Japan Trips & Travel Tips

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The original was posted on /r/japantravel by /u/Top_Ordinary849 on 2024-04-13 06:36:21.

My husband & I recently returned from our first trip to Japan from 21 March to 8 April. We mostly stuck to the golden route & wanted to see the cherry blossoms. We did most of the planning with help from this subreddit & watching YouTube videos (really enjoyed u/CurrentlyHannah & u/RionIshida). I enjoy reading everyone’s trip reports so here’s ours.

Overview

2 x nights Tokyo, Hotel: Hotel Century Southern Tower

2 x nights Lake Kawaguchiko (Mt Fuji), Hotel: Mizno Hotel

4 x nights Osaka, Hotel: JOYTEL HOTEL Namba-Dotonbori

4 x nights Kyoto, Hotel: Laon Inn Gion Nawate

6 x nights Tokyo, Hotel: JR-EAST Hotel METS Gotanda

Prep/Planning/Pre-booking

• We booked our flights with Qantas about 6 months prior & started a Google Map & pinned places & restaurants of interest, colour coded them by area & grouped things together when we planned our daily itinerary.
• Once we had our itinerary sorted, we booked hotels on Agoda, Booking.com & where we could book directly with hotels we did. We kept tweaking our itinerary until the last minute.
• We read some Japanese websites like USJ and SmartEx don’t accept Visa or certain other credit cards, we used a MasterCard Credit Card & it worked everywhere, no issues.
• We booked the below in advance as soon as we could, this is not required, this is just what we did. With it being peak season, we wanted to avoid any disappointment of things likely being sold out or wasting time researching and booking things while we are there.
  • Two months in advance we:
    • purchased Tokyo Disney Resort tickets
    • purchased Universal Studios & Express Passes
  • One month in advance we:
    • booked the Limited Express Fuji Excursion Train on www.eki-net.com to get from Shinjuku to Lake Kawaguchiko.
    • booked the Fujikyuko Express Bus on sekitori.jp to get from Lake Kawaguchiko to Mishima Sta.
    • booked our Shinkansen trips on SmartEX smart-ex.jp. Tips: This gets mentioned a lot but book seat D & E for standard car or C & D for Green Car going either way from Tokyo to Osaka/Kyoto to view Mt Fuji & link your IC card to your bookings so you don’t need to print tickets, just tag on with your IC card & save a couple of minutes.
    • booked the Kintetsu Sightseeing Limited Express AONIYOSH Train on www.kintetsu.co.jp.
    • purchased Shibuya Sky tickets (we wanted sunset slots for 17:00, they sold out within minutes, so got tickets for the 16:00 slot)
    • purchased tickets to the NAKED Flowers Sakura Nijo Castle Kyoto event on Klook.
    • reserved restaurants, we didn’t want to reserve any restaurants as we wanted to be flexible when it comes to this, however after research & being especially concerned about Kyoto , we reserved these four restaurants, we were still able to be flexible otherwise & stumbled upon a lot of great restaurants, but nonetheless three of these four were some of the best meals we had the whole trip:
    • Matsuzaka Gyu Yakiniku M Hozenji-Yokoch Osaka (www.tablecheck.com)
    • Kobe Beef Steak Mouriya Gion Kyoto (www.tablecheck.com)
    • Itoh Dining Kyoto (www.tablecheck.com)
    • Hokkaido Menkoi Nabe Kumachan Onsen Shibuya Miyamasuzaka (www.kumachan-onsen.jp)
    • purchased Skytree tickets on Klook
• Learned some Japanese using Duolingo & watching YouTube. These are the phrases we used the most:
  • “Arigatou Gozaimasu” – Thank you
  • “Sumimasen” – Excuse me
  • “Daijoubu Desu” - It’s Ok, I’m Fine, No thanks
  • “Onegaishimas” - Please (when asking for something)
  • “__ o Kudasai” – I would like __, please
  • “__ wa Doko Desu ka?” – Where is __?
  • When we tried to use any more than this people would try to have fluent conversations with us, so we just kept to basics. We also learned a bit of Hiragana was somewhat useful reading signs, but we mostly used Google Translate.
• Completed the Visit Japan Web site a few days before our trip.

Luggage & Packing

• We took 1 x large suitcase (160cm) & 2 x carry-on sized bags (Kathmandu Hybrid Trolley v3 32L). Our one large suitcase was empty & we planned to fill it up with shopping & souvenirs as we go and forward it using Yamato Transport TA-Q-BIN (black cat) when we move hotels. By the time we got back to Tokyo the one large suitcase was full so we bought another one as my husband needed one anyways. Both large suitcases were full at the end of the trip.
• Luggage forwarding gets mentioned a lot, but I mention it again as I see people keep asking about it & it is convenient. We forwarded our luggage twice, it is recommended to do it the morning before 11:00am & usually it will arrive the next day but could take longer. We took our luggage to our hotel reception or 7/11. They phoned our next hotel to check that they were happy to receive the luggage. As far as I know, this service is available all over Japan, we only shipped from Tokyo > Osaka & Kyoto > Tokyo.
• We had a small backpack for our daily shopping, & found coin pouches useful.

FYI for those taking their luggage with them on the Shinkansen:

• 160cm & below = No reservation required
• 161–250cm = Reservation required
• 250cm & above = Not allowed on train

Weather & Clothes

• Temperatures ranged from 0°C to 20°C. There was an unexpected cold front when we arrived in Tokyo & was colder than we expected so we purchased some gloves & beanies to keep warm. It rained about 6 out of the 19 days, most days were a little cloudy with no rain, we had some sunny days where it was warm & it helped that we could take off layers.
• We planned to use the laundry services & at our hotels so we each only took 2 x pairs of outfits & a lightweight windproof rain jacket. We also planned to buy some clothes during our trip.
• We each took only one pair of comfortable walking shoes & several pairs of thick comfortable socks. We averaged 20K steps a day.
• We each took a set of sleepwear but 4 out of 5 of our hotels provided sleepwear.

Thursday 21 March 2024 Tokyo Shinjuku

• Arrived at Narita Airport at 17:30 from New Zealand on Qantas Airlines.
• We activated our E-Sims (I used Ubigi 10G 30Days & my husband used Airolo) as soon as we landed. 10G data each lasted us the whole trip (had 60MB left at the end) & we had good signal everywhere we went. We always connected to WiFi at our hotels.
• We scanned our QR Codes from the Visit Japan Web through customs & had our luggage by 18:30.
• We each drew ¥50,000 cash at the airport & used ¥20,000 of this to top-up our Suica IC Cards. We topped up our Suica IC Cards a few more times throughout our trip as in addition to using it for trains, we also used it at the konbini & vending machines. IC cards can only be topped up with cash. We drew cash a few more times from ATMS at kobini's.
• We borrowed Suica IC cards from friends so we already had these & just topped it up when we arrived at the airport. We both have Samsung phones so couldn’t use the digital Suica cards on the iPhone wallets, else this would’ve been convenient.
• Took the Narita Express (N'EX) Train to our hotel in Shinjuku (can pre book but don’t need to, I didn’t prebook in case our flight got delayed or customs took long, very easy to locate & purchase tickets after arrival). Train took about 1-hour 30 mins from Narita to Shinjuku.
• Checked into Hotel Century Southern Tower which is conveniently located 5min walk from Shinjuku Station & has great views of the city from our room. Room was spacious. We specifically booked this hotel as it was close to Shinjuku Station where we needed to take a train to Mt Fuji in two days’ time. We will return to Tokyo again later.
• We were hungry so we walked to the nearest Ichiran Ramen & waited in line for 40 min before being seated, it was delicious.
• Got a few things from 7/11 before heading back to the hotel.

Friday 22 March 2024 Tokyo Shinjuku

• Kept this day free in case of any delays, but also for viewing cherry blossoms in case they bloom early (they ended up blooming late due to the unexpected cold front).
• We felt a bit anxious about the public transport (especially Shinjuku Sta.), we went to the station to print our train tickets that we pre-booked & wanted to make sure where we need to catch our train to Mt Fuji the next day. It was very easy & straightforward, & all our anxiety melted away.
• Visited the 3D Cat Billboard & Godzilla before grabbing lunch at CoCo Ichibanya which was really tasty and went down well with the cold weather & then dessert at this 2D Café.
• Decided to head the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building early for sunset which was just ...

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