Hello! My girlfriend and I will be realizing a lifelong dream with a trip to Japan soon and we can't wait.
The thing is we land at 8am after a 12 hour flight. We come from Europe and are used to traveling in neighboring countries or English speaking ones, so on top of a long flight we will probably, most likely, definitely be hit with culture shock as well.
If you have tried something similar, what worked (or didn't!) for you? Or what would you recommend doing if you wanted to go sightseeing, but in a more relaxing first day manner?
Our hotel is in Ginza, would the Imperial Palace area be a good place to wander around? I also thought about heading to Ueno Park and the Nezu/Yanaka area and see the Nezu Shrine and Yanaka Ginza, could that be a (by Tokyo Standards) a chill enough plan? It also looks like it will be absolutely pouring down the day we arrive, so that might also affect our energy levels, so maybe the museum in Ueno Park for an indoor thing to do?
All I know is we won't be heading to Shinjuku or Shibuya on the first day. We will, however, be filling up on caffeine regularly, staying up till 7 - 8pm to adjust, probably wake up super early the next day and going to Senso-Ji, taking advantage of the jetlag super power.
We have five more days in Tokyo after that arrival day, we will be hitting mostly the usual touristy spots, nothing crazy unique about our general plans there.