Special spot didn’t manage to go because morning part burst 3 hours at immigration, when reach skytree already like half dead

Food also cincai eat only… but can confirm restaurants with lots of angmo usually no good

Not sure got any watch lovers here, Seiko store at makuhari mitsui outlet have the 3 gold hand black urushi dial at ¥77000 pre tax, very good deal actually as it retails above ¥100000

This post has been edited by kenji1903: Apr 15 2023, 11:13 PM

That’s the first thing I tried, donburi bowl with sea urchin, salmon roe and some fish, nice but ¥4000

Transport/IC card topup/purchase is only cash via machine

Any shop/still which accepts the Visa brand will accept wise card. I’ve tried Lawson, Familiy mart, some restaurants and dept stores, so far so good

Didn’t hunt much bro, was wishful thinking still can get the 140th Ginza LE prospex

Not much stock in Tokyo for those Alpinist 1969 prospex also

Bought a g-shock gab001 for the little one, bic camera Shinjuku inside the odakyu mall, after buying, I think the Shibuya bic camera has more g-shock models, 10% (tax refund) + 7% (bic camera voucher via klook)

Good luck with your hunt bro

Maybe book hotel late? Sakura time hotel very expensive… I booked hotel in Dec, now more than 3x the price
Mine is estimated RM45k also but 21 nights, 2 adults and an 8yo

How old is your son bro?

I’ve stayed in Koko Hotel in Tsukiji and going to stay in The Knot Shinjuku, both hotels are 1 room accommodating 2 adults and an 8yo. Booked from booking.com

Fast track or not, the morning queue in Haneda is still darn long… let’s see how this goes

If you have JR pass, just hop on the non reserved carriages on the Shinkansen, only 15m from Kyoto to Osaka. Just did that last week 😊

2 weeks back My relatives arrived 10pm Haneda and reached their tsukiji hotel around 1130pm

This post has been edited by kenji1903: May 4 2023, 08:42 PM

You can book Sagano scenic train direct from JR west
https://www.sagano-kanko.co.jp/en/reserve.php

Remember to redeem the tickets from machines in JR Saga Arashiyama station, not the Torokko stations. I redeemed the tickets from the above station, walk into bamboo forest and took the Sagano train from torokko arashiyama to kameoka station. After that walked to JR Umahori and took the JR train back to Saga Arashiyama because I have JR pass

You don’t need to go that early right if you can reserve a seat?

Hi bro, yes it was great! Kamikochi was one of the best highlights in the trip

You can get the round trip bus ticket from Takayama Nohi bus terminal, it’s a 7 day open ticket, meaning you can do the trip within 7 days but once you start you need to complete the return on the same day
You can hop on and off the bus from hirayu onsen to Kamikochi

Beautiful walk but make sure you take the longer route to myojin bridge and take the shorter route back, we regretted taking the opposite because the longer route has more to offer

When you going bro? It was a bit cold when we went a couple of weeks back

Taikor, thanks for your help and advice, else will derail even more

We managed to stick to most of the plan up until Osaka, meaning Tokyo sky tree, makuhari area, odaiba emerging science museum, the snow monkey, snow wall, ainokura/shirakawago, Kamikochi, takayama, Osaka aquarium, nara all good!
it’s the last week, Kyoto onwards which went pear shape a bit due to weather
We started late in Kyoto as it was raining thus only went to silver pavilion and fushimi inari, but it was already sunset so we didn’t go all the way up the hill

The next day we went bamboo forest and Sagano train and golden pavilion, spent too much time travelling and queuing so missed kiyomizu dera

Then hemiji castle we only managed to go up the main building and missed the other side which I think is the living quarters cos we didn’t want to reach Tokyo too late

Lake Kawaguchiko we didn’t analyze the map carefully and bought the red route, the cable car wasted a lot of time queueing and nothing much to see, the boat ride was good though. If we took the blue/green route, we would have been able to visit the other lakes as well. And mistake as we didn’t go up Chureito

Not enough time for shopping…

This post has been edited by kenji1903: May 6 2023, 11:38 PM

Yeah it was great, we walked a lot, based on apple health app, it averages to about 11km/day and the most was Kamikochi, I think it was 10-12km just within that national park

I attached a photo I took from Nohi bus station, you can do quite a lot of side trips from Takayama.

This post has been edited by kenji1903: May 7 2023, 10:58 AM


Attached thumbnail(s)

Thanks bro! I did the Tateyama Kurobe alpine route, didn’t do the gorge train, where about is the train? I think I read about it somewhere for can’t find it back

Ah ok, thanks bro!
done quite a lot of trains this trip, son darn happy
From those n700 Shinkansens to Hida express to Fuji excursion to Sagano to NEX

Last month there were only staff to direct people on how to queue towards the immigration in Haneda airport, they have posters on the wall asking to prepare the QR code for fast track, there were a lot of people still filling in paper forms

Lucky not going again so soon

I used Wise (Visa) to convert MYR to JPY when needed then withdraw from ATM

Tried a couple of ATMs (7-11, Family mart), in general you will be charged ¥110 for withdrawals up to ¥10000, and ¥220 for amounts up to ¥50000

If you are visiting bigger cities or tourist places, you only use cash for suica/pasmo reloads, temple entrance fees, markets and some old alley restaurants, everywhere else accepts card

This post has been edited by kenji1903: Jun 12 2023, 09:27 PM

No mandate but when i went in April, 99% of the people still wear mask, hand sanitizers everywhere, feels darn safe 😂