Tokyo and Kyoto in a week

Japan – you have been awesome! Will share briefly how we covered Tokyo-Kyoto-Nara & Yokohama within a week in this post. Now, at least HJ is open to more trips when he previously stayed away after the 2011 nuclear plant incident. Osaka-Kobe-Hiroshima next time? We’ll see. I really don’t fancy Osaka that much but it’s an inroad to Kobe and Hiroshima, which I’m more interested in.

Day 1: 28/11 (Tue)

• Departed Singapore for Tokyo
• We chose a night flight so that we can snooze on board and start touring once we arrive

Day 2: 29/11 (Wed)

• Arrived in Tokyo early at 7am
• Visited the Yasukuni Shrine after we stored our bags at our hotel near Shinjuku station. I missed this site during my previous trip to Tokyo in 2011 so it was a must-go for me in view of its historical significance. 
• We didn’t go to the Meiji Shrine as it was not on HJ’s must-see list and I had also visited the shrine in 2011 but if you stay near Shinjuku or Shibuya, the Meiji Shrine is quite nearby!
• After checking in, I bought HJ to see the main tourist spots in the city around Shinjuku, Shibuya and Harajuku since it’s his first time in Toyko.

Day 3: 30/11 (Thurs)

• Left Tokyo for Kyoto via Shinkansen, which was where I wanted to spent the bulk of our trip (3 days, 2 nights in total).
• Kyoto has A LOT of temples but we narrowed down to a few must-sees that was near our hotel. They are the Fushimi Inari Shrine and the Kiyomizudera Temple, both of which can take up the whole afternoon and evening if you take your own sweet time.
• We also managed to visit a few malls i.e. Takashimaya in the evening. The big malls close daily at 8pm, which is quite early compared to Singapore standards so one way is to go shopping first and then have dinner after 8pm since most food places open until 10/11pm.

Day 4: 1/12 (Fri)

• We set off early to visit the must-see Arashiyama bamboo forest and the Kinkaku-ji temple (golden pavilion), which is in the same area as the bamboo forest so these two sites should be done together. 
• If we had more time, I would have visited the Tenryu-ji temple, another UNESCO heritage site that is located quite near the bamboo forest. One can visit the temple first, and then exit via the garden, to enter the bamboo forest grove.
• In the afternoon, we took a day trip to Nara (45 minutes away by train on the JR Nara line) to see wild deers roaming in Nara Park. The sun sets around 430pm during the winter season so we had to ensure that we reached Nara by 3pm so that we could spend some time in the park with the deers.
• The famous Todai-ji temple (with the giant Buddha) is also located in the park and closes at 5pm.
• We spent the evening having dinner and did some souvenir shopping in Nara before heading back to Kyoto for the night.

Day 5: 2/12 (Sat)

• For our last morning in Kyoto, we decided to go to the silver pavilion – Ginkaku-ji temple, after having visited the golden one.
• Near the temple is also the Philosopher’s Path, which is famous for being lined with peach blossoms but as it was the tail-end of autumn, we got to see a myriad of orange and red leaves instead.
• In the afternoon, we headed back to Tokyo via Shinkansen and spent the rest of the evening shopping for more souvenirs at Tokyo station, Ikebukuro and Sunshine City.

Day 6: 3/12 (Sun)

• On our second last day, we decided to go to Yokohama, specifically to visit the Ramen museum and Nissin cup noodles museum.
• If we had more time, maybe I would have visited the Kirin beer museum? However, between the 3, HJ preferred the food-related ones.

Day 7: 4/12 (Sun)

• Half a day in Tokyo and flight back to SG

In retrospect, if we had 1 more day, to really max out the 7 day rail pass, I might have included a trip to Mt. Fuji.

Between Mt. Fuji and Yokohama, we chose to do the latter instead because HJ did not really want to take a a 2.5 hr bus ride to Mt. Fuji to and fro Tokyo. After all, I had also been to Hakone and Mt. Fuji on my previous trip in 2011 but Yokohama City was the first for the both of us.

So visiting Tokyo & Kyoto 6-7 days is very doable. It just needs advanced planning and scoping of the sites depending on what you want to really see and do. Based on the sites that we planned to visit, buying the nationwide rail pass (SGD$345) was more worth it vs. paying for one-way trip tickets. The pass also included the Narita Express ticket and it can be used on any JR Line.

Between the two cities, we definitely preferred the slower pace of Kyoto! Am so glad we spent almost half the time there.

We will surely be back to Japan in the near future! HJ says next year – that’s too soon for me but I definitely won’t wait 6 years to come back unlike my previous trip in 2011!

CK