Your first week in Japan

The national museum in Ueno Park. The ¥1,000 ticket is for the collection galleries. At busy times the museum itself recommends buying online: the queue at the main-gate ticket window can pass thirty minutes.

Plan B Closed on Mondays: start the week on another day, or swap day 1 and day 2.

Tokyo's great temple in Asakusa. The main hall keeps its own hours; come in by the Kaminarimon gate.

The shrine is open every day and entry is free. Its gates follow the sun, so the hours change month by month.

The palace's East Gardens are open to the public with no ticket and no booking.

Plan B Closed on Mondays and Fridays: then give the morning to Ginza, as on day 3 of the Tokyo route.

The highest station of the Hakone Ropeway, over a valley of steam that was once called Hell Valley; on a clear day Mount Fuji and Lake Ashi are in view. Next to the station they sell black eggs, boiled in the hot spring until the shell turns black: four for ¥500 in Jalan's listing.

You arrive by the pirate ship: three of them cross Lake Ashi, two modelled on old French and British flagships, and the pass covers the crossing (without it Jalan lists ¥1,200 one way). The shrine was founded in 757, up an approach of cedars more than six hundred years old, and from the Moto-Hakone shore the view takes in Mount Fuji, the lake and the shrine's torii. Entry is free; the treasure hall is ¥500.

The end of day four. The Hikari from Odawara is ¥12,100 on JR Central's smartEX, reserved seat, regular season; the table gives ¥200 off in the quiet seasons and up to ¥400 more in the busiest. Tomorrow starts from here.

The rock garden: white sand and fifteen stones, set so that from no single place can you see all fifteen at once.

The wooden stage juts from the main hall over the city, built without nails; walk on to the Otowa waterfall, which gave the temple its name.

The temple founded at Emperor Shomu's wish in the Nara period, below Mount Wakakusa. The Great Buddha inside is 14.98 metres tall; the hall around it has been rebuilt twice, keeping nearly its first height and depth. Each hall charges its own entry, cash only.

A World Heritage shrine beside Nara Park, its halls first built in 768; the main sanctuary is a National Treasure. Lanterns have been given to the shrine since the Heian period, and about 3,000 are lit on the evening of Setsubun and on 14 and 15 August. The grounds are free; the inner sanctuary is ¥700.

The teahouse inside the shrine, named after the tea sellers who carried their stalls on shoulder poles through the grounds in the late Edo period. Its manyo-gayu is rice porridge in white miso on Hokkaido kelp stock, made with Nara's Hinohikari rice and a topping that changes every month: ¥1,200.

Nara's old town, spread over the former grounds of Gango-ji: townhouses from the Edo period to the early Showa years, many now small museums, restaurants and shops. Deer often walk the streets here too.

Minami's canal street: theatres in the Edo period, restaurants now, under giant signs of crabs, octopus and dumplings. The famous billboards face Ebisubashi bridge, and the Tombori River Walk follows the water below.

The keep standing now is the third, rebuilt in 1931, and it is a museum of Hideyoshi and the castle's history, with a lookout 50 metres up over the city. It is about twenty minutes on foot from Osakajokoen station through the park. The castle sells tickets in advance online.

Plan B Closed 28 December 2026 to 1 January 2027: go straight on to the next stop.

Shinsekai's tower, 108 metres tall: the first was built in 1912, this one in 1956. Since April 2026 an adult ticket is ¥1,500 and every ticket comes with an entry time. The tower suggests buying online the day before, because tickets can sell out in the evening.

The Pacific Rim aquarium: about 620 species, seen on a spiral walk down from the eighth floor around one great tank, where the whale shark swims. From 17:00 the lights and music turn to the night sea. The price changes with the day: Jalan lists an adult from ¥2,700, and the aquarium's own calendar gives each day's figure.