{Japan} Our Tokyo Travel Itinerary

A commonly asked question to us about our trip to Japan is what our itinerary was like. So here’s our itinerary when we were in Tokyo…

Day 1: Arrival in Tokyo

• Claimed JR Pass at the JR station at the airport
• Got reserved seating tickets on the NEX (airport express) for Narita to Tokyo Station (free using JR pass)
• Purchased SUICA card at Tokyo Station, traveled to our hotel and checked in.
• Our hotel was in Shinjuku, so spent the evening discovering the area, eating at restaurants in the area. Most restaurants take credit card. Some do require cash. So remember to ask “Credit Card wa-tsu-kae-masu-ka?” If they say “Dai-jio-bu” or “hai”, then you can use your card. If they say “iie” or “da-me” or “tsu-kae-ma-sen” or they shake their heads left to right as in “no”, then they take cash only.
• Looked for a 7-eleven store to withdraw cash from the ATM.

Day 2: Tourist Attractions in Tokyo

• Went to Asakusa (Nakamise Shopping Street), bought some souvenirs
• Visited Sensoji Temple (which was at the end of the Nakamise Shopping Street). Total time spent in Asakusa was about 4 hours (this will vary for you depending on how much time you spend shopping for souvenirs, trying out the local snacks and visiting the temple.
• We were meeting a friend in Harajuku for dinner, so we decided to visit the Meiji Shrine which was in that area.
• After visiting the shrine, we visited the Takeshita Shopping Street (right across the Harajuku JR station). The clothing and things sold here are cheaper because they target the younger generation (high school kids etc…). Again, time spent here will vary depending on how much time you spend shopping.
• At the end of the Takeshita Shopping Street, you’ll get to Omotesando. Another shopping street except that it’s all brand name shopping.

Day 3: Day trip to Nagano

• We knew that we’d need a whole day to go to Nagano, spend time at the park and then head back, so we designated our entire 3rd day for this activity.
• We went and visited the Jigokudani Monkey Park. Read our post here for more information and how to get there.

Day 4: Kamakura

• Kamakura is a city about 45-minutes to an hour south of Tokyo.
• There are many different trains that get there. We took the Shonan Shinjuku Line from Shinjuku Station to Kamakura station (since our hotel was in Shinjuku).
• We spent an entire day there visiting the Great Buddha (Daibutsu), Hase Temple (Hasedera) and Tsurugaoka Hachimangu. These are all temples and shrines. Felt a lot like mini Kyoto in Kamakura!
• There are a LOT of other temples and shrines that you can visit there, so you can easily spend an entire day just visiting these places. Pick up a map at the train station. You should be able to take local trains to different shrines/temples or just walk (which is what we did).

Day 5: Tsukiji Market, Akihabara, Shibuya

• Tsukiji Market tuna auction was closed to the public at the time we were there. You should however see if they’re open when you’re there and go to their auction viewing (5am – 6:30am roughly).
• We got there around 11:30am to have lunch at Sushi Dai, a famous sushi restaurant. It wasn’t until about 2pm that we got a seat (yes, we waited 2.5 hours in line but it was well worth it!)
• After a satisfying lunch that cost us about 3900yen each, we headed to Akihabara. There’s the famous Yodabashi Camera building there that sells almost anything you can think of! Mostly electronics though. There are several restaurants on the top floor of this building that is worth visiting. Among them, a chinese restaurant called Xi’An that sells hand shaved noodles!
• After a couple of hours there, we visited a Maid Cafe. We still owe a blog post about that! Anyways, as you walk around Akihabara, there will be plenty of girls dressed in maid clothing handing out flyers. We were told to go to “At Home Cafe” but had trouble finding it, so we stopped by one called Popopure. We got some “magic” added to our omelette rice dish and some rabbit drawn on the rice. We’ll post some pictures later!
• Then at night, we visited Shibuya. Exit through the Hachiko exit (the waiting dog) and then cross the street to a building where you can see Starbucks on the second floor. It has the perfect viewpoint to witness the famous Shibuya crossing!
• We of course also had delicious ramen throughout the week. We had ramen at Ichiran when we were in Shinjuku (the best ramen we’ve ever had!). For this night, we visited Ippudo (branch in Shibuya), another contender in the ramen world in Japan (don’t forget to try their gyozas!).

Day 6: Tsukishima, Ginza, Ropponggi

• Many of our friends recommended eating French cuisine in Japan.
• Restaurant listings are here. We didnt get to try the one we wanted to because it was closed on the day we were there (one of the drawbacks of being in Tokyo at the start of January). Our friend recommended Le’Crin, Miraville and Les Enfants Gates. We had delicious french food at Dalloyau in Ginza, accompanied with mouth watering macarons!
• Tokyo tower is located in Ropponggi. A tourist attraction if you like visiting landmarks.
• We had omakase sushi at Asakusa (Ningyocho station). We owe a post on this!
• For dinner, we had Monjayaki at Tsukishima. Another post we need to write about!

Here are pictures of Monjayaki – it’s tastier than it looks! I promise!

Day 7: Chill day around Tokyo

• This was a day for any last minute shopping or for visiting places we missed the first few days we got to Tokyo.
• We spent this day going back to Shibuya to do some shopping at Shibuya 109, went to a couple of places that had restaurants we wanted to visit etc…
• Among the restaurants we went “hunting” for was Chanko Tomoegata at Ryogoku. Their specialty is Chanko Nabe (a one-dish-hot-pot that sumo wrestlers eat). Yes, another post that we need to write about!
• If you’re in the area around the time that there are Sumo tournaments going on, you should absolutely purchase tickets and go watch! There weren’t any fights when we were there, so we missed the chance to watch a Sumo fight.
• We also tried sushi at Kyubei (another famous, high end sushi restaurant). It was double the price of omakase at Sushi Dai but definitely worth the experience — I had shrimp so fresh that it was still twitching on the nigiri (head was off, tail was off, skin was peeled)!

If you’re in Tokyo for a week, I’d highly recommend spending at least a day or two in Kyoto and Osaka. It’s about a 3 hour shinkansen ride from Tokyo. Free using the JR Pass. We didnt include Kyoto and Osaka in this itinerary because we were in Japan for 3 weeks. The remaining 2 weeks were spent in Kyoto, Osaka and Sapporo. We’ll cover those in another post.

So… that was roughly our one week in Tokyo itinerary.
Hope this helps!