Tokyo > Hakone > Osaka > Kobe day trip > Kyoto > Tokyo
hotel Mimaru – forwarded luggage between same hotel line, every hotel but Hakone was Mimaru
+ 30th birthday celebration!
We also acquired a babysitting service and had 4 nights of babysitting – used Rainbow kids care, very reputable service, we did video chats with the babysitters in advance and found that to be very helpful, I will note this service was very expensive, it is quoted in USD as well – which made it that much more painful as a Canadian lol
Oct 10 – landed in Haneda in the evening, breezed through customs with QR code but only because we went to a family priority line, took 15 minutes overall, if we didn’t go through that, it would’ve been about 45 minutes. Baggage took forever, even though I breezed through customs, it took about an hour to get luggage out. Hotel was by ueno station – hotel Mimaru, loved the location
Oct 11 – Senso-ji temple area, Asakusa Kagetsudo for melon pan, Taito station arcade, all the shopping in that area, Kura sushi global flagship for lunch – conveyor belt sushi, not the most top tier sushi in Japan, but had a good selection with kids (popcorn chicken, cucumber rolls, garlic butter French fries, hamburger steak), my husband took the kids back to the hotel after this, I went over to lemon nippori for kids clothes – very cute store, not a chain, I’m sure you could find lots of clothing stores for kids, but I stumbled on this place last visit and loved it, we then met up at the Sanrio character garden cafe near ueno – my 3 year old loves hello kitty, she did not care for this place at all. The food wasn’t very good, and even the banana split disappointed her. Wouldn’t waste the time/money to do this again. I took the kids back to hotel while my husband went out to Spingle for shoes, he had an amazing experience and felt they were worth the $200+ (CAD) for this (he ended up getting another pair a different night)
Oct 12 – we started with a photoshoot (booked through Airbnb) at ueno park, went to Takeshita street, did the things around that area, planned on eating at slice of life bbq, but it was randomly closed that day 😩 went back to our hotel to tidy up, headed out for our Negomi visit – I strongly suggest doing this, it was such a valuable and wonderful experience to spend the evening with a Japanese family over a homemade dinner, (you can filter this to a couple/elders/without kids) they were so thoughtful and we were so grateful for this experience.
Oct 13 – TeamLab Borderless, first time for this, was interesting but wouldn’t do it again, TeamLab Planets, we did this before, it was slightly different from 18 months ago, I would probably do it again. Aquacity Odaiba area for the afternoon. We had babysitter #1, 5:30-9pm, spent the evening in ameyoko area, was some well needed adult time that we didn’t do our last trip to Japan, and I’m grateful we were able to see find a trustworthy service! The babysitter gave us a detailed written report when we got back to let us know what they did together and what time they went to bed and such
October 14 – we wanted to do the firetruck museum this day, but when we arrived they were closed for the day due to maintenance, so we went over to the Tokyo toy museum, we did this last trip and I really didn’t want to do it again, but it is right behind the firetruck museum so it was a good back up. Kids enjoyed it, it’s just a one and done thing in my opinion. We explored shinjuku area, went for Syabu-yo hot pot for lunch, this was a really delicious meal, full of veggies, and really affordable, for the 4 of us, it cost about $28 CAD for a late lunch special. We explored the area a bit more, and then I brought the kids back to the hotel while my husband went out for a karate class and Akihabara.
Oct 15 – Disneyland, we did this last time and thought we missed half of the park, so this time we started on the opposite side only to realize we missed the Star Wars area, and that was basically it. We did the haunted mansion ride, waited the full 60 minutes, it was worth every minute, quite literally the highlight of the day. We didn’t bother waiting for any other long ones as my 3 year old wouldn’t have been able to go on them and it was a rainy cold afternoon. Now that we have seen the entirety of the park, I don’t think I’d go again any time soon, but I do hope next time we get to do Disney sea, the kids haven’t been big enough for it to be worth it
Oct 16 – we left Tokyo around 7:30am, we did mess up and went to two wrong stations (it happens, even on a third trip in Japan!), we didn’t get to Hakone until 3pm, we went to Hotel Okada, I cannot say enough horrible things about this spot. The hotel is very inconveniently located, and The buses in Hakone run very infrequently, and even though the hotel had a shuttle to the station, it wasn’t advertised before our arrival and it was still infrequent, and made it extremely hard to get around. We went and did the open air museum, made it there by 4pm, the place closes at 5pm, which was fine as the kids were pretty tired. they enjoyed the indoor play structure the most. Hotel Okada had a private onsen, but it was covered in mold, I felt sick within an hour of checking into the hotel room, the entire hotel stunk like mold, and I felt ill all night.
Oct 17 – Breakfast was included but we couldn’t get it until 7:30am, and the shuttle didn’t come for a half hour, so by the time we made it to the bus station, 9:30am, the lines were extremely long to get on the buses. We waited about an hour and two buses came, but not even half of the original line ahead of us was taken, and we had booked our Shinkansen for 2:15pm, so we really didn’t feel like we had enough time to do anything seeing the lines and how infrequently the buses run (like the K bus ran once an hour). I completely agree you need atleast two nights in Hakone for it to be worth your time. And even then, I’m not sure I’d bother to go back, I was super disappointed. I might be bias after the hotel experience. We made it to our Hotel Mimaru in Osaka for 5:45 pm; just in time for babysitter #2 6pm-11pm. We did Dotonbori area, we backed out of the ROR comedy show last minute due to how bad timing was for the day, we felt overwhelmed and wanted to take it a bit slower, but I was looking forward to that and would recommend others to go!
Oct 18 – day trip to Kobe for my husbands birthday! Started in Kobe Chinatown, did Kobe Harborland including Anpanman museum, it was a bit pricey for what it was, but kids got a lot of energy out. We also did the Ferris wheel, also super pricey, $38 CAD for about 15-20 mins. For dinner we did Kichiri Sannomiya Flower road, I thought this was a nice little spot, but not a lot of variety, it’s like Japanese-Italian fusion. Very interesting. I am a magnet collector, and unfortunately I could not find a single Kobe magnet throughout the day, not in Chinatown, not in the station, not in the shopping mall we went into, I’m still absolutely devastated about it.
Oct 19 – we took our time getting out, grabbed some snacks along the way to Osaka aquarium, the aquarium tickets had a bit of a wait, we had to buy our tickets two hours in advance, but there was lots happening all around, and a mall right beside the aquarium, we didn’t complain about spending the day in the area, if we had a touch more time, we would’ve eaten closer to the subway exit, there were some really good looking foods (ramen, wagyu burger), we just ate in the mall instead. there were some great performances happening on the streets, that my kids loved. I went out on my own for the evening and just shopped at don q and different stores in the Akihabara area.
Oct 20 – universal studio day! We got there for opening, 9:15am, We forked over the extra money for express pass, I didn’t realize we would have absolutely 0 choice on the timing of anything, so the Forbidden Journey ride in Harry Potter area was booked for 7:30pm, and we had no intentions of being there that long and no option to change it. We were devastated.
Timed entry :
9:30-10:30 Super Nintendo world
9:30-10 Mario kart koopa challenge
10-10:30 yoshis adventure (this kind of sucked, but was one of the few my 3 year old could go on)
12:30-1:30 minion mayhem,
12:50-1:45 minion blast – this ride broke down while we were on it (it was a moving walking pad with wireless guns and the wireless guns didn’t work) they gave us a free express pass for any ride so we were able to get over to forbidden journey after all! And I am so so so so happy we did get that, because it was by far the coolest ride I have EVER been on in my entire life. Top tier. 50000/10 experience.
100% worth doing express pass, even though it was quite a pretty penny ($600+ USD), we wouldn’t have done nearly that many rides, the wait was too long, and with kids who couldn’t go on all the rides, this was 100% worth it for us. There was one or two rides we arrived 5 minutes after our window ended and they didn’t give us any issues at all, we were really nervous about it.
We left universal studios around 3:30pm, made it to Kyoto for 5:30, babysitter #3 from 6:15pm to 9:30pm, we did a nonverbal show called GEAR which was really cool, in the Nishiki Market area, and we both really enjoyed this. Probably our favourite full day in our entire trip.
Oct 21 – Gion area, we found a hello kitty exhibit at the Kyoto museum of art, I was kind of disappointed by this as it was a lot of vintage hello kitty items and not really kid friendly, my travel stroller barely fit through, I didn’t see any other children the entire time, and the store was extremely overpriced. We went over to nishiki market, and then my husband and 5 year old had the samurai museum booked, my son absolutely loved this activity, I went to a nail salon in Nishiki market area called Sakura nail, it was a bit overpriced and a bit underwhelming, the nail design I chose (and had shared weeks in advance to ensure it was realistic) ended up being too complicated for the worker, it took over an hour and a half, and I ended up leaving with a very basic nail…. One colour with sparkles. My husband brought the kids back to the hotel and I went out shopping on my own for the evening. I went over to the Daiso near Nishiki Market, which is massive! I bought over $150 cad worth of stuff 🤣 no regrets
Oct 22 – celebrated my 30th birthday! My husband booked a private car tour for the day, we started in the Arashiyama forest area, a few temples, Lugara pizzeria in the Arashiyama area, my husband booked a fun Kyo-Yuzen dye activity, we got to practice traditional Japanese dyeing on blank souvenir items. They booked us for only an hour, so my husband made other arrangements but we could’ve easily done this for 2 hours, especially with kids. I would probably say both of my kids needed a lot more help with this than anticipated, I’d suggest 6-7 year olds as the youngest. Still super fun! We went back to hotel, did a birthday cake that the car guide tour coordinator helped source and delivered to the hotel, and then had babysitter #4 from 6:30-9:30, we went out for dinner at a Wagyu Teppenyaki steak house in the Kiyomizu area, I was surprised at the lack of options, it was expensive for small portions, and though it was delicious, it didn’t hit the spot for me. Dinner service was really quick, we seemed to be the only ones there. We had a hard time finding much else to do after and wish we had booked the babysitter only until 8:30, we walked to a few of the “busy” areas but didn’t find much worth doing and ultimately went back around 8:45/9pm.
Oct 23 – TeamLab biovortex, this was the first time we went to it as it’s fairly new, I thought it was really cool, I would’ve skipped Borderless for this one, as they were similar. We did Nintendo museum after this, the photo areas were cool, but otherwise it was a pretty meh experience inside. I found the “interactive exhibits” to be a bit underwhelming and over crowded, but I’m probably not the right market for this. From here we left Kyoto around 1:30, and went back to Tokyo, arrived around 4:30pm.
Oct 24 – relaxing and slow day, we went over to round1, played games, went bowling, did Kura sushi conveyor belt sushi again, because we really enjoyed it the first time! We went over to Sunshine city, did some shopping there. My husband went out to enjoy some things on his own
Oct 25 – this was our last day, but our flight didn’t leave until 10:30pm, so we checked out at the last possible minute, went over to Akihabara and did an indoor playground for the kids, found another Shabuyo hot pot, filled up on the goods, grabbed a taiyaki for the road and an onigiri for the sky, and that was that.
by Migessa