed on that day. Some pieces of advice from me would be to look every corner every now and then and enjoy attractions which entrance is hidden by a black curtain. Also note that you are only given 5 minutes (I think?) to relish the beauty of the lanterns. Pretty unsatisfying because the queue for the lanterns was taking so long yet the time to enjoy it was so short. I don't think they mentioned the time limit before entering the room and as a result some of the photos were taken hurriedly. The ones I enjoyed the most were the laser room, the crystal raindrops thing that you can control via app, the lanterns, and the grass / flower field. The waterfall is a good photo spot, however you can barely take good photos of it because it was crowded with people and children obstructing the photo shoot. I feel sorry for the employees trying to calm down the rampaging children. There are a few spots perfect for children, some of them are the athletic forest, the drawing projection thingy and the playground outside it. I expected it to take 1 and a half hour but I spent almost 3 hours inside.
Next destination was supposed to be Miraikan, but it was already noon after we grabbed lunch at Palette Town food hall, so we decided to scratch that off the itinerary and went to Divercity Plaza. The walk from Pallete Town to Divercity wasn't supposed to be rough, but the heat made it a thousand times worse. I definitely don't recommend tourists visiting Japan in August solely because of that. When I finally arrived there, the mall was packed. Probably because at the time there were 2 festivals, one was the tokyo idol festival and the other one I had no idea about. Took a bunch of photos with the gundam statue (it was gigantic) and immediately went back inside to seek cover from the sun. I have no idea how the idol fans managed to stand up to the heat. Finally went back to hotel after some shopping.
3rd August
The first destination was Asakusa. First thing I saw when I got out of the train station were some hunky muscular men wearing traditional clothes. Turned out they were rickshaw pullers aiming for customers and somehow they still effortlessly pulled the rickshaw under that heat, I guess their well toned body is definitely not just for show. From the station I headed to Sensoji Temple. Along the way was Nakamise shopping street, endless shopping and street foods to your left and right. However, some of them are more expensive than the others so if you value your money better research the shops first. Plus, some of the items are available in Don Quijote (24 hour souvenir shop) for a cheaper price so you may want to consider that. The temple was just like what I expected, there's a cleansing water spot, charm shops, omikuji drawing and a praying spot where you throw a coin into a box and pray. The shopping took a lot of our time so after we were done with the temple and shopping street, we had lunch at Ichiran and moved to Ueno.
Cheap items everywhere in Ameyoko, definitely worth a visit if you're into shopping and street food. We briefly went to Ueno Park to see what it's all about, and it's HUGE. Zoo, museums, the park has got it all. We didn't go into the zoo and museums though, but I heard Tokyo National Museum is quite good. Couldn't visit Akihabara because it was already late (woke up late and spent too much time shopping in Nakamise) and my sister and uncle probably won't have anything to do there other than waiting for me browsing stuff, so Yamashiroya became an alternative. For hobby stuff, there's Yamashiroya with its 5 floors all fiiled with interesting merchandise near the train station exit. Purchased a few Monster Hunter merch from there, and headed out for dinner. We saw Gyukatsu Motomura on our way to Ameyoko earlier, and I read the reviews praising them so we decided to eat there. It's a place where they serve you half cooked meat and you cook them on your own. The taste and portion are even with the price, so I don't mind visiting them again.
4th August
We got up earlier today because the schedule was pretty packed. First, there's Tokyo Government Building where you can visit its observatory floor (45th floor) to get a good view of Japan Tokyo (whoops). We got to know and see some cool buildings, helped by the text guide and description, although no mount fuji in sight. At the center of the floor, there's a souvenir shop combined with cafe. Again, some of the goods are pretty generic, meaning you can get them somewhere else like Don Quijote.
Next is Shinjuku. We didn't know what to visit in Shinjuku so instead of wandering aimlessly we went to Kabukicho at noon. Unsurprisingly, there wasn't anything to see at the time but we passed by Toho cinema and remembered that it was the building which had the Godzilla head so we went up and took some photos with the Godzilla.
After that we headed to Ikebukuro. You can probably guess why I went here. Obviously it's for Mega Pokemon Center, duh. However, don't make the same mistake as I did by going there on Sunday. Long queue and hard to browse because children everywhere. They have all the stuff you need, from keychains to trading cards to plushies to figures, everything. This one here is definitely the biggest among the other stores I visited (Kyoto and Kansai Airport). There are several shops in the mall selling affordable clothes and hobby stuff too, so it's not too bad.
The final trip is Tokyo Skytree. Initially we didn't plan on going there, but since we were already in Japan, might as well climb up one of the tall towers. Before going up, we had dinner at Tokyo Skytree food court. The takoyaki tenant serves the best takoyaki I've ever eaten IMO. I suspected there would be a long wait to get Skytree tickets since it was on Sunday and it would be sunset soon, but the wait time was only about half an hour. At the time we went there, they collaborated with Snoopy and decorated the aisle of the 450m floor with the peanuts gang, they were pretty cute and made good photo props. The 350m floor has access to the view as well as the cafe and the glass floor. If you don't want to bother with those, the cheaper option is 450m floor but with more narrow aisle.
5th August
Shibuya and Harajuku time! But first, since Tokyo tower is near Shibuya, we headed there first in the morning. Having read that Shiba park, the park near Tokyo tower, offers one of the best view of the tower, we went to the park instead of going beneath the tower. True enough, the tower was as clear as day, perfect distance to be in the photo frame.
Shibuya was packed, even though it was Monday. Thankfully taking a pic with Hachiko Statue wasn't hard at all as there weren't that many people near the statue. Shibuya crossing, however, lives up to its fame. It was a sea of people crossing the street and I'm not even exaggerating. Had lunch at Coco Ichibanya, a curry house chain. Fantastic food and service, the old lady was very kind and spoke good english. The hamburger curry with cheese add-on was delightful, the more I think about it the more I crave for it now. We also shopped for shoes in Adidas store near 109. There was a 10% discount if you took up their offer to run on a treadmill for 1 minute. Easy discount, saved 2000 yen for the shoes.
Meiji Shrine was next to come. It was unbearably hot as we walked towards the shrine area, although when you enter there will be a cafe waiting for you that's surrounded with trees, so it's not going to be as hot as outside. The path from the entrance to the shrine was quite far, prepare for a long and hot journey ahead. It's almost the same as Sensoji temple, but Meiji Shrine has a votive tablet to write a wish on and hang on for 500 yen. Didn't bother with the inner garden as you must pay to enter. Furthermore, I didn't think there would be a flower patch blooming in there during the season contrary to the image advertised.
When you think Shibuya crossing is packed, wait until you see Takeshita Dori. There were still a lot of people strolling in the street even on Monday. It's perfect for shopping clothes and eat street food. I tried the strawberry cheesecake crepe and it was heavenly.
Dinner was at Gyozaro Harajuku. It was OK, nothing special about it. Had a pretty long line and most of the customers were tourists. Wanted to try fluffy pancake at flipper's but I was too late, they already closed at 8 P.M. Went back to hotel feeling dejected and without any fluffiness.
6th August
Tokyo Disneysea. That's it for the day. Heavily underestimated the long queue for the ride and ignored fastpass, I unknowingly arrived there at 10:30 A.M. Boy did I deserve that 2 and a half hour wait for Toy Story ride. And the ride itself was alright. Journey to the center of the earth was better. My sister hates roller coaster and she accompanied me to take the ride. She was mad about the coaster part at the end of the ride. For lunch we had the sandwich at Dockside Diner. It was supersized, although the tomato sauce tasted weird. Some worth mentioning snacks are seasalt clam ice cream and Little Green Men mochi dumplings. Dinner at Zambini Brothers' was ok too. Shops were fully packed in the evening. Managed to get a cool looking mickey shirt with the get wet theme. Overall disappointed only experienced 2 rides in one day.
7th August
Took Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka using JR pass, then to Osaka to drop off luggage at the hotel. Just as we were heading to the train platform, we passed by a belgian waffle shop (Manneken Belgian Waffle). You can smell the waffle from afar and it tasted just as good. One of my favorite snacks during the time I was in Japan, be sure to try it out. As usual, check in was at 3 P.M. so we walked around Shinsaibashi-suji shopping street to pass time. Many people took pics with Glicoman, and there are shops everywhere along the road. In the evening more people were crowding the street.
Since Dotonbori is near, we decided to go there as well. There were a lot more people there than Shinsaibashi-suji. Takoyaki, kobe beef and okonomiyaki shops everywhere you look, although I'm not complaining about it. Can't have enough takoyaki in my life. Tried the one which has a full octopus sticking out of the balls (as opposed to the usual one with only a square chunk of octopus), definitely do not recommend the stall. It's unique, but that's as far as it goes. I think we had dinner at Ichiran (again). Since the front shop was full already, we were guided to the back of the shop (5 minute turn-around walk). Tasted good as usual. A good tip before moving would be to use luggage delivery service (Kuro Neko Yamato) offered by hotels or convenience stores if they are too much of a burden to carry around. I used it for 2 big suitcases and it costed around 2100 yen each. But it did make my traveling much easier.
8th August
First time in Kyoto, travelled via Limited Express from Osaka to Kyoto (JR Pass again). Initially I boarded the wrong train which was local so there were going to be many stops instead of going straight to Kyoto. Got off and hopped on to the other train. Arrived at Fushimi Inari at 9 A.M., already too many people there. And Kyoto is much much more hotter than in Osaka or Tokyo, goddamnit. As usual, there are souvenir shops nearby the shrine, charm shops, cleansing water, etc. The orange torii gates are the unique quality about Fushimi Inari. We didn't climb to the top as my uncle couldn't walk that much. As we went down we stopped by a green tea ice cream shop. It was a lifesaver in a hot day, though the price did not reflect that (600 yen a cone, wtf?).
From Fushimi Inari, we took the train back to Kyoto Station and got a taxi to Kiyomizudera to avoid too much walking uphill. It costed about 1500 yen, which was about what I expected. Kiyomizudera has a nice view of the city and Sannenzaka, perfect for a photo shoot. The famous terrace was underwhelming, partly because it was summer and there was a construction of the temple going on. After we were done with Kiyomizudera, we walked down Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka. Everywhere you see is green tea flavored, whether it's mochi, ice cream or drinks. It's worth it to stroll down the road even though it's hot, because of the traditional ambience. There's even Starbucks in a traditional house in Ninenzaka. In spite of the heat, some people still wore Yukata and Kimono. I respect their endurance.
We had dinner at Menbaka Fire Ramen, where there is literal fire on your ramen. Contrary to what the reviews say, it was the worst ramen I've ever tasted. I already had a feeling that it was going to be a bad experience the moment I walked through the door and asked which country I am from with no local customers in sight. That's usually an indication to a bad restaurant.
9th August
Second day in Kyoto, this day we headed to Tenryuji temple around Arashiyama area. Wanted to go to Monkey Park but my uncle hates monkeys, so. We only went in the temple garden, not the inside of the temple. I'm sure it's beautiful in other seasons like autumn or winter, but like Kiyomizudera, it is just an ordinary big garden in this season. The left path from the exit of the garden leads to Arashiyama bamboo grove, the main destination for the day. The bamboos were quite beautiful. It was a bit difficult to get a nice photo without people in the frame there. The observation deck of the kameyama park near the exit of the bamboo grove offers a mesmerizing view of mountains and the river. Didn't go to Okachi Sanso Villa as we were exhausted already.
After Arashiyama, we got on a bus going to Nijo Castle. I think the temperature was at the peak during the time we visited Nijo Castle. My sister for one definitely didn't enjoy our trip due to the heat. The garden is calming, the inside is probably only worth seeing if you've never been inside a castle or attracted to historical part of it.
Last destination in Kyoto was Pokemon Center Kyoto. The place was quite small, not as crowded and didn't offer as many as Mega center Tokyo, but there were exclusive Kyoto merchandise, like Kyoto Pikachu plushies for example.
10th August
Went to Nara and excited to see Nara deers. From the station, we took the yellow loop line bus to Todaiji temple bus stop. As soon as we got off the bus, we were greeted by a female deer. They were pretty tame, probably because they are familiar with humans enough. My sister was unlucky and got bitten by one of the deers. She wore shorts that have small frills on them, so that might be why. I bowed to a deer but it didn't bow back, bummer. If you plan on buying a lot of snack souvenirs with deer branding all over them, know that Don Quijote have those too, so they are not exclusive items in Nara. One of the karaage food stall was super tasty.
11th August
The destination is Osaka Aquarium. Arrived at 10 A.M. but there was already a long line, both for buying tickets and entering the aquarium. Combined with the heat, the wait was pure suffering. When we finally went inside, crowds were flocking around the glass on the first exhibition, especially the penguin part. Although on later exhibitions there were less crowds. I wish the aquarium offered more variety, it was average at best. Really not worth the long wait under the sun.
Wanted to grab lunch at Tempozan Marketplace food hall, but again no seats were available. Decided to go to Kuma Kafe. I don't know if he was the owner or not, but the guy serving us was really thoughtful and kind. There was a long wait for the food (approx. 45 minutes) because they were backlogged after lunch, but he apologized about it and we were served delicious and hearty meal, so who can complain?
Right after lunch I bought a ticket to see Doraemon exhibition in the culturarium building next to the aquarium. It was a temporary event so I decided why not? I'm Asian so of course I love Doraemon. It was kind of an art museum featuring high quality fan arts. Yes, some of the arts were weird, because Japan.
Dinner was at Gyozaoh Dotonbori. At first I was skeptical with it being populated by tourists and also asked where I am from, but the food was actually good. The pan-fried gyoza with soy sauce, the deep-fried gyoza with green tea salt, the karaage and salt cucumber. All of them were delicious. The service was splendid too.
12th August
Nothing special. Just hunting souvenirs at Don Quijote and browsing from Shinsaibashi-suji to Ebisubashi-suji and Takashimaya. The highlight was the dinner at Matsusaka Yakiniku M. Service and food was top-notch. How can a meat be that tender? Their Matsusaka tenderloin beef was the best. Tender, juicy and delicious. Spent around 13,000 yen for a two person meal, I don't regret that one bit.
13th August
Universal Studio Japan. Miles better compared to Disneysea in terms of attractions and food. I tried the premium meat sauce hot dogs and it was so good. Pricey, but good. Butterbeer was also excellent. However, the souvenir prices were crazy expensive. I left without buying a single souvenir. Disneysea's was much more affordable. Despite the crowd, I managed to ride Minion Mayhem, Harry Potter twice, Jaws, Space Fantasy, and Attack on Titan. That's 6 attractions in total so I'm more than satisfied. Best attraction was definitely Harry Potter. I would ride it more than twice if I had the time. What I don't understand is the Space Fantasy hype; it was just a coaster filled with subpar effects. My advice would be to get in the single rider line for every available attractions. Much much faster, harry potter single rider line was only 10 minutes while the group line was probably around 1 hour.
14th August
The final day of the entire trip. I went to Denden town browsing for game merchandise while my sister and uncle was shopping at Takashimaya. The shops I recommend would be Kotobukiya and Volks Osaka Showroom. Yellow Submarine is a good choice too. For pure anime merchandise, go to Animate. I went there and it's got a huge range of anime merch. I'm not interested in anime stuff so I just went in to know what it looks like. Prices among shops are roughly the same, so don't worry too much about it. Some are a bit cheaper though.
Lunch was at Sukiya. Cheap, tasty and fast. Got a variety of gyudon and curry. Their tuna sashimi with rice and eel were also delicious. Had dinner at Gyozaoh again. Yeah, it's that good that made me eat there twice and as a final meal before leaving Japan.