Me and the View of Mt Fuji at Chureito Pagoda 

Sensoji, Tokyo's Oldest Temple 

Hello Lovelies, 

If you follow along on my Instagram (where I am most active), then you'll know that the highlight of my year so far has most definitely been my recent trip to Japan at the end of April. 

I visited my friend Fiona (who is currently living there) from April 26th till May 9th, 2019 and just had the BEST trip ever. You don't even need to bother asking me what my favourite country is, you already know it's Japan. 

I shared a lot of pictures along with recommendations from my travels on my Instagram (if you're bothered to read through some lengthy captions) so you'll get a lot of information from my page. However, I thought that I'd write a blog post so that you can access all the relevant information in one place. So if you're thinking of jetting off to Japan anytime soon, this blog post is the place to be. 

Me and a Buddah at Sensoji Temple

Our Itinerary

I thought I'd begin this guide with the itinerary we based our trip off. After a lot of long distance phone calls and planning the logistics of our trip, Fiona and I managed to plan a very reasonable itinerary for our trip. 

An overview of where we travelled in Japan

Travel Day - April 25th - April 26th 2019 - I flew from Dublin T1 to Tokyo Haneda with a layover in Paris Charles de Gaule  with Air France (Total Travel Time of 16 Hours and 55 Minutes). 

Day 1 - April 26th - Half a day in Tokyo exploring Shinjuku, Shibuya and Harajuku for the evening. 

Day 2 - April 27th 

- Team Lab Borderless Digital Art Museum - Click here to Book

- Wandering Odaiba (where Tokyo's own Statue of Liberty lives) 

- Tokyo Tower 

- Zojoji Tempe (The Temple where Wolverine was filmed) 

- Exploring the nerd district of Akihabara at night 

Day 3 - April 28th (Tokyo Pride 2019) 

- Day trip to Chureito Pagoda / Mt Fuji (We took a train here) 

- Evening wandering Nakameguro (there is a lovely cherry blossom viewing point here in the spring) 

- Celebrating Pride in Tokyo's Gay District (we went to a club called Dragon Men) 

Day 4 - April 29th 

- Lazy Morning as we were Hungover 

- Afternoon Travelling from Tokyo to Osaka 

- Evening roaming through Dotombori District 

Day 5 - April 30th 

- Morning of Vintage Shopping in Nishinibashi, Osaka 

- A visit to Osaka Castle 

- Visited Tower of The Sun (However this was closed by the time we arrived) 

- An Evening exploring Dotombori, going on the Ferris Wheel and Exploring the shopping streets 

Day 6 - May 1st (A day in Kyoto) 

- Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine 

- Tofuku-Ji Temple 

- Exploring Kyoto's Gion Region 

- Kiyomizu-dera Temple 

- Yasaka Shrine 

- Karaoke in a Jazz Bar in the evening 

Day 7 - May 2nd 

- Half a day in Kobe 

- Afternoon/Evening Travelling to Naoshima Art Island 

Day 8 - May 3rd  (Full day in Naoshima) 

- Exploring the sites of the Art House Project 

- Stop off for Fish Tail Burgers 

- Benesse House Museu, 

- Finding Random Art on the Island and relaxing on the beach near Benesse House 

- Yellow Pumpkin 

Day 9 - May 4th 

- Travel from Naoshima to Hiroshima 

- Hiroshima Dome 

- Children's Memorial Park 

- Hiroshima Castle 

- Wandering Hondori Shopping District 

Day 10 - May 5th 

- Morning at Peace Memorial Museum 

- Afternoon on Miyajima Island 

Day 11 - May 6th 

- Morning Flight from Hiroshima to Tokyo Haneda 

- Lazy day relaxing at Fiona's brother's apartment 

- Evening souvenir shopping in Shinjuku 

Day 12 - May 7th (From Day 12 onwards I was travelling alone) 

- Explored Asakusa region 

- Sensoji Temple 

- Walked around Ueno Park 

- Nezu Shrine 

- Meiji Jingu Shrine and Yoyogi Park 

- Explored Tokyo's Food Lanes - Golden Gai and Omoide Yokocho

Day 13 - May 8th

- Kameido-Tenin Shrie 

- Tokyo Sky Tree 

- Pokemon Centre (For souvenirs) 

- Shiba Park

- Harajuku 

Day 14 - Travel Day - I flew home from Tokyo Narita with a layover in Amsterdam with KLM. Total Travel Time was 14 Hours and 55 Minutes. 

In retrospect, I think we had a pretty good itinerary. If I could go back in time and change things I would definitely allocate an extra day for Kyoto in order to explore Arashima's famous bamboo forest and some of the other beautiful temples nearby. I would also have skipped Kobe and used the extra time we had in Naoshima to go to the other art island of Teshima. 

In the next few sections of this blog post I am going to cover things like accommodation, budget etc. to give you some helpful information when you're taking your trip to Japan as a first time visitor. 

Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto

Accomodation 

As ladies in our early twenties, we are certainly not millionaires so hostel world was a great place for finding accommodation options and we definitely found some great options for less than 50 euro per night. 

On the day of my arrival, I stayed at The Almond Hostel & Café in Shibuya for about €40 for the night. It was a nice place and the café had a very chill vibe to it. It was a little far out to be super convenient but I would recommend staying here for a night or two. 

For the next two nights we stayed in Fiona's brother's apartment which was quite close to Nakameguro.

When we went travelling, we set up base for 3 nights in Osaka. From there, we were able to travel to Kyoto and other places near by. We felt that it wasn't worth it to stay a night in Kyoto and lug our luggage around for 3 nights. We found a very good deal at the See U Hostel in Osaka which cost us around €70 for 3 nights. 

After staying in Osaka, we went onto Naoshima where we camped for two nights. Fiona bought a small second hand tent for about €20. I would not recommend camping if you have limited space like we did and therefore could not bring lots of essential camping materials to keep warm and toasty. However, we ended up booking accomodation on the island too late and there was nowhere available to stay. 

Our next stop was Hiroshima and we stayed at Backpackers K's House. This was one of the more expensive places we stayed at for about €150 each for the 2 nights. We ended up cancelling the second night and staying at the airport instead as we wanted to avoid paying a large taxi fair to Hiroshima airport. 

Once Fiona and I went our separate ways, I ended up spending my final 2 nights at Hotel & Café 57 East in Asakusabashi. This was by far the most convenient place I stayed at as it was only a 3 minute walk from the nearest station and very close to both Akihabara and the Sensoji Temple. At €20 per night, I found this to be very reasonable. Please note that if you aren't a deep sleeper like I am, the nearby trains may keep you up. 

Budget 

The main costs you need to account for when travelling anywhere is Plane Tickets, Accommodation, Food, Transportation and Souvenirs/Attractions. 

I came to Japan during golden week which is quite a busy time and therefore prices were a little higher than they'd usually be. I paid around €700 for return so you could definitely expect to pay €500-€600 for a roundtrip from the UK or Ireland. You should definitely subscribe to Jack's Flight Club to find some great deals on flights. 

If you're travelling long distances, you will need to get a JR pass. Travelling on Japan's infamous bullet trains is quite expensive, but having a JR pass saved me about €100. I got a 7 day pass for about €238. You will need to get your JR pass before you enter Japan and you can order it from this website. 

If you're just taking a short trip to Japan and not heading too far, you will still need a transportation card. I bought a Pasmo Card from one of the transportation machines in Haneda airport and topped it up. I found that I could use this card a lot outside of Tokyo too. Generally, I found that on the days I used the pasmo card I'd end up spending around €10. Another popular card available is the Suica Card. I found that this blog post gave very good guidance on how to get a card once you're at the airport. 

Generally, a lot of the shrines and the attractions we visited were free, with the exception of some of the museums we went to. However, I did buy a shrine book and got a stamp from every temple or shrine I visited. I ended up with about ten stamps for 3 or 4 euro per stamp. 

I probably ended up spending about €1000 euro for the duration of the trip plus the cost of the flights and the JR passes making my total expenditure for a two week trip around €2000. I saved a lot for this trip at the start of the year and it was worth every penny. If you're smarter with money than I am you might be able to do this trip or a similar trip for a lot cheaper. 

The Beautiful Island of Naoshima

Me and Fiona at Yellow Pumpkin in Naoshima

Food to Try 

I covered a list of food that you must try in this Instagram post of mine. But I'll leave the list here too for your convenience. The food in Japan is simply delicious and there are lots of different options for those on special diets also. 

When in Japan I would recommend you try the following foods.... 

- Sushi (If you're on a budget conveyor belt sushi is still very delicious) 

- Kobe Beef 

- Beef Tongue (One of the nicest things I tried there) 

- Noodles 

- Ramen 

- Tempura 

- Okonomiyaki 

- Yellow Tail Fish Burgers (if you happen to visit Naoshima) 

-Yaki Tori 

- Katsu Chicken 

- Karaage Chicken 

Me at Japan's only Floating Torii Gate in Miyajima

Souvenirs 

Must buy souvenirs has been covered in this Instagram post. But I will include the list here for additional convenience.

Me and the Chureito Pagoda 

Hello Lovelies,

I hope you're all well.

If you follow my journey on Instagram, then you'll know that I went on a trip in early December to Lisbon. Lisbon was a destination suggested to me by my boyfriend because it was high on his bucket list. At the time, I wanted to go to more traditionally Christmas destinations like Brugges or Munich. However, Lisbon ended up surprising me a lot and I fell in love with it. Today's post is going to go through the highs and lows of this fantastic destination and will give you some things to consider when you're planning a trip to this beautiful Portuguese destination. 

What we did 

Our first day in Lisbon was very tiresome. Starting our day at 2am to get to the airport in time for a 6am flight resulted in exhaustion by 3pm. It is at that time that we decided we were better off heading back to our Air BnB and getting a nap in a refuelling. In our short first day, we ended up getting lunch at the Time Out market which ended up being fairly expensive and not worth it in my opinion. We were just so ravenous that we didn't want to go through the effort to find somewhere more budget friendly.  After eating, we had a general wander and found the famous pink street that I'd seen scattered on my Instagram feed in the weeks preceding this trip. Once we'd taken a few snaps (none of which I ended up liking), we went to the Praca de Commercio which is where a lot of the trams pass. There were some trams which were decorated to the nines for Christmas and the conductors were dressed up as Santa Clause. We did some more walking under the arch at this plaza (which reminded me of the Arc de Triomphe) until we reached Rossio Square. We returned to the same area after our nap (and dinner which we had across the way from our Air BnB) to see the Christmas lights at night!

Day 2 came fairly swiftly. We slept well after our first tiresome day. We got up early and headed to the hipster LXFactory for some breakfast. LXFactory is a bit of a hipster area which has a host of art work and cafés. We ended up going to the first café we saw for our breakfast which had a limited selection of food for breakfast. After that, we headed on a walk past the 25th of April Bridge (which was made by the same people who made the Golden Gate Bridge) and the Santa Maria de Belém until we reached the Belem tower. I remember sitting outside the tower, getting a few pictures and hearing "A million Dreams" from the greatest showman being played by a violinist. We then headed inside to explore a bit more. After that, we headed to Jeronimo's Monastery which was one of my favourite places we visited. Somehow you'd feel transported to a fairytale when you went here. We decided to try the famous Belem Pastries after exploring the beautiful tourist attractions. Later on we went to the Roof Top bar called Park which was a lot busier and more expensive than we'd hoped but at least we got to see the sunset and lovely views of Lisbon. 

On our third day, we headed on a day trip to Sintra. Unfortunately, we missed the train we were hoping to get on because we hadn't anticipated how large of a crowd there would be at the station. We got on a train 30 minutes later and arrived in Sintra shortly. On that day we visited two of the many castles in Sintra - Pena Palace and Monserrate Palace. Pena Palace is easily one of the most popular castles, so be prepared for crowds if you're visiting this castle. Monserrate palace was much more quiet and serene and I think I even preferred that to Pena. It was 7 euro to visit the outside of Pena Palace and around the same price to visit inside and outside of Monserrate Palace. Monseratte Palace also has beautiful gardens and is the perfect place to enjoy a small picnic or pick-me-up!

Our final day mainly consisted of exploring the Alfama area, seeing the many viewpoints scattered across Lisbon and seeing the Cathedral. We started our day with Brunch in Nicolau Lisboa which I have to say was absolutely delicious and a very Instagram-able brunch place. We then headed to the Alfama area to see the various views or Miradouros as the Portuguese would call them. Some of the viewpoints we went to included Miraduoro das Portas do Sol, Miradouro Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen and Miradoro da Nossa Senhora do Monte. If you don't have the time to see all these viewpoints, your best option is to head to Castello De San Jorge which is where you'll get to see Lisbon from the best angel. We spent around two hours in this castle admiring the scenery and with a 4 euro concession price for student it really is a good deal!


What we didn't do 

When you go on trips you never manage to get everything done, and although we did get a lot done, the following are things I would like to do next time!

See more Castles in Sintra- Missing our intial train, coupled with the fact that we visited in the height of winter, we definitely missed out on seeing many of the castles in Sintra. In many of the guides I read, most said that you could probably see three castles in a day. One of the castles which I would have loved to see is the Quinta de Regaleira castle in Sintra which is most well known for its stunning gardens. 

Visit the Mercado de Santa Clara - Lisbon is home to this flea market which I would have loved to go to. Most guides say that it is a place to find some great bargains and get haggling with sellers. 

Visited Ground Burger for the best burgers in town - Apparently, Ground Burger does very good burgers but it is very out of the way and wasn't close enough for us to justify going. 

Paláciodos Marqueses da Fronteira - This is a 17th-century palace which looks absolutely stunning in pictures. I would have loved to visit but it was too far of a journey that it would have taken time out of our other days.

The Positives 
 

I absolutely adored Lisbon, but the following would be the main positive points I took from our trip!

Warm Weather (Even in December) - If you're looking for an escape from the cold, Lisbon is an ideal destination to get some winter snow! We got temperatures of 18 or 19 degrees celsius and it was very pleasant most of the time. Just be prepared with extra layers for the evening!

Beautiful Castles and tourist attractions - Lisbon and the nearby Sintra, both home some extremely stunning tourist destinations. The Monastery, Belem Tower and the castles in Sintra were probably the most stunning.

Variety of View Points - If you love seeing viewpoints from above, Lisbon is a great holiday option for you. There are many "miradouros" scattered around the city, with the best views coming from St George's Castle.



The Negatives 

Honestly there aren't many bad things I can say about Lisbon. The only thing I can think of is that it is not as cheap as what people say. I remember when I went I had this idea that things in Lisbon were super cheap, but it ended up being about average prices. Also when we were in Sintra, I felt like we spent a lot of money that day merely on transport and entry to places. I guess you just need to be prepared to spend money when you're travelling.


Have you ever been to Portugal? What did you think of it?