Honeymoon in Japan! Arriving in Japan...

A little introduction to our trip

Above: Shibuya at night
Below: view from Mt Misen in Miyajima

Japan has been on our travelling wish list for a long time. We wanted an adventure for our honeymoon and a honeymoon seemed to be the perfect excuse to justify the expense of a trip to Japan, so it was decided! Then it was just the small matter of planning such a big trip...



Kyoto

I spent a lot of time reading blogs (which is one of the reasons why I decided to write this one!), on the japan-guide.com website and forum, on the tripadvisor Japan forums, obsessively checking skyscanner to find the best time to book flights, and on booking.com checking out hotels (one tip there: hotels in Japan don't tend to be bookable until 6-3 months before the date, so if you search sites like booking.com a year in advance you might find that it appears availability is low: it's not that the rooms have all gone, they just haven't been listed yet!)



Our room in a Ryokan in Hakone, ready for dinner

It was clear we'd never get to all of the places we wanted to go to, places we had to reluctantly skip include Kamakura, the Izu peninsula, Osaka castle, and Yamanouchi to see the snow monkeys.However, we did manage to cram a lot into our trip! Any more and I think we'd have been too tired!

Koishikawa Korakuen, Tokyo

Where we went:

We did 4 days (5 nights) in Tokyo, then used a 7 day Japan Rail pass to travel around as much of the rest of Honshu as we could fit in (with an overnight in Hakone first), before returning to Tokyo for our final few days. I think it worked well breaking Tokyo up in this way, you could easily fill and enjoy 7 days straight in Tokyo but having that split made Tokyo feel shiny and new when we came back, I didn't want to get used to it!

View from the Park Hyatt in Shinjuku, Tokyo

In Tokyo: Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo Dome City, Akihabara, Ginza, Shiodome, Odaiba, Asakusa, Ryogoku, and several landscaped gardens in or near these areas which I thoroughly recommend as they are beautiful and give you a nice contrast with the busy city.

Fushimi Inari shrine, Kyoto

Outside of Tokyo: Hakone, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Osaka, and Nara

The journey...

On the plane.. not sure that the man behind shares our excitement...

We flew from Birmingham UK, via Dubai, to Tokyo (Narita Airport). For someone who hates flights and has never flown more than 5hrs this was a somewhat nerve-wracking proposition! However, flying Emirates helped; the in-flight entertainment was awesome, I played some of the most tense games of tetris in the history of tetris during take-offs and landings, and boxsets and films kept me distracted from the claustrophobia of being stuck on a plane for so long.

In Dubai airport, still looking reasonably human after our 1st (shorter) flight

Exhausted and excited, arriving at Narita!

Arriving in Tokyo was so exciting. We were exhausted but the adrenaline kicked in. Despite answering the questions wrong at immigration thankfully they still let us in the country haha (they verify what you put on your landing card and I got confused!) It was pretty quick and easy getting our cases and finding our way to the station to get the Narita Express (NEX), even with the sleep deprivation!

Buying our nex tickets was initially a bit more confusing- the first place you could get tickets from had a big queue and the next nex for Shibuya was leaving v.soon so a helpful assistant tried to direct us to a machine to get our tickets. On little sleep we failed with the machine and joined another queue at a different desk. We missed that first nex but only had to wait about half an hour for the next one and that was actually quite nice as we werent rushing to find the platform and could take things in a bit better; the unfamiliar language and surroundings were a bit unsettling so the extra 20mins or so were very welcome.

Whilst waiting for the nex we decided to try and buy our suica cards (we couldnt do the return nex + suica deal because we were in the country for 16 days!) but again we failed with the machine. We decided it'd probably be best to get some sleep and google some instructions at the hotel before trying again, so just headed to the platform and used the free wifi.

The nex when it arrived was awesome: spacious, clean, and bang on time as you'd expect. There were tv screens on the train as well so you could catch up on news and check the weather on your journey into Tokyo.

My first view of Tokyo, 

walking out of Shibuya station

Arriving at Shibuya was AWESOME. The station had construction work going on but it was still easy to find the well-signed Hachiko exit which was the exit to our hotel. We arrived after dark on a Friday night and the lights were impressive and the atmosphere was lively but not overwhelming (I can find busy crowded places a bit much sometimes but not here). I feel like I imprinted on Shibuya a bit at this point, it became 'home' in Tokyo and I fell in love with it at first sight!!! We walked about 10mins to our hotel, which Aaron found on the first attempt from a printout of google maps, including crossing the famous Shibuya crossing.

Very sweet gesture from the hotel!

After we'd checked in at our hotel and had a shower and changed we headed out for a quick wander at about 10.30pm. We stumbled across TGIs and after eating there on our trip to Prague, and then London, we had to go in. We'd totally misjudged how much money to take so only had enough for one burger between us haha, but after eating so much on the flight that was actually ok. Walking around in an unfamiliar and busy city location should have felt a little bit scary but it didn't at all: I felt completely safe and happy. I had half expected Shibuya to be full of hipsters and everyone out in high fashion and nobody over the age of 25, based on stuff I'd read about the area, but it wasn't like that at all, there was a real mix of people of all ages, some clearly out straight from work in their office clothes, some people completely casual, and of course some people dressed up for a night out. It felt welcoming! We passed an arcade and had to go in given that Aaron's love of gaming is one of the reasons he became interested in Japan in the first place, it was incredibly loud and bright and crazy and awesome! We didn't have a go on anything- after such a long journey just walking around was about the limit of what we could manage.

Shibuya at night

Feeling a little crazy, sleep deprived and overstimulated by the bright Shibuya lights on our way to the hotel

On the famous crossing. We later learned this was a relatively quiet experience of the crossing, it was much busier the other times we crossed there

Of course, the obligatory toilet photo! Again, I was later to discover bigger better fancier toilets but I was v.excited with this one in the hotel en suite.

Next post: First full day: Shibuya and Shinjuku