There also might be more walking than your body is happy with depending on your normal activity level. Could result in a bit of a slower pace due to exhaustion and sore feet/legs. Possibly also sore shoulders if you bring a loaded up day bag. There are usually quick massage chains in larger shopping centers/underground malls stations like the chain Raffine.

Just mentioning this as I can put in 8-10k steps a day + a few flights of stairs in normal home life but semi-routinely hit 18-25k in Tokyo, depending on my plans for the day & weather. I've learned to plan those Day 6's and some takeout/bento dinners in, not just after a big hike, or I'd be regretting it by your Day 9 and snoring while "meditating" on Day 16. YMMV.

If you do need to lighten up your bag, you might want to buy drinks on the go and bring a smaller power bank. Some of the JP coffee/fast food chains will also have outlets so you can rest, buy a drink/snack, use the bathroom, and charge your phone https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/c...one_in_a_cafe/ It's not a bad way to use any found time if you skip a solo 30 min activity so you can be on time for a meal/tour reservation. Just find the meeting spot and then the nearest cafe/combini with seats if time allows.

I've tried to use Google Maps transit +20%. Do you have an example of where my plan is too tight?

I won't be carry much, just a small tote with a bottle of water and wallet.

This isn’t about the travelling anymore, that part is improved.

Day 1 - 12 to 1:30pm (particularly the 1:00 to 1:30 part). I hope you have better luck than us when we tried to eat landside at Haneda, we were ready to go anywhere and failed. Ended up going to Kamata and returning. Thankfully we had hours before our flight departed.

Day 2 - 1pm to 2:30pm

Day 3 - 1pm to 2pm lunch - I hope you have a reservation
5:30pm to 6pm - 2 shops in Parco - Nope!

etc… These are the ones that jumped out at me.

You increased travel time by 20%, now you need to increase “being” time by 50% to 100% (except the tours, someone will have done that for you.)

Thanks for your feedback.

Day 1 - What's wrong with eating at Haneda?

Day 3 - Why do I need to have a reservation, its a chain restaurant not Michelin star? And I'm experienced at shopping at Macy's and Saks so Parco can't be much different?

Depends on what you were planning on eating, but lunchtime (and dinnertime) at Haneda is usually packed with 30m-1hr wait times at some of the more popular restaurants.
I had to pass on getting what I wanted to eat and go to a less crowded section of restaurants.

On my last attempt to eat at Haneda, there was not one restaurant there that didn’t have a wait of over an hour for a table.

It’s not a place on my radar, but if it is on yours then I’ll assume there is some kind of buzz about the place. Restaurants/cafés with a buzz about them tend to have queues. Restaurants/cafés WITHIN places with a buzz about them tend to have queues (see Haneda landside example ⬆️) and those queues are at their biggest within the 12noon to 13:30 time window.

I gave you advice some time ago about turning up at restaurants at least 15 minutes before they open for lunch. There was a reason for that.

Here it is, from post #19

Kyoto Imperial Palace on 31/May - Don’t bother

Tell us you've never been to Japan without telling us.

A little story. One time, many years ago, Mrs. Pickles parents planned to come to Japan and Hong Kong to visit us. They spent literally six months planning everything down to the minute, just like you. It was emails, phone calls, texts, Mrs. Pickles the travel agent, etc. etc. So... they show up, and the combination of jetlag and the novelty and hallucinatory aspect of it all was like them getting hit by a 2x4. It was Day 6 for them for pretty much most of the trip.

Not saying that'll be you, but on the spectrum of how it turns out, plan for that as a worst case.

Wow, I just read that pdf and that was tiring for me.
For the first time visiting Japan, I'm going to Hokkaido for two weeks and Tohoku for two weeks this coming October and have only got my first couple and last nights accommodation booked in Japan. I'm just winging it for a month and self driving, booking accommodation online as I go, with a varied list of things I'd like to see/do but if I don't get to all of them, so be it - but that's my travel style and each to their own.

This has been the constant feedback along the two threads OP created for this subject : lose the detailed planning, it is not realistic. But OP continues without listening to us on two multi pages thread. At some point, some people are just looking for validation of decisions already made.

Honestly I stopped reading once I saw increments of time less than an hour. And I can see the debate OP is having with others already giving advice so I've got other more constructive things to do. OP "try" to enjoy your trip.

Why is an airport so busy? I've eaten at some of the world's busiest airports and never had to queue. Is it a particular Japanese thing?

I just looked on Google Maps for the nearest place to eat that had a decent rating. Nothing more then that.

For most of the world, airports are not considered food destinations. Unfortunately for you (and for many of us), and for some reason I don't quite understand, HND is considered a food destination. People who are traveling head to the airport hours ahead just to eat and shop there, and even people who aren't traveling go to HND to eat and shop!

I find it borderline ridiculous, but that's what it is. You will find many things in Japan to be borderline ridiculous, and when you scratch the surface of this ridiculousness, you will find much of it is driven by non-Japanese (although the Japanese aren't slouches in the ridiculous department).

To expand on the previous answer; the fact that my 70something Japanese father-in-law enjoys coming to Haneda to collect us and, used to, come along to see us off and treat us to a last meal is testament that Haneda has an appeal to many Japanese people. I dissuade him from coming to Narita and meet him at Shinagawa instead, he never insists, it’s clear Narita does not have this appeal. The newly opened Haneda Airport Garden Mall has built on and expanded on Haneda’s appeal and made it into even more of a destination. Some very clever marketing took place and a “boom” took off.

Yes, “booms” are a very Japanese thing, have been for centuries, but what nobody will ever be able to predict with certainty is what will actually “boom” with Japanese people.
Here’s an old thread that explains the phenomenon: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/japa...oms-japan.html


You are arriving at a time when inbound foreign tourist statistics are at the highest they have ever been.

Another part of the equation is that the cost of things aimed at the Japanese market can only climb to a certain point before the competition takes your market share. In order for businesses to stay in profit the perception of value has to be maintained. When costs of materials and labour continue to rise what else can be added to give a sense of premium to what you are offering? The answer is exclusivity. Customers don’t just pay with money, they also invest their time.
Restaurants with good reviews are much more likely to involve long waits and each of these restaurants will have its own unique combination of reasons for this.

The good news is that there are plenty of places that haven’t “boomed” or sparked the interest of social media influencers and if you have a very strict schedule you can find perfectly acceptable alternatives. Whether they serve any “instagram” or “trip report” type purposes is another matter entirely.

To further expand on the info about Haneda restaurants being busy.

A lot of families and individuals go to the airport to use the viewing deck facilities to plane spot and generally watch the time go by.

Also, videos like the one below with nearly half a million views increase the popularity of the airport restaurants.