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Old January 17th, 2005, 11:26 AM
Chris Kuan
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"koneko" wrote on Mon 17 Jan 2005 02:51:27p

very rough itinerary planned right now


Our advice may change slightly based on exactly which days you are in
Japan. For instance, the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka (not "Minatara") is
closed on Tuesdays! And the cosplayers in Harakjuku only come out on
Sundays (just outside the entrance to the Meiji Shrine).


Day 1
arrive in Narita early afternoon. go to Hotel. wander around area of
hotel that evening.


As you mentioned below, you are staying in Roppongi? You could use this
evening to explore one of the bright-lights centres you mentioned - for
example, there is a subway line (Oedo) that runs directly between
Roppongi and Shinjuku. I suppose the Mori centre in Roppongi itself is
OK, but I don't really know the district, having only been there for
dinner - once.

The subway + rail system in Tokyo seems overwhelming because there is so
much choice. Note that the "train" system is run by Japan Railways
("JR") and is separate from the multiple subway lines so you can't
necessarily go to the big "train station" (usually JR) in a suburb and
expect the subway platforms to be right next to the JR platforms. But
they'll be nearby in the station complex. The convenience of the subways
is that they serve the smaller suburbs and criss-cross Tokyo in several
places, saving much time. Just think of it as a big game of Snakes and
Ladders and the subway map might be a bit easier to follow :-)


Day 2 Tokyo
AM:
Tour-- We are supposed to cover Tokyo Tower, Imperial Palace Plaza,
and the Asakusa Kannon Temple and end up in the Nakamise Arcade


You can indeed skip the tour (for which you have already paid a large
premium, no doubt) and go independently, but if you want to see most of
this anyway, may as well go along. You are unlikely to be attacked by
Godzilla at Tokyo Tower :-) On a purely selfish note, as you come down
from Toyko Tower, a couple of the floors of the podium are shopping
arcades. Mostly crap souvenirs, but there is a "Donguri Kyowakoku" store
there, which sells all manner of Ghibli goods - the store's name means
"Acorn Republic" or some such, which of course is a Totoro reference. If
you can wheedle 15 minutes in the store from the tour guide, it's got
stuff which even the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka doesn't carry - official
products of course, but the store in the Museum is rather small - and
crowded as heck. You can easily spend 20 minutes in the Museum just
queueing up. Beleive me, I've spent (literally!) far too much time there
(^_^);

For the second half of this day, you could still see Ueno Park and the
surrounding shopping areas as someone else already mentioned, plus Ginza
or Akihabara. They are all located on the same side of the city, only
minutes from each other by train or subway.



Day 3 Tokyo (free day)
AM: would like to go to Ghibli Museum in Minatara.


"Mitaka" :-) (Personally, I prefer to say it's in Kichijoji because that
gives it a cosier feel, but it's probably technically in Mitaka).

If you *do* get tickets, I think the valid entrance time is actually
time-stamped to a specific half-hour. That will dictate to some extent
what you can do beforehand, and the earliest you can hope to leave. For
a first time, I would budget a minimum of 3 hours in the Museum. It's
small, but you should savour it all. And especially the mini-theatre in
which is generally shown a short film made only for the Museum (the
actual film being shown rotates, so I don't know what wil be on in
April). I really would recommend Nakano afterwards though :-)



Bob M. mentioned... would it be horrible not to see Asakusa
Temple/Imperial Palace? I was a history major, but I also love
fashion, cosmetics, and anime...


Mmm... if you are going to see the Imperial Palace and the temples in
Kyoto, you *could* skip these. In Toyko, you will only see the East
Garden because the actual Palace area is only open a couple of days per
year. The gardens are OK and there's one or two small historical sites.
Same for Asakusa Kannon (the one with the huge iconic lantern at the
entrance). But really, you've paid for the tour already and it's only
taking up one morning. And you can still use the last half of "Day 2"
in Tokyo to do some independent sightseeing


Day 4 Tokyo/Kyoto- transit
Shinkansen to Kyoto. Don't know which one (Nozomi or Kodama) yet, nor
what time we depart, so it's hard to plan if we can do anything in the
afternoon after getting to the hotel... will probably have the evening
free, thought we'd roam Gion.


Sounds like a good idea :-) If you get there just after lunch, I'd say
head out to Kiyomizudera straight away, and then Gion (it's pretty close
by) in the evening.


Day 5 Kyoto
AM- tour again (Gold Pavilion, Nijo, Imperial Palace, Handicraft
Centre) the PM is free.
I think I will go on the tour, and since the last thing is the HC, we
can abandon that if we want. We'll probably head to the Kiyomizu
Temple in the afternoon and stay in that area the rest of the day.


If you've already managed to see Kiyomizudera the previous afternoon,
I'd try to squeeze in a visit to the Heian temple and especially the
gardens around the back for an additional fee. It's reasonably close to
the HC.


Day 6 Kyoto/Tokyo (our flight leaves from Narita, not Osaka-- so we
lose a lot of time in transit!), stay overnight in Tokyo

no plans yet... not sure what we can do with a half day.

we are trying to get a evening Shinkansen, so we have the
morning/early afternoon free in Kyoto. However, I thought maybe we
should spend the last half day in Tokyo... so we should take the
morning Shinkansen to Tokyo, so we can check out whatever we will
miss.


Maybe an early shinkansen to Toyko to see whichever one of
Shunjuku/Shibuya/Akihabara you missed in the first half of the trip?


Day 7 Tokyo- Depart from Narita at 3:30 pm


That is one heck of a trip :-) By the way, where are you travelling
from? That jet lag might hit on the morning of "Day 2" and you might
appreciate being led around by a tour guid while in a semi-dazed state
rather than having to navigate an unfamiliar city on your own:-)

--
Chris
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