Our whole family regularly goes on trips together, but among those countless trips, we’ve only gone overseas twice. The first one was in Hong Kong last January 2012, and the second one had just happened after over six long years—but this time, along with our (my and my sister’s) SO’s. Why did it take that long for us to fly together somewhere again?
Our Whole Family at Hong Kong Disneyland (January 2012)
Flight Booking
Towards the end of 2017, we realized our family’s overseas trip was looong overdue. But then, it was just a random realization, so we just let it pass. Nothing was done about it until I woke up to (literally lol) a promotional email from Jetstar, which listed down all its discounted flights from Manila for June to October 2018.
One of the destinations was Nagoya, and it was priced at around PHP 7k+ roundtrip. I immediately informed the whole family, but it took a couple of hours’ worth of discussion—Anong date ba ‘yan? Wala kayong exams niyan? May leaves ka pa ba? Sure na bang pwede lahat?—before we finally made the booking. Lol. We could probably get a cheaper rate with some other budget airline such as Cebu Pacific, but we didn’t want to wait for (and stress out on) another flight sale. It felt like it was “now or never” 😂
Although our port of arrival/departure was at Nagoya (Chubu International Airport), we didn’t stay there. Lol. Instead, we went around Tokyo and Kyoto, which are roughly two hours and one hour away from Nagoya via shinkansen (bullet train), respectively. With Japan’s convenient mass transport system, choosing such route—Nagoya > Tokyo > Kyoto > Nagoya—doesn’t sound so draining…and stressful. Well, I don’t think it is, if you’re travelling alone or with a very small group. We’re a group of 13, including seniors. Does it still not sound draining to you? Lol.
Traversal from Center to East to West to Center — Our Recent Japan Trip Path
Japan Rail Pass
Since we dealt with countless train rides, each of us had to get a JR Pass. It’s a necessity for any tourist who’ll be travelling around Japan, since it allows you to take advantage of unlimited rides on trains/local buses handled by Japan Railways Group, a company that maintains a nationwide railway network in Japan, for either 7, 14, or 21 consecutive days. There are two types of passes: ordinary and green car. There isn’t much of a difference between the two, except that for the latter, you may ride on first class (green) cars—which are more spacious than the ordinary ones—found in most shinkansen and limited express trains.
It’s pretty easy to get one since there are tons of online platforms—and even local travel agencies—offering this. As for our recent trip, we chose to buy our 7-day ordinary pass exchange order via Klook for only almost PHP 14k each. I had to emphasize “exchange order” because what we bought online isn’t actually the JR Pass itself, it’s just something that will be turned in at JR Pass Exchange Offices to receive the actual JR Pass.
JR Pass Exchange Orders from Klook
The cost of a JR Pass is definitely something to think about first, especially if the cost will be multiplied by 13. Lol. So, to determine if we really, reeeally needed a JR Pass, we used the JR Fare Calculator. It’s a tool that estimates the cost of your train rides (JR lines only) based on your itinerary, and shows how much you’ll most likely save if you purchase one. It’s super helpful!
Accommodation
Lodging is another thing to carefully consider for a family of 13. We didn’t want to stay in hotels—it’s either we couldn’t find a suite that could fit that much people, or we’ll have to be divided into separate rooms. By now, you might have realized how clingy our family is. Lol.
Well, the solution for this hotel dilemma is quite obvious—Airbnb! We stayed at a really nice place in Asakusa, which was priced at almost PHP 30k per night. As for our overnight stay in Kyoto, we stayed at a traditional guest house for almost PHP 33k. We loved both accommodations, but between the two, we prefer the former. The latter is, unfortunately, not senior-friendly. Lol.
View near our Airbnb in Tokyo
Entrance of our Airbnb in Kyoto
The Trip Itself
Some of us get up early, and some don’t. And because we have to be complete when leaving and starting the day, we always started late. Starting late isn’t a good idea in Japan (or probably in any country) because its establishments close relatively early, as compared to the ones in the Philippines. Anyway, it still was a fun trip with the family 😅
We arrived in Japan at around six in the morning, but our very first touristy activity didn’t start until six in the evening. Lol. After the long train rides and multiple transfers from Nagoya to Tokyo, the oldies just wanted to rest after checking in at our Airbnb. Actually, if we hadn’t bought (scheduled) tickets for the teamLab Borderless exhibit, we might have just stayed in for the rest of the day.
The exhibit is held at the Mori Building Digital Art Museum in Odaiba, and on the day we went—a Thursday—it runs until 7:00 PM. If you do the math…we only had an hour to make the most of our JPY 3.2k (adult ticket price). Lol. The museum is too huge, so unfortunately, an hour isn’t enough for us to be able to visit all areas. Nonetheless, everything that we’ve witnessed throughout our short visit was already worth it—whenever we enter a new room/area, our jaws drop on the floor.
teamLab Borderless at Mori Building Digital Art Museum
We had one of our brunches in bills Omotesando. There was a long line when we arrived, but it was worth the wait. We enjoyed the food and ambiance, and their ricotta hotcakes are the bomb!!!
bills Ricotta Hotcakes
Library Corner at bills Omotesando
Since my cousins and sister love Hachiko, visiting Shibuya was a must. Lol. Despite the crowd, we still made our way to the statue and get a nice photo.
Hachiko Statue at Shibuya
Busy Street in Shibuya
To get an aerial view of the crossing, we went to Starbucks Tsutaya. As expected, this Starbucks branch was very busy and filled with tourists. Luckily, we were still able to find some seats for the oldies. Time for them to rest for a bit 😂
Shibuya Crossing (view from Starbucks Tsutaya)
Our whole family loves Uniqlo (who doesn’t?) so we made sure that we get to visit the flagship store in Ginza. Of course, what could be bought there could also be bought in other ordinary Uniqlo stores, but the way the stuff were arranged and presented was different—especially on the 12th (top) floor.
Uniqlo Flagship Store in Ginza
Sensoji automatically made it to our itinerary, thanks to our Airbnb location (Asakusa). Like any other tourist spot in Tokyo, this place was filled with lots of people, both locals and foreigners. There’s also a wide range of stalls offering traditional souvenirs and street food. Come to think of it, exploring the whole place can actually take up half of your day. Lol.
Asakusa Shrine (five-storey pagoda) and Sensoji Temple
Aaand of course, we went to Tokyo DisneySea. We chose this over Disneyland because from what we’ve heard, the former caters to adults, while the latter’s mainly for kids. Well, we couldn’t confirm how true this hearsay is because we didn’t visit both. Lol. It could be true, since it looks like more than half of the rides in Tokyo DisneySea really are for adults only 🤔
Tokyo DisneySea
We stayed there till closing time, but we weren’t able to have a decent meal because all restaurants had queues as long as those for the rides. Tired and hungry, we wanted something reeeally filling and yummy at 11 in the evening.
As mentioned earlier, establishments usually close early, so it was a little bit hard to find a restaurant that would satisfy our “filling and yummy” requirement. Lol. But thanks to 24-hour ramen shops—such as Ichiran in Ueno—we were saved from starvation and fatigue!
Ichiran Select 5 + Tea
On our shinkansen ride to Kyoto, we were expecting to see Mt. Fuji on our right, but we really didn’t expect our view to be that good. The sky was so clear that time, it seemed like the majestic mountain really wanted to boast its beauty to us 😂
Mount Fuji
Based on our original (a.k.a. ideal) itinerary, we’re supposed to arrive at Kyoto Station at around 3:00 PM. Unsurprisingly, we were three hours behind schedule. You could easily tell how late we were just by looking at the Kyoto Tower when we arrived. Lol.
Kyoto Tower
Since we’re just staying overnight, we still wanted to visit something touristy upon arrival. We went for Arashiyama because we thought it would be illuminated at night—we were wrong. Lol. We just tried our best to hide our disappointment in the photos. Did we succeed?
Arashiyama Bamboo Grove at Night
After our pitch-black excursion at the bamboo forest, we didn’t expect to see any open establishment in the area—again, we were wrong. Souvenir shops and food stalls were still open. Yay 😅
“Street” Food at Arashiyama
Food Stalls at Arashiyama
We concluded our trip by paying a visit to two of the most famous shrines in Kyoto—Yasaka and Fushimi Inari. We wish we had more time to visit other temples and shrines, but oh well, there’s still next time. Lol.
Yasaka Shrine
Fushimi Inari Taisha
Being a big group of adults with different age groups, I’m very proud and amazed that we have actually survived this trip. Lol. It was very, very stressful to lead a battalion—from flight booking to visa application to itinerary making to trip execution—but everything was reeeally worth it. I consider all the stressful moments and petty arguments as solid preparation for our family’s next vacation abroad 😜
Here’s a minute’s worth of random snippets from our trip! I wasn’t really planning on making a “travel” video, so all the videos I took were in portrait, using just my phone. Please excuse the bad video quality, for all clips were cropped to fill the landscape frame. Lol.
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