Japan Honeymoon: Tokyo 2-day itinerary
After a long year of planning and a very eventful wedding day, we have finally reached our honeymoon time 🥰! With our wedding happening at the end of June, it felt like a very short 2.5 months before it was time for us to go on our 3 week honeymoon trip to Japan.
I have only been to Japan once before with my now-husband around 5 or 6 years ago. It was our first big international trip together and I remember thinking that if it didn’t go well, we would likely break up 💀.
That trip was super memorable because we did so many things and I was able to cross off a lot of the “touristy” items on my to-do list. There was also a disastrous typhoon that hit at the end of the trip – the biggest one in 40 years or something crazy like that. I remember our flight being cancelled and I was super stressed figuring out how to get home and how credit card insurance works 😱.
Now for our return to Japan, I was determined to make this at least a little honeymoon-esque. When I think of honeymoon, I don’t think of Japan. I think of tropical and romantic places like Bora Bora.
Japan is a very busy place with a lot of people and small spaces, but mostly I tried to focus on my attitude. My usual travel style is go-go-go and plan out an itinerary for every hour. But for the sake of making this a relaxing and romantic honeymoon trip, I decided to forego going to viral spots with long lineups and only plan 1 or 2 things to do a day, with the rest being free time to do what we feel like doing.
Since we have been to Japan before (once for me, and my husband has been at least 4 times), we were actually able to explore some new cities in Japan 🤩. This post will go over our first 2 days of our Japan honeymoon trip, starting off with the city of Tokyo!
Japan Honeymoon trip 2024 recap
Tokyo |
Day 1: Arrival to Tokyo
Transportation: Zipair direct flight to Narita Airport
Since we are older now and it’s our honeymoon, we did debate if we should splurge or use all our points to redeem business class seating. In the end, we ended up with Zipair, which is basically one of the cheapest options available 😂.
Zipair is a new low-cost flight carrier with direct flights between Vancouver and Japan. Our round-trip economy class tickets cost us $1,121 CAD per person, which includes 1 check-in luggage each and an in-flight meal. If you don’t purchase in-flight meal or check-in luggage, the price is lower. Our travel dates were from September 20 – October 11.
One important thing to note is that the plane did not have a TV screen even though the flight was 10 hours. They boast about having wifi on board instead, but it is basically too slow for you to do anything so make sure you download some movies and games on your devices before boarding.
The food was kinda bad but I wasn’t expecting much 😔.
For seating, there are a few exceptional spots that have a lot of extra leg room, and we were able to snag 2 seats near the back of the plane that only seat 2 people (usually the rows seat 3 people per row). So there was extra arm/side space between the second person and the window.
My husband actually found the seat to be comfortable (I mean, as comfortable as economy seating can be) due to the curve of the chair and the headrest. I felt it was pretty standard and leg room was also pretty standard from other economy flights I’ve been on.
Simcard and Suica card
We downloaded e-sims from Airalo and it costed me around $20 for 10GB over 30 days. Regular price is $25 but I got a $5 sign-up discount. This 10GB lasted me enough for the full 3 weeks.
As for a transportation card, my husband and I actually still have our old Suica cards, which are physical transport cards you can load cash in for taking public transit or shopping at big chain convenience stores. I feel this is actually the best to travel with if you have one from before since they are discontinuing physical cards and having it on your phone wallets instead. I don’t like getting dinged for every foreign transaction and I preferred just depositing cash value into the Suica card when I arrive.
Leaving Narita Airport
We mostly followed Google Maps to direct us our entire trip, and our Google Maps told us to buy tickets for the Skyliner, which is like a limited express direct train from the airport to the main city area.
It took 1 hour and 20 minutes to travel from Narita Airport to Shinjuku station and it costed us around $27 per person.
I was really hungry and the first thing I ate was an egg sando and strawberry milkshake from a Family Mart vending machine while waiting for the Skyliner train 😄.
Accommodations: Vessel Inn Takadanobaba Ekimae
We wanted to be close to the Shinjuku/Shibuya area and we landed on staying near Takadanobaba Station, which is only 1 train stop away from Shinjuku Station so it was quite convenient but wasn’t as busy as Shinjuku.
Takadanobaba is an area that is close to a University/college so there are actually a lot of students in the area and all-you-can-drink izakayas (Japanese bars).
We stayed at the Vessel Inn Takadanobaba Ekimae, which was a newish hotel that is only a 2 minute walk from Takadanobaba Station. One night was $206 and we stayed a total of 3 nights in a double bed room.
I know this is our honeymoon trip so maybe y’all were expecting something more fancy, but we actually felt like this was already a pricey hotel option. There are cheaper options farther away from Shinjuku and Shibuya if you want to stay by Ginza, Chuo, etc.
This room being 17m^2 is actually already bigger than a lot of standard hotel rooms like APA hotels. And we are able to tuck in our open suitcases under the bed, freeing up a lot of room.
Aside from the room size and it being a new hotel, everything else is pretty standard. After covid, most hotels now have a grab-what-you-need amenities area in the lobby where you can grab things like toothbrushes, hair elastics, face wash, etc.
Activity: Big Box
When we first arrived at Takadanobaba Station with our luggage, we first noticed the Big Box building right across from our hotel. Since we had no plans for our first night, we decided to go inside and check it out.
It is basically a mall that is smaller than what it looks. I bought some stationary and a hobonichi planner from Loft, one of my favourite stationary and lifestyle stores in Japan 😙.
We then proceeded to the arcade floor (almost every mall has one) because my husband loves arcades, crane games and gatcha machines. We spent some time here and he won his first figurine of our trip – a Luffy 🎉!
Dinner: Tokoton
So I googled izakayas close by our hotel for dinner and we tried to go to the first one on the list but they denied us saying they were booked full for an event. So instead, we actually went to an izakaya that was promoted by our hotel. When we checked in, they gave us some coupons and one of them was a discount coupon for an izakaya called Tokoton. Since it was only a 2 minute walk from our hotel, we decided to just eat here and rest for the night.
It was downstairs in a basement floor and was a small izakaya. We were seated at the bar and there were 2 other tables of locals so we were the only 2 foreigners. They have an English menu available but they spoke limited English, and it was time for us to bust our what we could remember from our years of watching anime.
We started off with an order of 2 highballs – a ginger highball and a coke highball. So refreshing!
For food, we ordered these for a total of under $60:
- 2x highball drinks
- Fried oysters
- Sea bream and tuna sashimi
- Crab & shiso leaf tempura
- Assorted skewers
I know this was just a random izakaya but the food was pretty good 😋. Like I wouldn’t walk into a random restaurant in Vancouver and expect this quality, but I guess any random place in Japan is at least 3 stars.
The oysters were fried so well! Super juicy and batter wasn’t thick or oily. The sashimi also tasted fresh and was a great price. The crab and leaf tempura was also interesting (I didn’t expect the dish to come out like this when we ordered crab tempura). The only thing I didn’t like was 2 of the assorted skewers had either chicken heart or gizzard or something so that was a bit too gamey for me.
Aside from that, a really nice no-frills dinner + $10 off with our hotel coupon.
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Tokoton
Japan, 〒169-0075 Tokyo, Shinjuku City, Takadanobaba, 2 Chome−16−3 柏ビル Ｂ１Ｆ
Late night snacks: 711
There was a 711 really close to our hotel so we went to our first convenience store run to get some late night snacks/morning snacks. I was so excited because Japan 711 and other convenience stores are just so awesome.
Some things we grabbed were some Strong Zero and Suntory alcoholic beverages, an onigiri, some chips and frozen candy, and our absolute favourite milk pudding that only costs $2. It is the best freaking milk pudding you will ever try 🍮!
The rest of the night we just did some skincare, chat/eat snacks and relax after a long flight.
Day 2: Harajuku + Omotesando + Akihabara
Today is the first out of 2 full days in Tokyo and we are mostly exploring and shopping in the Harajuku and Omotesando areas.
Breakfast: Komeda’s Coffee
I am a breakfast girlie so I need to eat before we do anything for the day. However, we had quite an early lunch omakase booked for 11am, so I was looking for a breakfast spot where we can have a small and lighter meal.
While walking around Takadanobaba Station, we saw a Komeda’s Coffee location. I’ve seen this chain cafe on Instagram before so we decided to go in.
It was a really cute café with very warm tone and family-restaurant vibes. We ordered their signature breakfast set and it only cost us $6 CAD.
The combo is very simple – a thick piece of fluffy toast and you can choose between butter or jam, a boiled egg or some sort of egg paste, and a small coffee.
The reel I saw on Instagram really hyped this place up, but I think it is what it is – a piece of toast and a hard boiled egg 😅. It wasn’t like this amazing Japanese bread or flavourful egg or amazing butter or whatever the heck I was imagining. But for $6 I would say this is not bad.
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️
Komeda’s Coffee
Japan, 〒169-0075 Tokyo, Shinjuku City, Takadanobaba, 3 Chome−2−5 フレンドビル 2階
Lunch: Sushi omakase at Yajima Sushi
My husband surprised me by booking this sushi lunch omakase. The man never books anything so I was pretty excited because I tried not to over-plan or over-book activities during our trip.
Sushi Yajima Omakase is a small mom and pop’s restaurant where they serve up a speedy sushi omakase lunch starting at $50 per person. They are a 6 minute walk from Shibuya Station and you will require a Japanese phone number to make a reservation.
The lunch omakase was 13 courses and we added an uni course for +$8 per person:
- Tuna 💗
- Yellowtail 💗
- Flounder Striped jack
- Sweet shrimp 💗
- Ark shell 💗
- Mussel
- Horse mackerel
- Squid 💗
- Uni 💗
- Conger eel 💗
- Tuna 💗
- Omelette
- 3 types of seaweed roll
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Sushi Yajima Omakase
Japan, 〒150-0011 Tokyo, Shibuya City, Higashi, 1 Chome−26−31 大島ビル Ｂ１Ｆ
Recommended: Read my full review of my $50 sushi lunch omakase at Yajima Sushi in Shibuya.
Shopping: One Piece Mugiwara store + Harajuku streetwear
Now that we are fully fueled with food, we are off to do a lot of shopping. The first shop my husband wanted to visit was the One Piece Mugiwara store.
He is an avid One Piece fan and I admit I used to be quite into the mangas too but I haven’t been following for awhile now. The Mugiwara store actually had really cute merchandise and there were some life-sized figurines and displays that were also quite cool.
After shopping here, we strolled down the streetwear streets of Harajuku – it is not on the main Takeshita road but a bit off to the side. My husband was specifically looking for the Neighbourhood store.
Shopping: Second-hand luxury goods in Omotesando
I saw a lot of social media content about buying second-hand luxury or vintage goods in the Omotesando area. I am not a rich person, but I do fancy myself a few handbags if I really like them.
The first store I went to was AMORE Vintage Aoyama. There was actually a line that took a long time so I kind of wished I didn’t line up for it. The inside had mostly LV and Hermes, but unfortunately for me I am not really into these 2 brands.
After this, I then lined up for QOO. The interior of this shop was really cool and they carried more brands, but I found their pieces to be more fun and different – more colours and more special styles. They also had a bigger selection of fashion jewelry, but I still didn’t find anything that caught my eye.
Lastly, I checked out another AMORE but the Vintange Ometosando location (they do a good job promoting both locations). This one carried all Chanel and I thought it was the cutest store because it was pink and had so many colours and classic Chanel purses.
I ended up not buying anything either because I already own 2 Chanel purses, and the prices here did not seem like a great deal (still thousands of dollars).
Shopping: Polène
One purse I knew I really wanted to buy was the Numéro Neuf Mini from Polène. It is listed as $520 USD ($722 CAD), but I knew they had a Polene location in Japan so I lined up 40 minutes to go inside that gong-show of a store only to finish my shopping in 10 minutes. With it being tax free, I paid $704 CAD after the foreign transaction fee.
Explore: Akihabara Station
After a lot of shopping and walking/waiting in line, we left to eat dinner at Akihabara and to look for some collector One Piece cards. They kind of look like this:
My husband basically gets really into these cards and we spend the rest of our trip buying and opening these random card packs to get rare and shiny cards.
Dinner: Gyukatsu Motomura
We have dinner at a popular beef cutlet chain called Gyukatsu Motomura.
We actually had to wait at least 40 minutes to be seated, which is borderline too long for a 31 year old, but once I got inside and had my first bite of my beef cutlet cooked on top of my personal little hot rock, I decided it was worth the wait because it was so delicious! I ordered the 1 cutlet with a highball for 2,630 yen.
Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Gyukatsu Motomura – Akihabara
〒101-0021 1-15-18 Sotokanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Okuyama Building B1F
Recommended: Read my full review of Gyukatsu Motomura – a popular beef cutlet chain restaurant where you cook your own meat.
After dinner, we returned back to our hotel to rest for the rest of the night after 20,000+ steps.
Day 3: Shinjuku + Shibuya
This is our last full day in Tokyo and we mostly stayed in the Shinjuku and Shibuya areas. Our day was structured between 2 food attractions – the viral Tsujihan for lunch and a Michelin star dinner at Recte.
Lunch: Tsujihan
This place was all over my Instagram feed and they went viral for these seafood rice bowls, aka kaisendon. There are around 6 locations in Tokyo and we went to the Kagurazaka branch in the Shinjuku City area for lunch.
I heard crazy reviews like people waiting over 1 hour to eat at Tsujihan, so we made sure to come here 20 minutes before they opened at 11am. There was no line when we arrived so we actually went to a nearby arcade and won a Lickitung doll. After winning this doll, we went back a few minutes before 11am and we were the 3rd and 4th person in line.
The menu consists of essentially the same seafood bowl with different amounts of toppings and special add-ons. The cheapest bowl is priced at 1,250 yen (~$11 CAD) and the most expensive bowl at 3,600 yen (~$33 CAD).
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Nihonbashi Kaisen Don Tsujihan Kagurazaka
Japan, 〒162-0825 Tokyo, Shinjuku City, Kagurazaka, 3 Chome−２−2-15, Yamanouchi Bld, 1F
Recommended: Read my full review of the viral kaisendon bowls at Tsujihan!
Shopping: Shinjuku
Basically, this whole day is a lot of shopping again 😅. Some of the stores I shopped from include Uniqlo and GU. I was pretty excited to shop at GU as it is a sister brand to Uniqlo and also had decent quality items but had a younger style, whereas Uniqlo had a lot more basics.
We also checked out Alpen Tokyo, which is like a Sports Check carrying a lot of sportswear brands and shoes. I didn’t find their shoes to be that much of a good deal though.
I also went into a pet store where they actually sell pets. I know they don’t do that in Canada anymore, but these puppies were so cute!
Shopping: Shibuya 109
After taking a quick break at a Starbucks, we headed over to Shibuya station. There was a long lineup to take a photo with the Hachiko statue, and I felt overall Shibuya was just really crowded 😟.
We crossed the famous Shibuya Crossing and then I basically went into this mall named Shibuya 109 and shopped there for like 4 hours 😂 (my husband left to visit other stores). This is a really tall building with over 7 floors of shops selling female clothing, accessories and makeup. I bought several dresses and cute items here and they were not cheap, but I felt they were boutique quality and had some very distinct styles.
Dinner: Michelin star meal at Recte
After shopping, it was time for us to make our way to our Michelin dinner reservation in the Daikanyama area.
Recte is a French fine-dining restaurant and we booked online via Tabelog. They specialize in Kamado cuisine, which is when the food is cooked over charcoal or wood in a traditional stone oven. Their 10-course Kamado set meal + 2 glasses of wine costed us $450 CAD.
Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Recte
Japan, 〒150-0021 Tokyo, Shibuya City, Ebisunishi, 2 Chome−17−5 サンビレッジ代官山 2F
Recommended: Read my full review of our 1 Michelin star dinner at Recte, a French fine-dining restaurant in Tokyo.
Final thoughts
My first few days in Tokyo was definitely a lot of shopping 🛍️! I think because during our last trip we spent quite a bit of time in Tokyo, we mostly just wanted to shop and eat some good food. I didn’t want to do touristy things like visit the Tsukiji Fish Market (which I heard now is quite scammy? 🤔) or line up to go to Shibuya Sky.
I will say that I still wish we planned the day a little better in terms of just taking more breaks. My feet were hurting from walking so many steps both days and I got cranky mid-day 😖. On top of that, I felt like there was constantly people everywhere. It is definitely more busy and more crowded than the last time we came to Tokyo.
Food-wise, all our meals have been amazing so far 😋. The main reason we chose to come to Japan for our honeymoon despite that it is not a very “romantic” place to relax is because the food is just so damn good!
Stay tuned for my next travel recap as we leave Tokyo and travel to Osaka!
Sincerely, Loewe
Japan Honeymoon trip 2024 recap
Tokyo |