Hello everyone, I realised I’ve delayed this final Meg in Japan blog post for so long, truth be told I was busy with work throughout Christmas and only now the coming end of February, I can finally have some free time to write out the final days of my 2024 trip.
The journey to Tokyo, starts off the early hours of Tuesday mornings getting a taxi to Fukuoka Domestic Terminal to get the plane back. When researching the cost of everything before my trip, I found it was so much cheaper to fly back which was around 1 hr 1/3 flight compared to an 4 hour train journey which wouldn’t be cheap as I would need to get the bullet most of the journey and by that time, my train pass ran out the day before so the train was going to cost me a bit.
I could have got the train if I really wanted to but I booked the flight months in advance and I spent a fair bit on the One Piece statue tour a few days prior.
My opinion on Fukuoka? Honestly I recommend it to people who don’t want to stay in Tokyo and it’s worth the huge journey. Personally I got out what I wanted, maybe a few things I missed but I want to go back to Osaka & Kyoto again next time I come back to Japan due to only having limited time. If anything I would like to go further south to Nagasaki or up the top of Japan. Whatever I do next, I will need to put Tokyo in the planning due to having Narata/Haneda airport.
Anyway, the flight back to Tokyo was nice, Fukuoka gave me a beautiful goodbye with the views it gave me while ascending into the skies. As mentioned in a previous post, these domestic flights were nothing compared to the 13 hour flight it took me to get to Japan and not long after I returned to Haneda Airport in Tokyo but this time as a domestic arrival instead of international.
Before leaving the airport, I picked up a box of British sweets I dropped on my first arrival 9 days ago that I put in storage (cost around £5 for 9 days) for a meeting with someone.
The last time I stayed in a hotel in Tokyo in 2019 I was not far away from Akihabara, this time around I chose the Asakusa area to stay at Hotel Tavinos Asakusa which I was looking forward to staying at due to how amazing it looked. I obviously booked it on its looks & location, the hotel interior was amazing from the reception area to my room but it doesn’t beat Hotel She Osaka.
Here is my ranking for the hotels I stayed in during my trip.
1st. Hotel She Osaka. While the location was not really close to the touristy areas, it was easy to travel to them on the train with the train station being mere minutes away. I cannot fault the outside & inside of the hotel from the reception, hallway and the bedroom. Oh the bedroom was just quirky that you couldn’t help but love it, the cherry on top was the record player. Personally I wouldn’t own one at hotel as I like to listen to music purely through my phone but this gave an experience you could only get from the hotel in the area as they had a great selection in your room and if that wasn’t to your fancy, you could go to reception & pick something else. I want to return to this hotel in the future as there are some things in Osaka that I didn’t do. OK, the breakfast was a bit lacklustre but was different.
2nd. Haneda Excel Hotel Tokyu Haneda Airport Terminal 2. Not a lot I can say that I didn’t say in my first post due to only staying in the room just for a nap (an expensive one at that). BUT the room was massive and the hotel was a few feet away from the domestic terminal I needed to get to Osaka, with that I can I can’t fault it
3rd. Hotel Tavinos Asakusa. I have to put it 3rd due to the room, while it looked nice, the thing that annoyed me was the lighting, in the evening you only had the big ceiling light to use before going to bed, there wasn’t a bedside lap, I know it’s such a thing to moan about but I have to say it
4th. Kyoto Tower Hotel Annex. Location wise, this should be above Tavinos because it was so close to everything I wanted to Kyoto, I have to say the room interior was meh that much I don’t think I took a picture of it, due to my room being towards the top it didn’t have WiFi, I had to come down to the dining area near reception to use it. The reception & dining area was very nice along with breakfast but the bedroom just disappointed me. Similar to Kyoto, I want to return to the city and heck I would stay at the hotel again but I would make sure to get a better room.
5th. Fukuoka Toei Hotel. I confess I mainly choose this hotel due to the cost of being in Fukuoka longer than the other cities and it was easy to get to everything via the subway which I got used to by this time on my trip. The room & reception was ok, the room was a bit small but that was ok. They had a buffet breakfast so I was able to try food I didn’t have the chance to try, heck I don’t even know half the stuff I had, but it was nice. It had a great & cheap resturant next door which you could order everything via a machine so it was perfect for someone who didn’t know Japanese that well.
With the hotel talk out of the way, let me carry on what happened after I dropped my luggage prior to check in and found a small local tonkotsu restaurant called Miyoshiya for lunch, I picked a place that probably wouldn’t get busy with tourists until later on in the day & try something different. I can’t remember the name of what I had but it was nice and I loved the inside of the restaurant too, I can see it getting busy with people finishing work in the evening.
Afterwards I decided to check out one of two buildings in Tokyo that I’ve always wanted to see in person due to seeing them so many times in anime, the first one being the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, it’s like going to London and wanting to see the Big Ben.
It took my breath away seeing it up close at a very nice park just opposite.
I was hoping to go up in the building to the free observation deck they had but for whatever reason it was closed but I can tick the building off my bucket list. By the time I finished in the area, it was time to get back to Asakusa to check in.
Coming back to Asakusa was a surprise as I bumped into 2 of the friends I met days ago in Fukuoka, forgot to take a picture with them but I did take a picture of what we had to eat, one of the areas specialities, Jumbo Melon Bread which you could get at Asakusa Kagetsudo, the line they had for it was worth it!
After chatting and consuming the yummy melon bread we went our separate ways with me going to the hotel to check in. I mentioned what I thought about the hotel already so I will just show some pictures and move on.
Normally I would just chill after a check in but I had evening plans, I was to meet-up with someone I’ve been chatting with via social media for the past year, a manga translator whom I brought the british snacks for her to try. I haven’t any pictures with her, only some tempura I tried because she’s a private person & I respected that by being careful of what I took a picture of. Because of this I’ve only got a facebook video of what I recorded just before instead.
It was such a great meet-up mainly for someone who lives in the country and not a tourist, I know it sound a weird thing to say but I’ve been doing this trip solo and haven’t had a chance to chill & chat with someone who is actually Japanese so this made me happy, especially as we could chat about some common interests. My translator friend kept me updated on what she thought of each British item I got her so that was great.
By the time we finished chatting & eating, it was time to head back to my hotel which meant a quick walk through Akihabara, of course I picked up a few items to take to my hotel room, disappointed that I didn’t have a fridge in my room but oh well. At least the hotel lobby gave me some great pictures to use as a featured image for this blog post.
The hotel rankings took a lot of the post & thought it would be too much to add the early morning in Asakusa, checking out the Big Sight, Small Worlds Tokyo & more, so I will see you next time!
Megan
Megan Leyman 
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