My Trip to Japan in Rs 1 Lac Budget

Japan known as ‘land of Rising Sun’ has always intrigued me and I never thought that I will be able to visit Japan considering the costs involved.

However, recently I travelled to Japan using credit card reward points and my overall expenditure including all tickets and sightseeing came out to around Rs 1 Lacs for 10 days stay in Japan.

Even if you are not using credit card reward points, even then this post will be beneficial for you to plan your trip to Japan considering the credit card points save only hotel/flight costs. Balance you still need to plan & pay using cash.

Let’s get into the details then.

Flights Bookings

I had transfer my points from Axis Magnus card to United airlines just before Magnus’s devaluation in August 2023 for Japan travel. Ultimately Japan trip got postponed due to some other trips and I got the chance to travel recently in Oct 2024.

Other card used to transfer to United Airlines was American express.
Amex has 1:1 transfer ratio to Marriott Bonvoy and Marriott Bonvoy to United is 3:1 but if you transfer Marriott 60K points, then as bonus pts you get additional 10K miles, effectively making ratio 2:1

These Marriott points were earlier transferred from Amex to Marriott under 30% bonus offer last year. I had also used the 25% Marriott to United transfer bonus offer as well.
This extra requirement came since United increased mileage requirement from 27.5K miles to 35K miles in May-2024

I also used excursionist feature of United wherein an intermediate flight is free.

The route followed was:

1. Bangalore to Tokyo (via Singapore) via Singapore Airlines (35K Miles / pax)
2. Tokyo to Osaka (0 miles under excursionist feature)
3. Osaka to Bangalore (via Bangkok) via Thai airways (35K Miles/pax)

Total points requirement – 70K miles + $74 per return ticket
Total United miles used – 210K miles + $222 for all tickets

This was around 18K cash from pocket for all the 9 tickets for the 3 of of us.

Hotels

For hotels, I had used my Accor points which had been transferred from Axis Atlas & Magnus credit cards and HDFC credit cards.

I had heard that real estate / hotels are quite costly in Japan and considering the hotel room size, they are amongst the costliest in the World.

I stayed at below hotels

• Ibis Styles Tokyo Ginza – 27000 ALL Points + ₹1505 (3 nights) – (Cost without points ~₹50K)
• Mercure Tokyo Hibiya – 0 ALL Points (Used 2 stay plus nights received under Accor Plus memberships) (Cost without points ~50K)
• Mercure Kyoto Station – 25000 ALL Points + ₹215 (3 nights) (Cost without points ~ ₹45K)
• Ibis Osaka Umeda – 4000 ALL points+₹2080 (1 night) (Cost without points ~ ₹9.3K)

If you see that these are basic Accor properties and these are off-season prices, so you can just imagine how costly Japan hotels are.
The hotel cost if I had made booking through Makemytrip or otherwise, it would have costed me around ₹1.6Lacs. But, because of points (56 ALL Points), I only paid around ₹3.8K as cash from pocket.

Accor PLUS memberships did cost me ~₹25K but these memberships round the year will cover their cost since multiple buffets and dining discounts are part of the membership.

Visa

Visa was applied at VFS Bengaluru centre and the overall cost for 3 people came out to ₹5.5K

You need to apply for an appointment before visiting the Bengaluru centre but different cities have different processes like you can go for walk-in as well in some cities.

We were granted a single entry tourist visa for 90 days and the date of visa starts from the date of issuance so donot worry about getting visa very early. You can only apply 90 days prior to your trip starts.

Itinerary and activities

Day 1: Start from India and Shibuya Crossing

We started from Bengaluru and took the Singapore Airlines flight. Courtesy my credit cards, enjoyed 080 lounge which I think is amongst the top 3 lounges in India, if not the best.

Sharing random photographs of the 080 lounge.

After the lounge, we went to the Singapore Airlines flight and courtesy the kid we were given priority boarding. This was 1st Singapore airlines flight with the family and they enjoyed the hospitality.

Also, due to Singapore airlines, they got to see the beautiful Changi airport. Since the stopover was short, we couldnot fully enjoy all the attactions at the airport.

Now, we landed at Haneda airport. This airport is near to the city compared the new Narita airport. First thing to note is that as per Japan laws, you are not allowed to take fruits, sandwiches and non vegetarian items etc, so please avoid the same in luggage to avoid being fined.

After clearing immigration, the first thing we did was to get was the ‘SUICA’ or IC card.

This is a card which you can get at the airport and you can load it with your credit card there. You can load with cash and even at 7-11 as well but outside airport, its difficult to load with card so majority of cash we took was used to load Suica card.

There are alternative to Suica card that you can use the same through your Apple wallet and just Tap. But I preferred the physical card.

You can also buy Metro tickets as per reqmt but this card was quite convenient for us.

Now, we took the airport line to reach our hotel. You can use google maps to get the list of trains for your destination & accordingly board the train.

You can book train ticket or you can also take a limousine bus from airport to city.

Hotel

We reached our hotel ‘Ibis Styles Ginza‘ in evening and rested a bit. This hotel was a very basic hotel but in central location. Its difficult to imagine paying ₹16K per night considering small room size.

Now, after our rest, we decided to do atleast one activity in Tokyo and the first thing we opted to go to the famous Shibuya Scramble crossing and often termed as the busiest crossing in the world. The place has lot of nice places to do shopping, eating out places. Also, when you are here, do see the famous Hachiko statue.

Beyond the Suica Card, we also opted to take the Tokyo Subway 72 hours ticket. It helped save some costs considering Suica is a cash card and needs to be loaded but Tokya Subway card helps you with unlimited travel once you activate the same.

Day 2: Visit to DisneySea

Tokyo has both Dinseyland and DisneySea but we chose Disneysea since this is only Disneysea in the world.
Disneysea had multiple rides to see and enjoy and our kid really enjoyed the same. Since the rush is quite high, I will suggest to reach as early as possible to get the freepass which gives you fast access to multiple rides. Also, do install the Disney app as well where the resort people will guide you on how to use the app.

Since the child ticket starts from 4 years, we only had to buy 2 adult tickets (Total ~₹12000)
Please note that the cost is higher on few days as per the rush expected so prefer to plan the trip on weekdays
Link to buy Disney resort park tickets

Day 3 – Trip to Mount Fuji Hakone Day trip

This was the highlight of the trip for me and the overall experience was out of the world for me. So, I wrote a separate post about the Hakone Day trip

Overall cost came around ~₹10000

On return at night, we explored the Shinjuku area after coming out of the train on return journey from Hakone.
One more pro-tip – Shinjuku has an official Disney store where you can buy the merchandise for yourself and your friends etc for gifting even if you dont visit Disneyland.

Day 4 – Shinjuku Garden & Team Labs

Shinjuku Garden is the national garden and is a beautiful landscaped garden to enjoy nature. The cost is also not high at ₹250 per person.

The next destination that we went was Teamlab Borderless: Mori Building Digital Art Museum. As the name tells that this is a digital art museum. This is a mix of beautiful lighting shows that captivate you. Its a must visit. Also, there are 2 Teamlab options – Planet & Borderless which are few KMs apart. The reason we opted for this Teamlab Borderless was that there is an interactive drawing activity with the kids wherein the drawings done by you & kid are projected on the screen. This activity our kid enjoyed as well.

Here is the link to book the Teamlab Borderless tickets.
Here is the link to book the Teamlab Planets tickets

Total cost for the 2 activities done today ~ ₹6000 for the couple with child tickets being free.

Hotel Mercure Tokyo Hibiya

We also checked-out of our 1st hotel on Day 4 and moved the Hotel Mercure Tokyo Hibiya. This was a walking distance from our previous hotel. This hotel room was also much more spacious than the previous hotel.

As I mentioned above, the cost per night was around Rs 25K/night but we redeemed our stay plus night here.
Since we had booked 1 stay plus night with my account and then 1 stay plus night with my wife’s account, we got total 6 (3+3) complimentary welcome drinks.

Day 5: Visit to Asakusa and other Tokyo city attractions

This day we had the company of my local Japanese friend and his presence was quite helpful to cover a lot of activities and use the Tokyo subway to the fullest since everything he remembered by heart instead of us taking time to decide which train to take etc.
We wanted to explore Tokyo skytree but he suggested that we can visit free observatory – Tokyo Metropolitan Government building. The building also has a light and sound show in evening which we missed but you can plan to combine with something and plan to do the same as well.

Next destination was the Asakusa temple along with the Nakamise Dori street. This street gives you authentic Japanese culture feeling since the other parts of cities are quite modern. You can do some shopping, eat and take few photos in the Asakusa temple complex along with visiting the temple.

Next part to explore was the Ueno market. Here you get a lot of food and shopping options. We had dinner here at an Indian restaurant.

This was followed by a short trip to Akihabara, which is also known as Electric town since it houses as the centre to buy video games, anime, manga, electronics and computer-related goods. I am not such a fan of this but Anime aficionados would really like this place.

Day 6: Reached Kyoto

Next day, we reached Kyoto which was the capital city of ancient Japan.

In morning, we checked out from Tokyo hotel and took the direct train to the Tokyo Haneda Airport and took the ANA flight from Haneda to Itami airport Osaka.

From just outside Itami airport departure area, you can take the ‘Airport limousine bus’ that takes you straight to Kyoto railway station. (Cost ~1340 Yen which is ~₹800 per passenger).

Instead of the flight, you can also opt to take the shinkansen (bullet train between Osaka and Tokyo)

Hotel Mercure Kyoto Station

We checked into Mercure in afternoon. The location is convenient and around 10-15 mins walk from the Kyoto station. The hotel is a new property and the 1st Mercure in the Kansai region. The room size is much bigger and the hotel also has a lounge which can be free for you depending upon your Accor status. (I wasn’t Platinum then, so couldnot use the lounge).

Gion Area

After checking in and doing some rest, we decided to visit the famous night life area of Gion.
To reach Gion, 30 metres outside the hotel there was a bus stop from where you can take the bus to reach Gion. Takes around 30 minutes by bus and the good part is that the Suica card worked on all the buses & other public transport in Kyoto.

Gion area is full of old wooden townhouses, which are surprisingly preserved and narrow streets showing the traditional Japanese architecture. The place is full of eateries and shopping areas. Depending upon your interests, you can decide to explore the night clubs etc. We tried some Japanese food here and did some shopping.

Day 7: Nara and Fushimi Inari Taisha

In morning, we took the train to Nara from Kyoto. There are multiple options for trains but we took Kintetsu – Nara train since we didnot have JR pass and it takes us to the nearest station to Nara park.

Nara is famous for the deer park where you can walk amongst the deers and feed them. Our little kid was very happy here.

Also, if you are visiting Nara park, do visit the famous Todai-ji which has the biggest Buddha statues in Japan.

On return, we took some food from Nara station’s Mcdonald and on return journey, took a stop at Fushimi Inari station.

Fushimi Inari Taisha is a famous Japanese landmark and very beautiful. The mountain name is Inari and the pathway to peak of Mount Inari is lined with orange colored Toriis. These Torriis are so close to each other that they look like a gentle tunnel. We spent a couple of hours here exploring this.

If you have some time you can try to combine Tofuku-ji temple with Fushimi Inari since the two stations are next to each other but since we were late, we did the same next day.

Day 8: Kyoto Temples and Arashiyama Bamboo Forest

We did 2 temples – Tofuku-ji and Kinkaku-ji. Both are beautiful with nice scenery outside. There are couple of more temples like Kiyomizu-dera, Tenryu-ji etc and you can do these as well if you have some time. All these are accessible by local bus transportation. Pls mind if you are not prebooking tickets online or through kansai passes, then please do take some cash. Online payment was not accepted.

After finishing Kinkaku-ji, we took the bus to Arashiyama Bamboo forest in evening. This place has multiple pathways to walk amidst the shade of bamboo trees. There is no fee for entering the bamboo forest.

You can also try to take the Sagano Romantic Train from nearby Saga-Arashiayama station.

We did all the Kyoto sightseeing on our own, but you can book the tours as well if you want to do these activities in a group

Nara & Fushimi Inari Tour

Kyoto Nara Day tour

You can also take Osaka Amazing Pass for 1 or 2 days to cover multiple attractions

Day 9: Osaka Castle & Dotonbori

Next day, we checked out from the hotel and took the train to Osaka. The journey is ~1 hour depending upon the train you take. We reached around 12 noon and checked into hotel Ibis Osaka Umeda

This Ibis hotel is just outside the station so the location is apt. We also requested for a room upgrade which they agreed so we got a bit more spacious room.

After relaxing for half an hour, we took the subway to reach the Osaka castle. The station was approx 10 mins away from the castle. It needs atleast half day to visit and explore the gardens and the castle museum. We had purchased the ticket through Klook and you can buy here

Post that in evening, we visited Dotonbari. This is nice place to visit during nights with narrow lanes lit up with neon lights and billboards and the whole environment is lively with many places to drink and have food. We did a canal cruise here in the narrow lanes and I must say it was a fun activity here.

Also, do look for the famous landmark – Gemini Man here. I dont know what’s so special about this but its an important landmark.

This was our last activity in Osaka and Japan since next day was our flight in the morning.

But there are other activities beyond this

Universal Studios

Osaka Aquarium

Teamlabs Botanical Gardens

Osaka Umeda Observatory

Next day in the morning, we checked out and took the limousine bus from umeda station to the Kansai international airport

The bus service is very convenient but if you want, then you can also try Haruka train as well.

At the airport, we made few purchases with out IC card to finish off the balance. If you have taken any prepaid card, then do remember to finish the balance since its non refundable.

Other tips

• You can take JR pass for whole Japan network of JR trains. This is costly but if you have lot of shinkansen trains to take and use JR network, then this pass can be value for money depending upon your usage.
• For food, non packaged food stuff is not allowed to be taken in luggage so please do read the rules.
• Another tip, if you are vegetarian or didnot like some food, then 7-11 stores are nearby. You can take the ready to cook rice and yoghurt and fill your stomach if the food you brought is over.