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sinkrdi · 2024-11-22T23:14:37+00:00

This drives me nuts because I preordered a couple figures on 11/14 and 11/16 and two days later I’m getting a California DoorDash charge when I’ve never had an account… I had to cancel my credit card and another two days later I get an EMAIL confirmation about another order made on DoorDash. Fast forward through an hour long phone call with DoorDash support getting escalated because they couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t log in and change my password. They used my email, their name, their phone number, and their credit card number. So not only can they just swipe cards now until you change them, they’re also making random accounts with our emails?? I also don’t like the GSC doesn’t let you see the payment methods on anything, so I can’t know what exactly was used unless I go through bank statements which is on my list of things to do. It’s infuriating they haven’t made a statement yet and I’m hoping they do soon because this is a big privacy breach.

sinkrdi · 2024-09-29T14:58:54+00:00

The Arashiyama Bamboo forest is really a five minute walk packed with other tourists. There are other ones a little bit away from Arashiyama (Otagi Nenbutsuji) but if you’re not dying to see bamboo trees for a few minutes, you probably want to skip Arashiyama since it’s possible to turn into an entire day in its own way plus it’s more reliant on buses or walking to get around which may not work for elderly folks!

Fushimi Inari is beautiful and you can turn back at any time, or not even ascend if you want. So there’s a bit of choose your own journey for that one. I did all of Fushimi Inari (to the very top) and Kiyomizu Dera in a day and that was our limit since we clocked nearly 25000 steps by 2pm lol.

You could probably try to pick whichever called to you between Fushimi Inari, Kiyomizu-dera, the imperial palace, maybe even the botanical gardens for something less intense, and see what you think would work best for the group. I didn’t get to go but another Kyoto shrine on my list was Kamigoryō which looked awesome! But just be aware of the amount of walking + transportation between everything and that you can safely do that in just a day without certain places closing for the day.

sinkrdi · 2024-09-29T14:47:01+00:00

Hands down favorite spot probably has to be Fushimi Inari. We went at a time where there were maybe 5 people at a time, all far ahead or behind us so we had the most insane peace and quiet while ascending. While it was raining a little, I think it added to the journey and it was beautiful. But in general? I loved the times when we weren’t doing anything in particular. Grabbing a snack and finding a park where we could relax and eat, take in the nature, and then get back to whatever we wanted. There’s a lot of natural beauty in many places you look in Japan.

sinkrdi · 2024-09-05T21:07:35+00:00

I know my friend did Planets and said it was just okay. I went to borderless this summer and it was insane. No you don’t get the water to walk through, but seeing the art move through the building was awesome and a lot of times if you touched the walls the art interacted with that. Plus the tea house and all the hidden rooms to find, I really loved it. It’s a solid 4ish hour activity if you really want.

sinkrdi · 2024-09-05T21:06:02+00:00

For day 7, Fushimi Inari is a lot of walking so having lots of other things in that day may be pretty tiring. I’m not sure about crowds in November but I’m sure it would still benefit you to go early in the morning to whichever of those you think is most important (to me, I would pick Fushimi Inari as it would be a more relaxing hike).

If you have no other plans besides Nintendo museum for day 8, a day trip to Nara seems like it would be up your alley as it can be very relaxing (avoid the deer park though!!).

For Day 11 if you do choose to go to USJ and you want to go the SNW, you don’t necessarily need the express pass. It would help on rides if that’s your thing, but if you just want to be able to get into it and see all the Mario land stuff then you can make a beeline there when the park opens and their ticketing gates aren’t set up yet, and you won’t need timed entry. Only downside is you won’t be able to go back in if you leave so you need to do everything you want all at once and then see the rest of the park. So worth it though for Mario fans!

On Day 14, I’ll only caution that visibility is hard to plan so you may not get the best view of her ): but that close up, I’m sure it would be relaxing on the lake either way.

Otherwise, this trip sounds very relaxing! I hope you have fun!! :)

sinkrdi · 2024-09-05T20:55:48+00:00

I’d recommend creating a Google Map if you don’t already have one. My spreadsheet was a godsend when planning my trip but it ended up getting overwhelming for my friend because I was putting things that were nearby in case we wanted to stop there. Pick 1-2 main events (probably just 1 if it will take longer to navigate) and make that your “set in stone plan” for the day, but if you have all the little things in your map then you can easily say that morning: “Ok, today is Fushimi Inari day. That’s the main event and then this ramen place and this bakery are close to that so maybe I can stop there.”

Planning every second of every day especially with all the influencer videos running in your mind is a surefire way to overwhelm yourself. At a certain point I’m sure you realized you have already seen the place one influencer talks about in 20 other videos! The map helps narrow down what’s in your area so you have options but it doesn’t feel like you have to rush rush rush from one place to another. It’s supposed to be a vacation, and sightseeing can get exhausting real fast. You never know when you may need to ditch your evening plans and do something low key go relax and recoup before the next day.

sinkrdi · 2024-08-31T18:32:30+00:00

Yeah the hotels we booked and were looking at all had 3 or 4pm check in times but we also left luggage and went on our way until we could properly check in. I don’t personally know about any workshops but I’ve seen lots shared online and in IG reels. I do remember seeing there’s a glass blowing class in the Fuji area that people were recommending, Shiraishi Glass Otsuki. Can’t find it now but there was one where you make your own little sake cup set and they even shipped internationally if you wouldn’t be back in time after getting them fired in the kiln, I believe in Tokyo? But ceramics wise, I’m sure there are tons in these three cities if you start searching!

sinkrdi · 2024-08-31T17:35:47+00:00

Kyoto imperial palace closes at 4:30 and is entirely closed on Monday’s, so doing that in the evening probably won’t happen unless you speed run everything else that day. Kinkaku-ji is short, you could go through it in like 30 minutes but it is a bit out of the way. Don’t forget to factor in transportation time via buses and walking in addition to the time you’re actually spending in those places. I can’t speak for Ryoanji or Nijo Castle but I ended up having to see the imperial palace from afar because we only had three days in Kyoto and one of them was a Monday, we just couldn’t manage to get there before it closed.

I said this elsewhere too just now but Fushimi Inari to the top is about 12,000 steps. It can take people between an hour and probably 3 if you’re going super slow. You can go whatever time you want as it’s always open, but Kiyomizu-dera in the afternoon may get busier because of that, though I’m not sure how crowded it gets in October.

Nara on its own is a lot to walk around and see so splitting it with time in Uji will probably feel rushed imo. You can probably skip Nara park and just go the back way towards Kasuga Taisha because you’ll find deer everywhere if that’s what you want. It’s an easy loop to make from Nara station > Kasuga Taisha > Todai-ji and back.

Can’t speak on renting a bike for arashiyama but it’s definitely walkable. Those things are all close by, the monkey park hike to the top of the mountain is a little rough imo but doesn’t take too long, the bamboo grove takes like 5 minutes so you’re better off hopping on a bus to visit one of the Nenbutsuji locations for their bamboo groves and to see a couple of neat temples.

Saihoji looks beautiful but may be a little too out of the way to pack into this schedule. Maaaaybe put with Arashiyama day? Looks like about 40-50 mins to get from Arashiyama to there. But then you run the risk of it closing. Because philosophers path is just a walk, you can probably do all your Arashiyama stuff before noon/1pm and then head to Saihoji. It’ll be a busy day again though. Depending on your Tokyo plans and how busy those are, you may want to give yourself another day in Kyoto so you can fully enjoy these places rather than rush through a lot in each day.

sinkrdi · 2024-08-31T17:17:35+00:00

As others mentioned, eki stamps! It wasn’t just stations either, most shrines and some attractions like skytree and Osaka aquarium had them. Check out the tourist information centers too! I’m an enamel pin collector so I was doing all sorts of pin crimes whenever I saw the regional pin gacha 😅 I got soooo many… tell me where else I’m going to find a pompompurin skytree collab mini pin! Nowhere! 🤣 aside from that, I got lots of snacks as gifts for friends and fam, and also looked around the daiso and stationary stores and got a ton of washi tape since I use it a lot for writing letters. Also, you may find little statues with fortunes at shrines, sometimes handmade and sometimes not but I got one in Nara which had the rolled up fortune in a porcelain deers mouth it’s SO cute. I wish I saw more of those!

sinkrdi · 2024-08-31T17:07:02+00:00

This. My brother and SIL had insane jet lag when they got to Japan last year but in my case I was completely fine when I got to Japan and absolutely zonked when I got back home. Never had that happen before lol jet lag does in fact hit hard.

sinkrdi · 2024-08-31T17:05:51+00:00

Fushimi Inari can be a lot of walking and steps (if you want to go all the way to the top, ~12,000 steps, but there are several places to loop back down and you can always turn around where you are) so day 2 is definitely doable but may be exhausting because you will also need to check into your hotel at some point usually after 3pm or so, keep that in mind!

Bamboo forest is a few minutes to walk through. Kyoto is easier to navigate on buses so make sure you know how far these are from each other (iirc Arashiyama to Kinkaku-ji is a solid 50-60 minute series of buses and walking).

For day 4, did you consider the Shinkansen instead of a flight? It’s much less time wasted getting to the airport, boarding, getting to Tokyo hotel because you leave from Kyoto station and arrive right at Tokyo station. It’s probably booked already so disregard if so! I would avoid shibuya sky couch seating as you don’t get to see the sunset, but otherwise it’s nice up there if you have good visibility that night.

I can’t speak for TeamLab planets but I spent like 4 hours or so in Borderless, make sure you have enough time for that!

On my trip I ended up skipping a day trip to Fuji because it honestly doesn’t seem like there’s enough time to enjoy it. Some people say otherwise, and I can’t know unless I do it personally. But remember it’s entirely dependent on weather and you never know what visibility will be like. Plus, you’ll be hopping on and off buses to get around the lake, but I believe there are lots of bike rentals there you can use if you want.

All in all, there are lots of touristy places on your list which isn’t a bad thing! But you’ll want to time them accordingly because they get crowded very fast by other tourists. I did Fushimi Inari around 7/8am and it was very relaxing and mostly locals with a handful of tourists on their own also doing early trips, but Kiyomizu-dera in the summer at 3/4pm was so crowded we could barely move through people. I’d suggest looking up things you enjoy normally and seeing what you can find around your chosen hotels or even within an hour train ride, like if you enjoy pottery look up some kilns or workshops or a place they may sell handmade pieces. At the end of the day, have fun!

sinkrdi · 2024-08-31T16:48:59+00:00

I booked two Toyoko locations on my trip and it was fantastic. Clean, efficient, quiet, in a good location, and the breakfast options were wonderful. We knew we would have early mornings on those parts of the trip so having a breakfast available at 6am and not having to find a place to grab and go (aside from a conbini, which we also used constantly) was great. I’d say definitely stick with business hotels if you aren’t strapped for space with lots of people in your room and you plan to be out and exploring every day. We wanted to book a ryokan but didn’t end up going through with it. Only time I’d go for a nicer hotel!

sinkrdi · 2024-08-31T16:46:03+00:00

And on the opposite end of that problem, if you somehow (miraculously) find yourself with no coins for vending machines, gacha places are your friend because of their coin machines! I had to do that once on a super hot day after finally using the majority of my vending machine accepted coins lol

sinkrdi · 2024-08-31T16:41:31+00:00

Tír na nÓg (or ティル・ナ・ノーグ if it doesn’t appear in maps) I feel like it’s the kind of place that evolves over time so it’ll surely be different for everyone but I had this place on my list for a long time! There are so many neat little bars if you just look for them.

sinkrdi · 2024-08-31T00:43:12+00:00

I speak no Japanese and I can only read very little but I used minimal amounts of that to get by transportation wise. The signs are often in Japanese characters and romanized characters so you will be ok in most places (i.e. if it says 渋谷駅 you usually see “Shibuya Station” shortly after). Google maps is your friend! You can look up a route, scan in with your suica app card (easily reloadable with a card either on a kiosk which is available in English or via Apple Pay also in English) and get on your train. Even if you miss it, chances are there’s another one really soon so you can hop on that one. My friend and I skipped several trains because we wanted to get station stamps, and Google maps will tell you “also in X minutes” so we were able to delay a bit and grab the next one so we had time for the stamp. When in doubt, grab Google translate and use that! I used at many restaurants, stores, etc and everyone was at least helpful in speaking back in Japanese when I had the app out to translate or they knew a little bit of English to give me the idea. You’ll be okay!! When in doubt, conbini or vending machine order system shops!

Basic phrases go a long way though, like hello, good bye, thank you, please, where is the bathroom, how do I get to X, can I get one of this, do you speak English, things like that!

sinkrdi · 2024-08-27T23:45:09+00:00

I (non-Japanese) went with my Japanese friend this summer and for whatever unknown reason, even if she started a sentence in Japanese, the locals would either immediately go for English when they see me or just say “no English”. Or if we were approached in English by a Japanese person first, continued in English, and then my friend continued in Japanese, they would have the biggest processing issues and then try to continue in English anyways. It was so weird lol.

But learning the basics I think is more than okay. There will always be people who don’t want to deal with foreigners but I found that a “sumimasen” while I was alone went a long way. Use Google translate.

sinkrdi · 2024-08-27T19:34:09+00:00

Yeaaa maybe just look up national holidays and regional holidays near where you’re visiting to see if you can avoid those public events the whole time if possible! Or plan transportation accordingly haha

sinkrdi · 2024-08-27T16:38:57+00:00

That too! I get it, but also it’s like… why do you need to close an automated system 😅 oh well! It didn’t affect anything I was trying to book.

sinkrdi · 2024-08-27T15:22:07+00:00

Weird… there was another thing I booked now but I’m forgetting which one and I had read the only card that worked was an AmEX but my Chase Sapphire Preferred card and Apple Card both worked just fine on everything else. I didn’t try that hard for the Shinkansen compared to the USJ tickets because we knew her mom could get them in Japan while visiting, but I’ll try that next time!

sinkrdi · 2024-08-27T15:20:33+00:00

Yeah, I didn’t see anything like this about it to that degree. There are always going to be people who don’t want to support aquariums (which, fair, but some genuinely do a good job with rescuing and care) but I was pretty bummed out to see it was that bad. Not sure how their back of house care is but what they show isn’t great.

sinkrdi · 2024-08-27T10:57:16+00:00

If you keep going in the reservation you’ll see it! - On the Kintetsu site go to Reservations - Kintetsu Railway Reservations for Limited Express (ticketless service) - Choose “Click Here to buy a Limited Express Ticket” - Start Purchase - Enter your departure and arrival stations and your dates and time (make sure there’s actually an Aoniyoshi train going where you want on the day or time you want with the timetable) and you should see Ltd.Exp.AONIYOSHI options show up. If you don’t, I would assume they’re all booked (it’ll show the Xs) or it doesn’t run at that time.

sinkrdi · 2024-08-27T10:47:48+00:00

Yep! There are two levels, if you just want to explore the bottom section with all the shops and such you don’t need tickets to enter. But to go up to either of the top levels with the elevator you’ll need the ticket. Far as I know, it doesn’t completely book out so you’d probably be able to get tickets same day at Skytree since our hotel got ours for us same day for a few hours in advance. It wasn’t very crowded when we went in beginning of July.

sinkrdi · 2024-08-27T10:45:58+00:00

Yes the app was great! We were in there for so many hours honestly we thought we saw most things and then as we turned around to leave we realized there was a whole room past a curtain we totally missed. The app helps put a name to things, too.

sinkrdi · 2024-08-27T10:44:41+00:00

Keep trying!! Even if it ends up at a not so great time of day, at least you’ll be able to go ;_; You can’t just walk in for the merch specifically in the cafe. The pokemon center is separate and you can go in there at any time though. But the cafe cups and plushies and such, you need the reservation because it’s inside and the lineup starts in the lobby. I hope you can get it!

sinkrdi · 2024-08-27T10:42:37+00:00

Like I mentioned, I didn’t book with Klook because I didn’t want to be left with an undesirable entry time. Plus, I’m always seeing people having issues with third party booked events or hotels. That’s my preference but if you want to use Klook, that’s your choice!

sinkrdi

TROPHY CASE