@Raymond Lin That last picture is beautiful. If I remember rightly, you're in Kyoto Tower (or possibly just Kyoto station) looking north - I ate in that restaurant on the corner facing you at the junction (red/brown building), it was a lovely "fast-ish" food place. I also got my Nikon D7200 + battery grip for a very reasonable £750 in Yodobashi camera, which is just out of this picture, right underneath Kyoto tower.
EDIT: Looking at your costs, I feel extremely fortunate. The four times I've visited (always based in Kyoto) I was staying with someone so I effectively only had flight costs (Manchester to Osaka/Kansai was usually around £550-650 return) and my spends, a decent amount of which was spent on entries into places and train tickets. Food was very reasonable as you say. Some of the sushi places where you pay by plate were only around Y150 a plate, and after 8-10 you were stuffed anyway (that's about £10 or less).
I am still going through the photos ! so many.
Yeah, if I had got free accommodation it would cut my cost down by like 40%.
I think it was broken down roughly as follows:
I paid for these before I left: -
Accommodation for 2 weeks £2,000
Parking at Heathrow £124.00
Petrol to and from airport £50.00
7 days JR Pass £180.00
Premium Economy Flight £940 (after using AVOIS points)
internal flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka £75.00
Pre-paid VR Zone in Shinjuku £40.00
Robot Restaurant £45.00
I gave myself an allowance of £1600 (I came back with 300 yen in my pocket, about £2.50), I planned for £100 a day with £200 contingency…which I ended buying souvenirs with.
The money paid for my food, entry fees to every temple, skyscrapers (Skytree is expensive, like Y3000 and then extra for the top level, same as Mori Tower to get to observation deck and then more for the roof top).
I ate everything from Y130 seaweed rice ball to chicken skewers for breakfast from 7-11 for Y400 (£3) to Kobe Beef lunch for Y6500 (£50), my most extravagant meal. Most of the time I was eating around Y1000 Ramen really. Only had 2 Sushi meals and both came to about Y2000 (£15) and I was full. I also had bought a couple of T-shirts from GAP for like $4000 as I ran out (didn’t bring enough), spent about £200 or so on souvenirs so in the end it was very close to £100 a day (Y13000). I did get a lot of Coffee and Ice-cream though, like Match Ice-cream….yes please! at every opportunity.
I still have my PASMO card (like an Oyster card), which is 5000 yen to buy in the first instance.
Next trip I will skip Hakone. Fukuoka and Hiroshima, perhaps go to Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka instead, do a round trip of the Kensai region, and much less museums and also much less skyscrapers. If you were to pick just 1 skyscrapers in Tokyo, pick Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills. If you were to go to just 1 Shrine, go to Fushimi Inari at 6am in Kyoto which is free and open 24 hrs. Skytree although impressively high, the tower is on the north east side of the city and quite far away is probably a miss, instead go to Hyatt Park Hotel which is free but because it is a hotel bar, you can't just turn up and take photos and the waiter will sit you down so buy a drink. I took the view that i paid for the view and got a free drink. Tokyo Tower is not that high and any photo of the skyline of Tokyo really ought to have that in it so being on it, negate the point.
I would still stick to hotels though, I don’t find them that expensive (Hakone is an exception because of where it is, and I happened to go there on a Saturday night, it is basically THE weekend break for residents of Tokyo to get away from the City so the weekend is very expensive and more so being the busy season like Autumn with the change of colours). When I was looking at hotels in Tokyo, I found many places around £120 a night and are 4*, I could have stayed in the Hilton in Odiba(?), where the full size Gundum is for a little less per night than what I paid for mine but that Hilton is a bit out of the way, so you got to take into account of the subway cost every day to and from the hotel. In the end I picked Park Hotel Tokyo which was by Shimbashi station, a place where all the Salary men goes to after work to eat and drink, walking distance to Ginza and also Tsuskji Fish market.
There wasn’t anywhere that was more than 30mins or 2 changes on the subway away and the hotel is located on the top 9 floors of a skyscraper, the reception is on the 25th floor and I was on the 34th floor so all the rooms get a great view of Tokyo.
