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.
Where ever possible we pre-purchased our tickets (Shinagawa Water Park, Robot Restaurant, Mangekyo Drum Show, Ghibli, Osaka Aquarium, Kidzania and Universal)
Leaving our big expenses like Disney and the Shinkansen to Osaka (which were both cash only purchases - the Disney tickets purchased from the Hilton came with same day use guaranteed entry into the parks) and our Osaka accommodation to worry about paying for while we were in Japan.
I know I mentioned it before, but Japan is practically a CASH only country. We were able to put some shopping (from major retailers) onto our travel card, and our unpaid accommodation in Osaka onto card. We took advantage of the generous discounts that Knot Hotel and the Hilton offered for booking and prepaying 90 days before you arrive. Most Hotel websites will offer this and if you know your travel dates and have booked your flights you should consider booking your accommodation earlier rather than later.
This is the process I went through to decide where we were staying and what we were going to do when we were there.
We picked May for the weather, then it was a case of looking through travel websites (trip advisor, JTB, blogs) for events that happened in May and what people did when they went to Japan.
After finding places to go and things to see you then need to see where they are in relation to each to other.
For example Sat the 11th we walked around Shinjuku and finished up the day at the Robot Resturaunt.
We visited a museum and saw an original Van Gogh, I took the girls to a Closet Child store for clothes shopping, we saw the Godzilla Head (if we had more time I had planned on going up the cafe and looking at it up close) we went into a Don Quijote variety store, took in the Robot Restaurant and walked back through the night life of Shinjuku.
We were less than 5 minutes walk from the Ninja trick house, and the Samurai Museum, but our girls were exhausted and we skipped both.
Not counting the Don Quijote and the Closet Child store, that was 5 different places, all within a short walking distance, that we could have visited in one day in one area. This is why planning is important. There is no point staying in one part of Tokyo and spending a good portion of your day travelling to the things you want to see. Yes the trains are cheap but had we stayed in Ueno (for example) we would have spent far more time on the trains at a greater cost to get to the things we came to see.
For us Shinjuku made perfect sense. It has a large electronics store neighbourhood (which thrilled my hubby no end, he went out a couple of nights by himself to look at the stores) and as Ghibli was one of the major draw cards of our trip to Japan I wanted somewhere that wasn't too far away from there. (The earlier the better when going to Ghibli, the queue to get in rivals some of the lines for rides at Disney!)
West of Shinjuku station also had the added bonus of being one of the places that day tours originated from (if that is your thing) at the LOVE sculpture and at some of the major hotels nearby.
Shinjuku also had another major draw, the train station. With the Yamanote, Sobu, Chuo, Shonan-Shinjuku, Saikyo, Keio, Toei Oedo and Odakyu Odawara lines all passing through the station it is a one stop hub for making your way around Tokyo.
Another example - on Wednesday the 8th we went to the TenQ Space Museum at Suidobashi (which is at the Tokyo Dome) via the Chuo-Soba line (local) which takes about 13 minutes and costs 170 Yen (about $2AUD) you could take in the sights of Tokyo Dome City with all the rides but we headed 5 minutes down the road to Akihabara (on the same line) at a cost of only 140Yen. After wandering through the all the electronic and anime themed shops we made our way down to the Shinagawa Water Park all of 16 minutes and 170Yen away. Where we had an early tea and then wandered to the Water Park (which was less than a 5 minutes stroll away)
To get home we took the Yanamote Line back to Shinjuku which was a 20 minute ride and only 200Yen.
A whole day of sight seeing that cost us 680Yen in travel (around $8 AUD) and everything was within walking distance of the stations.
My suggestions:
Invaluable resource.
Google Maps. While you are going to get frustrated looking at the street view and then suddenly you are underground at a station, walking the streets before going gave me the chance to see where we were going and what it would look like. It also allowed for some pretty specific instructions when looking for side streets and gave you a great idea of what you are going to be able to see from the street.
We ran into a Brazillian couple who had hopped off at Shinjuku station and were looking for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. Now, that building is HUGE, but you can't see it from street level when you leave the station. In fact you have to walk at least 3 blocks away from the station before you can see it, and even then the view is obscured by other large buildings.
Having written instructions that included specific things to look for while we were walking we never managed to get lost. Not bad, thanks Google Maps.
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
|
Odaiba Island
|
Hilton
Tokyo Bay
|
18 S
|
Travel to Osaka
|
Art
Hotel Osaka
|
19 Su
|
Rest
|
Art
Hotel Osaka
|
20 M
|
Nara
|
Art
Hotel Osaka
|
21 T
|
Osaka Aquarium
|
Art
Hotel Osaka
|
22 W
|
Kidzania
|
Art
Hotel Osaka
|
23 Th
|
Universal
|
Art
Hotel Osaka
|
24 F
|
Last day in Osaka
|
Art
Hotel Osaka
|
25 S
|
Fly out from Kansai
|
Art
Hotel Osaka
|
Where ever possible we pre-purchased our tickets (Shinagawa Water Park, Robot Restaurant, Mangekyo Drum Show, Ghibli, Osaka Aquarium, Kidzania and Universal)
Leaving our big expenses like Disney and the Shinkansen to Osaka (which were both cash only purchases - the Disney tickets purchased from the Hilton came with same day use guaranteed entry into the parks) and our Osaka accommodation to worry about paying for while we were in Japan.
I know I mentioned it before, but Japan is practically a CASH only country. We were able to put some shopping (from major retailers) onto our travel card, and our unpaid accommodation in Osaka onto card. We took advantage of the generous discounts that Knot Hotel and the Hilton offered for booking and prepaying 90 days before you arrive. Most Hotel websites will offer this and if you know your travel dates and have booked your flights you should consider booking your accommodation earlier rather than later.
This is the process I went through to decide where we were staying and what we were going to do when we were there.
We picked May for the weather, then it was a case of looking through travel websites (trip advisor, JTB, blogs) for events that happened in May and what people did when they went to Japan.
After finding places to go and things to see you then need to see where they are in relation to each to other.
For example Sat the 11th we walked around Shinjuku and finished up the day at the Robot Resturaunt.
We visited a museum and saw an original Van Gogh, I took the girls to a Closet Child store for clothes shopping, we saw the Godzilla Head (if we had more time I had planned on going up the cafe and looking at it up close) we went into a Don Quijote variety store, took in the Robot Restaurant and walked back through the night life of Shinjuku.
We were less than 5 minutes walk from the Ninja trick house, and the Samurai Museum, but our girls were exhausted and we skipped both.
Not counting the Don Quijote and the Closet Child store, that was 5 different places, all within a short walking distance, that we could have visited in one day in one area. This is why planning is important. There is no point staying in one part of Tokyo and spending a good portion of your day travelling to the things you want to see. Yes the trains are cheap but had we stayed in Ueno (for example) we would have spent far more time on the trains at a greater cost to get to the things we came to see.
For us Shinjuku made perfect sense. It has a large electronics store neighbourhood (which thrilled my hubby no end, he went out a couple of nights by himself to look at the stores) and as Ghibli was one of the major draw cards of our trip to Japan I wanted somewhere that wasn't too far away from there. (The earlier the better when going to Ghibli, the queue to get in rivals some of the lines for rides at Disney!)
West of Shinjuku station also had the added bonus of being one of the places that day tours originated from (if that is your thing) at the LOVE sculpture and at some of the major hotels nearby.
Shinjuku also had another major draw, the train station. With the Yamanote, Sobu, Chuo, Shonan-Shinjuku, Saikyo, Keio, Toei Oedo and Odakyu Odawara lines all passing through the station it is a one stop hub for making your way around Tokyo.
Another example - on Wednesday the 8th we went to the TenQ Space Museum at Suidobashi (which is at the Tokyo Dome) via the Chuo-Soba line (local) which takes about 13 minutes and costs 170 Yen (about $2AUD) you could take in the sights of Tokyo Dome City with all the rides but we headed 5 minutes down the road to Akihabara (on the same line) at a cost of only 140Yen. After wandering through the all the electronic and anime themed shops we made our way down to the Shinagawa Water Park all of 16 minutes and 170Yen away. Where we had an early tea and then wandered to the Water Park (which was less than a 5 minutes stroll away)
To get home we took the Yanamote Line back to Shinjuku which was a 20 minute ride and only 200Yen.
A whole day of sight seeing that cost us 680Yen in travel (around $8 AUD) and everything was within walking distance of the stations.
My suggestions:
- Make a list of your 'Must See' locations
- Have an idea roughly where these things are and pick a location that is central to the majority of them or near enough to a train station that you can easily make your way there.
- Plot out how many days you think you are going to need to see everything on your list.
- Cull the things that difficult to get to (Fox Village comes to mind!)
- Plan your days allowing some days that are not as full on as others, and a day where you can sleep in occasionally, or will be back at the hotel early. Small humans are not as resilient as full sized ones. Our girls pushed through some days ok (possibly because they were running on pure excitement) but they needed the occasional late start days too.
- If you can, try and have open ended tickets that don't require you to be somewhere at a certain time. The only three exceptions that we made on our trip were the Robot Restaurant, the Mangekyo Drumming, and Kidzania, which all had fixed time entry. All the other tickets we purchased were for any time on the day that we bought the ticket for. (Disney, Universal and Ghibli - but of course we were early for those days)
Invaluable resource.
Google Maps. While you are going to get frustrated looking at the street view and then suddenly you are underground at a station, walking the streets before going gave me the chance to see where we were going and what it would look like. It also allowed for some pretty specific instructions when looking for side streets and gave you a great idea of what you are going to be able to see from the street.
We ran into a Brazillian couple who had hopped off at Shinjuku station and were looking for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. Now, that building is HUGE, but you can't see it from street level when you leave the station. In fact you have to walk at least 3 blocks away from the station before you can see it, and even then the view is obscured by other large buildings.
Having written instructions that included specific things to look for while we were walking we never managed to get lost. Not bad, thanks Google Maps.
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