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Our Three Week Itinerary

Our Itinerary May 2019 So I've talked about what we did broadly while we were in Japan, but here is a day by day break down of our trip. 4 Sat Fly to Singapore Hotel Grand Pacific 5 Su Fly to Narita  (arrival after 5.30pm) Knot Hotel Shinjuku 6 M Shinjuku Knot Hotel Shinjuku 7 T Harajuku Knot Hotel Shinjuku 8 W TenQ Space Museum/Akihabara /Shinagawa Water Park Knot Hotel Shinjuku 9 Th BookOff Super store Op shopping Knot Hotel Shinjuku 10 F Ikebukuro and Magic Bar Knot Hotel Shinjuku 11 S Shinjuku Shopping / Robot Restaurant Knot Hotel Shinjuku 12 Su Mangekyo Drum Show / Kimono Knot Hotel Shinjuku 13 M Ghibli Hilton Tokyo Bay 14 T Disney Hilton Tokyo Bay 15 W Disney Hilton Tokyo Bay 16 Th Disney Hilton Tokyo Bay 17 F
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Japan Rail Pass or SUICA?

OK, if you are planning your trip to Japan there will be many a post dedicated to getting a Japan Rail Pass and how amazing they are. They come in 7, 14 and 21 day passes and provide you with unlimited travel on the trains across Japan. I am going to give you some helpful advice (and possibly some money saving advice too!) The passes are not cheap, and a considerable waste of money if you base a large portion of your travel in one or two cities (as we did with Tokyo and Osaka) If you are planning on city hopping your way from Tokyo to Okinawa, then yes, the rail pass will be the best thing you invest in, but.. Know Your Travel Costs BEFORE You Go! Google maps is your one stop shop for train fares. Plug in one station to another and it will show you what train line, what platform, what times and most importantly, HOW MUCH the trip will cost you. I did the maths. A lot of Maths, and with our itinerary it didn't add up. Here are the costs of a Japan Rail Pass 7 days $381
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Harajuku. All things cute and adorable, and everything inbetween.

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Harajuku is two stops from Shinjuku (about 7 minutes) by train and should be on your list of places to visit when you are in Tokyo. Next to the station is Yoyogi Park which houses the Meiji Shinto Shrine, a casual 15 -20 minute stroll from the station. There are some amazing Tori gates on the way, and walking through the forest you wouldn't even know that you were in the middle of Tokyo. The shrine sells protective charms (we bought one for my mum for safe driving) and for 500-600Yen you can purchase a wooden tablet and add your own wish and hang it in the grounds of the shrine.  We opted for this so that we could leave a little something of ourselves there. As the shops in Harajuku didn't open until around 10, this was a lovely way to fill in the time before we could go shopping! Walking back to the station you will have two options, head straight for Takeshita Street or the surrounding streets and shops. We didn't make good use of our time here, we c
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Shinjuku Station, confusing tourists since... well forever.

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Shinjuku station is a curious beast, with so many exits and entrances it would be pretty easy to get disorientated. One thing to note is that the signage in there is amazing. Look online for a map. It will save your life. This map is great (even though it is upside down with South pointing up) but it gives you a pretty good idea just how many trains come in and go out from Shinjuku Station. (View the original here: Shinjuku Station ) We went into the station via the South Entrance every time, so we knew which way we needed to walk to catch our trains leaving from their platforms. Coming off was more of a hit and miss, we just followed people from the platform to the main station area and found somewhere to stand while we looked around for an obvious exit. Don't stress too much, there are signs everywhere pointing to various exits. As long as you know where you are heading it shouldn't be too much of a problem. For example the West Exit and the Central West exit are the
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