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Travel with Julie Anne

Your tailor made, holiday specialist! Helping facilitate quality time away with your loved ones, since 2022.

29/10/2026

Tokyo day 6...Shibuya!

We had another lazy start today and headed out late morning after breakfast at the hotel. The free shuttle bus to the local train station is super helpful!

🚆We had to catch a few trains today to get to Shibuya but we spent about 6 hours there so I'd say it was worth it 😂

🦓We started with the famous Shibuya crossing. This was busy but not as busy as Tokyo station -maybe because it was the day time?

🛍️We wandered around and found the famous 109 shopping mall (which we went to later in the day!) then made our way to Shibuya Parco. On the 6th floor you'll find the Pokémon centre as well as the Nintendo store and other anime stores. A great stop for fans of the above!

🐈‍⬛We happened across Shibuya Centre G*i Street en route to Parco as well as a massive Don Quijoten and wandered over to Cat Street too (don't be fooled by the name - no cats here!). Cat street had a totally different vibe to the main Shibuya area. It was much quieter and had more western based shops (Converse, Barbour, North Face etc) so we had a quick look but wanted to head back to the main area for more Japanese shops.

🥢We found a basement restaurant for late lunch/ early dinner, Toriichizu Shibuya Center-gai 2 大衆とり酒場とりいちず渋谷センター街2号店 and had gyoza, fried chicken skin skewers, crispy chicken, edamame, rice and some chips and ketchup as our son loves ketchup lol.

🐾We also saw the famous Hachiko dog Statue, the dog who returned to Shibuya station every day for 10 years waiting for his owner to return (who never did due to a fatal cerebral haemorrhage 😢)

🍦Then there was the 50Yen plant based ice cream from IKEA (great for our son with his dairy allergy!)

👛Finally we headed back to the 109 mall for our daughter to do some shopping. Now that she's 10 she fits a lot of the adult Asian clothes as she's really tall!

Two trains and a bus back to the hotel and time for some rest before heading back to HK tomorrow.

28/10/2026

Tokyo day 4!!

So after a very, very busy few days at Team Labs and Disney, we had a slow start to the day and didn't leave the hotel until almost lunchtime 🙈

🚆We took the train to central Tokyo (purchasing some items from Uniqlo en route which we left in a locker at Tokyo station which was super handy!). From here we headed to the Imperial Palace for a look around the grounds (which were huge!) then took the Metro to Shinjuku.

🗻Yu Hin had helpfully found a free viewing platform of the city at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building 東京都庁 (exit west out of the main station). It was a clear day offering great views over the city and we could *almost* see Mount Fuji. We grabbed a snack and continued to the other side of the station to find the 4D cat and Godzilla!

🛍️We also went to Don Quijote Shinjuku Kabukicho ドン・キホーテ新宿歌舞伎町店 a crazy packed store with all sorts from beauty products to Pokémon! We obviously had to make some purchases 😉

🍤We found a great Tonkatsu place for dinner, found up a small stairway but extremely good value for money. Usaku Tonkatsu とんかつ卯作 just £35 for dinner for 4 (note that only cash accepted)!!

🚊We headed back to the hotel on the metro/train/bus (slowly getting to know the transport here - this also needs a full review!) and everyone was shattered after another busy day. But hey, only 14,000 steps today 😂

27/10/2026

Day 3 Tokyo... Disneyland!!

I'll be honest, I do love going to Disneyland (so far I've been to the one in LA, animal kingdom in Florida, Hong Kong and now Tokyo!) and we were all excited.

Thankfully, the rain held off today (🥳). We had to use the hairdryer to dry our trainers from yesterday this morning 😂

Disneyland was everything you would expect, busy, fun, joyful and lots of people dress as characters in Japan so sometimes it was hard to tell who were the "cast members" and who were visitors!

The kids had a great day and did really well after a busy day yesterday too.

I even finally got to try the alien mochi!!

The kids were so tired they fell asleep on the bus back to the hotel but we had a great day and lots of happy memories were made 🥰

26/10/2026

✨Today was all about Disney Sea Tokyo!

☂️We seemed to have picked the wettest day to go to Disney Sea but it didn't dampen our spirits (😂)

Ideally we would have arrived at the park bang on opening at 9am but kids and jet lag etc meant we got to the park at about 9.45am. The park was busy still despite it being a Monday and the rain didn't seem to put people off!

It's a rather unique park, and felt quite different to the other Disney parks I've been to but we still managed to stay at the park until 9pm and we all had a great day, despite the rain and wet feet!!

We did purchase DPAs for 3 rides which we appreciated as the kids would have found 2 hour waits just too long. They were expensive, however so do bear this in mind. I feel like Disney Sea needs a full review at some point but our favourite rides were ....

✨Toy Story (DPA purchased)
✨Peter Pan
✨Journey to the centre of the Earth (DPA purchased)

We also purchased a DPA for the Frozen ride which was good but not that dissimilar to the Frozen ride in Hong Kong which is worth bearing in mind.

Overall a busy, tiring and very wet day but everyone enjoyed their day, despite the rain and wanted the day to continue. I would say that's a win!

25/10/2026

First full day in Tokyo!

💛We set an alarm today to make sure we got to our destination on time....TeamLab Planets TOKYO DMM チームラボプラネッツ !

We ate breakfast at the hotel - a real mixture of food was available from western, to eastern and everything in-between!

🚆We took the hotel shuttle bus to the local train station, Shin- Urayasu and from there we took the Keiyo Line to Shin Kiba station and picked up the Yurakucho line to Toyosu station. We took a taxi at this point (10 mins) to make sure we reached Teamlabs at our allotted time.

🤩Teamlabs was a great experience which we all really enjoyed. It is quite the sensory overload at times and some displays triggered my vertigo so that's something to be aware of but the kids LOVED it. I will do a whole section on Teamlabs at some point!

We were at Teamlabs for about 2 hours and then took a mixture of trains to Akihabara. This is a strange area and in hindsight, not worth the visit. We went as its supposed to be "the place" for electric avenue and anime but it's also known for maid cafes and a lot of "normal" restaurants wouldn't admit people under the age of 20. As we were looking for food we headed straight back onto the train to Tokyo Station and found a great place for lunch.

🍤We had tempura today (Tempura-kushi to Mabushi-meshi Hageten 天ぷら串とまぶしめしハゲ天) and a whole set lunch was just £9 per person! What a bargain!

🌆We headed out of Tokyo station for a look around and found some shops including Muji and Onitsuka Tiger Marunouchi Store
オニツカタイガー丸の内 which Yu Hin wanted to take a look at. From here we took another train to a city viewing point at Shimbashi, Caretta Shiodome Sky View.

At this point we were all feeling pretty tired so we made our way back to our hotel (via a convenience store for snacks of course!) None of us wanted dinner so snacks it was today :)

An early-ish night is now what we need before tomorrow!

24/10/2026

We have now checked into the Hyatt Regency Tokyo Bay! Another lovely hotel with two big beds for us to share. There was a free shuttle bus from Sin-Urayasu train station which was super helpful. This same shuttle bus also takes you to Disneyland and DisneySea. We will be staying here for 6 nights whilst we explore Tokyo with breakfast included so follow along to see what we get up to!

24/10/2026

Today it was bye bye Kyoto and こんにちは Kon'nichiwa Tokyo!

🍚We had a super breakfast again and departed our hotel for Kyoto Station.

🚅We took the Shinkansen to Tokyo which took about 2 hours 14 minutes. The train was on time, very smooth and had a great amount of leg room! Sadly the weather was rainy so we couldn't see Mount Fuji.

🧳We had sent our luggage ahead to Tokyo which was amazingly helpful (this cost us about £60 and was worth every penny!). Tokyo station was very busy. We eventually found a locker for the kids rucksacks and went to get some lunch.

🥢 There were loads of restaurants at the Station as well as a shopping mall. We found somewhere with Japanese fried chicken on a set lunch menu which only cost about £7 each and was very tasty (see pictures!).

🛒Next we went down "Character street" and found lots of anime shops including a Studio Ghibli shop, Pokémon shop, Sanrio shop and more. It was very very busy. The kids (and us 😂) enjoyed looking around and we bought a few things (and yes I bought a Miffy phone strap thing!) We then were all feeling tired so we headed out to our hotel.

🏬 We are staying out at Tokyo Bay whilst we are here due to it's proximity to some certain "parks" we will be exploring later this week! It took about 20 minutes on the train (Keiyo line) out to the local station from central Tokyo and the hotel bus picked us up from Sin - Urayasu Station.

We are staying at the Hyatt Regency Tokyo Bay and have a 2 x double bed room. Dinner at the hotel was tasty and we are having an early night before a busy day tomorrow!

23/10/2026

Kyoto day 5!

We were all feeling it a bit today after a super busy week. We also felt the kids deserved something more their "style" than more temples 😂 So we went to the Kyoto Aquarium! This was rather small but we all saw the endangered giant salamander which was very interesting and the kids really liked it (so much so two little cuddly salamander toys are coming back with us 🤦‍♀️)

🐠The Aquarium is right next to Umekōji Park梅小路公園 which has a playground area which our son really enjoyed.

🚅 After this pit stop we went to the Kyoto Railway Museum which was actually pretty good! Lots to learn and see and some interactive areas for the kids.

💠From here we took the train and went to the Kaleidoscope Museum of Kyoto 京都万華鏡ミュージアム姉小路館 which was very small but a big hit with the kids! The kaleidoscopes were simply beautiful and the children were able to make one of their own! No pictures were allowed inside but we really enjoyed this local museum.

We walked back towards the market and had dinner nearby at Apollo Plus アポロプラス . One of the best dinners we have had I think.

This morning we sent our luggage ahead in preparation for our next stop....TOKYO!

Stay tuned as we experience the bullet train and more!

22/10/2026

Kyoto day 4! Nara 🦌 and Fushimi Inari Taisha 伏見稲荷大社

So I thought because we were getting the train today that our step count would be less....lol...how wrong I was!

We walked to Kyoto station and took the D line train to Nara. We took the rapid train which took about 40 minutes.

From the station you can take a bus to Nara park or walk...so of course we walked 🙈 You start by walking through the town and then head up to the park. You will know when you are getting near as the deer start to appear!

It's a very surreal place with the deer just wandering around and not afraid of the people or the cars! Most people buy crackers to feed the deer but we didn't as I didn't want the kids to get nipped by the deer. As soon as anyone had crackers, the deer were there straight away! I had to remind the kids they are still wild animals despite being so unafraid of humans. They definitely bow though which was also remarkable to see as a learnt behaviour from them.

The park itself is really rather large. There are several temples to visit there also including Tōdai-ji 東大寺 with a HUGE Buddha!

We decided to eat in Nara before getting the train back towards Tokyo and found a place ( Tonkatsu Ganko Nara とんかつがんこ奈良店 ) selling Tonkatsu which everyone enjoyed.

We took the same train back towards Kyoto but stopped at Inari to visit Fushimi Inari Taisha 伏見稲荷大社. It was dark by the time we reached Inari but this meant all the Tori gates and the temple was lit and looked beautiful. We actually made it all the way to the observation platform, despite the kids having walked about 20,000 steps prior to getting there! It took us about 40 minutes with the kids to get there but was worth it. It was also cooler going at night too making the walk alot more pleasant!

We then took the train back to central Kyoto (about 7 minutes) and walked back to our hotel. A full day with over 25,000 steps!

Definitely appreciated the mochi and matcha KitKat back at the hotel 😉

21/10/2026

Day 3 Kyoto....hot hot hot!! About 28 degrees and 80% humidity! 🥵

We did not let the heat beat us though! We still managed over 20,000 steps and the kids did really really well.

🚇 We took the subway for the first time today from Kyoto station to Kitaoji Station (took about 20 mins and costs about £1.50 each) then hopped in a taxi (which was about £8) for 7ish mins to the Kinkaku-ji 金閣寺 (Golden Pagoda/ temple) It was very busy but great to see this in person.

🚖 From here we took a taxi to the Imperial Palace (about 15 mins and costs £10 for 4 of us in total). This was an impressive structure and some parts were under renovation. You couldn't go inside here but the grounds and gardens were very beautiful.

👣 We walked about 30 minutes to Nijō Castle 元離宮二条城 next and this time you could go inside the castle! The floor was particularly interesting as it was made to squeak as you walked to help raise awareness of any intruders. No filming was allowed inside though so sadly I can't show you this! We were also required to take off our shoes to enter (so make sure if you visit you have socks!).

🥤We took a pit stop for a drink and carried on walking. We headed back to Conto the vegan ice cream place we found yesterday - so tasty - then on to dinner.

🥢 We had Wagyu beef for dinner which was very tasty at Kajiya WAGYU KAJIYA 神慈や（ワギュウカジヤカジヤand the kids also had some fish cakes.

All in all a very busy day and a very hot day!

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