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The original was posted on /r/japantravel by /u/IMustSayThat on 2024-02-27 11:56:44.
Hi folks! This is the last part of our 21-day late November honeymoon trip. Our final stops were Nikko, Tokyo and Kawaguchiko. Parts 1 and 2 can be found on the following links:
Part 1: Osaka, Hiroshima and Miyajima
Part 2: Himeji, Kyoto, Matsumoto, Snow Monkey Park and Shibu Onsen
Day 12 - Nikko (Toshogu Shrine)
- When building my itinerary, I wasn't sure if we should do Nikko as a day trip from Tokyo or spend a night there. Since we wanted to visit two different areas (Toshogu Shrine area and Lake Chuzenji), I opted for the overnight option to make sure we had enough time for it.
- We left Shibu Onsen at around 7.30am and arrived in Nikko at 1pm. Dropped our bags at the hotel and had lunch at Trattoria Gigli (6/10, the food wasn't bad, but I REALLY like Italian and it was just not up to standard. Good price though and we got seated right away).
- After lunch we walked towards Toshogu Shrine. I recommend walking instead of getting the bus from the train station - traffic can be pretty bad in Nikko and there are several little shops and food trucks along the way. We walked by Shinkyo Bridge and didn't pay to get inside as the view from outside seemed nicer.
- We arrived at Toshogu Shrine at 2.45pm (it closes at 4pm) and for us that was enough time to see everything. There was a MASSIVE queue to buy tickets, but thanks to someone else on this subreddit I knew I could buy tickets online at the KKday website right before entering. So I did that, got a QR code in my email in less than 2 minutes, and got my tickets at the KKday collection counter, which was completely empty, so I was inside the temple in less than 5 min (versus what looked like a 30 min queue). The temple was impressive, very very busy, but we enjoyed it.
- We then decided to walk towards Kanmangafuchi Abyss. The walk there is pretty nice, but the 'Abyss' itself is very unimpressive. So if you're in Nikko for a day trip, I wouldn't recommend going there.
- We walked back to our hotel and got out again for dinner at around 7.30pm. It was a mistake getting out that late - Nikko turns into a ghost town after 6pm. The only place open and taking orders was Ramen Bonten so we stopped there for food (6/10).
Nikko hotel: Nikko Station Classic (8/10). Right beside the JR station, so very convenient location. Room was spacious, hotel had an Onsen (but I didn't go check it out). Breakfast was included but it wasn't very good.
Day 13 - Nikko (Lake Chuzenji)
- We got the 8.30am bus towards Chuzenji Lake, after buying an all day bus pass to the Chuzenji area from Tobu-Nikko station (the counter opens at 8am, so if you're planning on getting an earlier bus, buy these tickets in advance. If I'm not mistaken you can get them online). DO NOT get the bus from the Tobu-Nikko stop - instead, walk two minutes down to the JR station and get it from there, it's the first stop and practically empty compared to the next stop (where not everyone managed to get in the bus)
- Our first stop was the Akechidaira ropeway. We took the cable car up to the observation deck and there were no queues. Views were beautiful, so I absolutely recommend. We were there past peak foliage, but I can only imagine how impressive it would look during the peak. We spent less than 30 min there. Check the bus schedule beforehand to figure out how much time you can stay at each spot without waiting ages for the next bus to show up.
- Hopped back on the bus, and our next stop was Kegon falls. We arrived there at around 9.45am and there were no queues to the elevator yet. Once we were done, instead of getting back on the bus, we just walked down towards the lake. There was not a lot going on in the area, very few shops or places to eat.
- We decided to do the boat cruise departing from here. Views were nice and it was cozy and warm inside. I don't remember for how long exactly we were in the boat, but I'd guess it was around 40 min. Once we were dropped off we got lunch at the Maple restaurant, and had a delicious Wagyu Stew (9/10). There is a temple in the area that looked cool from the outside (Chuzen-ji temple), but we decided not to go in. We really wanted to check Mt. Hangetsu observation deck - however, at that time of the year there were no buses available, and the walk was reaaaaally long, so we opted not to go.
- We then made our way back to Nikko - be prepared for a very long bus trip (traffic), standing.
What I would do differently: we should have just done a day trip from Tokyo to Nikko. Nikko is dead in the evenings, so there was no point on spending the night there. If doing a day trip, I would explore Lake Chuzenji area in the morning (8am start), grab lunch at the Maple restaurant and then visit Toshogu Shrine in the afternoon. Renting a car could be helpful for exploring Chuzenji Lake. During our time there, traffic got really bad after 3pm, so as long as your back to Nikko at that time you should be fine.
- We headed to Tokyo and arrived in our hotel in Shinjuku at 7pm. After grabbing dinner, we just checked out the Disney Flagship Store, Muji and the Godzilla statue at the Gracery hotel (which was pretty underwhelming) before calling it a day.
Tokyo hotel: APA Hotel Higashi Shinjuku Kabukicho Tower (8/10). Good value hotel, convenient location, 15 min walk from several train/metro stations. Ideally, I would recommend staying closer than that to the stations if you can - the last thing we wanted to do by the end of the day after walking 25k steps, was to walk 15 more minutes. Rooms were small (but that was the case most of the time). They had laundry on site and a public Onsen (which we didn't check).
We left the hotel to go to Mt Fuji for a night and asked them to hold our luggage for 24 hours and they refused. So we had to use a luggage forwarding service (Airporter) to pick it up and drop it off at the same hotel on the next day, a bit of a waste. That was the only stress.
If you are not the going out type, I wouldn't recommend staying in Shinjuku, the area is very very busy all day every day. If you are, then that's the place to be!
Day 14 - Tokyo (TeamLabs, Odaiba and Ginza)
When building your Tokyo itinerary, consider that you are going to need PLENTY of time to get to places. Even if two areas seem very close on the map, it won't take you less than 40 min to travel between them. So if you are planning an early activity in a day, that might mean waking up 1.5 hours before that, so just keep that in mind.
- The initial plan was to start the day very early and be at Tsukiji Fish Market before 7am. Well, that didn't happen - we were very tired so decided to sleep for 2 extra hours. We ended up never going back there, so can't really comment on it (and I don't regret not going - we've been to plenty of markets during the trip).
- We started our day at TeamLab Planets with our 9am pre-booked tickets. We got there at 8.45am and there was a massive queue waiting for it to open. Still, we were in by 9.15am and even though the place was busy, it was not TOO busy that we couldn't enjoy the exhibition, so I definitely recommend going on the first timeslot if you can. It is not a long exhibition, so you can spend as much time there as you want - we were there for 1 hour and for me that was enough.
- We had lunch at Sushi Dokoro Yamazaki, one of the many sushi restaurants around Toyosu market. This was the best sushi we had in our entire trip, 10/10. It's a small restaurant. There was no queue when we arrived at 10.30am, but a big queue when we left.
- We then headed to Odaiba and checked the three shopping centres in the area and spent some time in one of the arcades. We left by 5pm, it was already dark, so we could see the rainbow bridge, the Fuji TV observatory, the Unicorn Gundam Statue and the Statue of Liberty lit up.
- Our final stop was Ginza - we just walked around and did some shopping (Shiseido, Uniqlo, Muji) before heading back to the hotel. We stopped for dinner at Curry House Rio in Shinjuku Station (7/10).
Day 15 - Tokyo (Harajuku and Shibuya Sky)
- We started the day by going to Harajuku and honestly, I don't recommend going there. The area is SO BUSY and there is a queue for literally everything (to get into restaurants, cafes, shops, shopping centres, it's a bit too much).
- Anyway, there we were. We first stopped at Cafe Reissue, dropped our names to a list (at 10.20am) and came back 1 hour later (11.20am) to be seated. While we waited we had our first Japanese crepe (I don't remember the location). SO MUCH CREAM inside, it was a bit sickening. We then just walked around Omotesando Street (so many queues). Then it was time to go back to Cafe Reissue, their latte art is amaz...
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