My wife and I will be in Tokyo for the first time for five nights in early February. Obviously not the preferred season, but we would greatly appreciate any advice on such things as visiting the imperial palace grounds (worth it in winter? also, the internet reservation site completely flummoxes me)...any recommendations for a day trip outside the city? We will be staying in the Tokyo Station area.
Tokyo in February
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We had a nice trip in Japan last February. It was a bit cold, but we had a great time nonetheless.
We went to see the imperial palace gardens and even though it was winter and many trees were bare, it was a nice leisurely visit.
Tokyo is a big city and as such there's plenty to see even in winter. One of the days we had was very rainy and we decided to cancel our planned day trip, and instead went to a couple of museums (funnily enough, one of the museums we went to was not only free for tourists - we also got free souvenirs.), and to some shopping centers that were quite interesting and had plenty to see and do.
A couple of day trip ideas we wanted to do but didn't end up doing because of rainy weather were:
Fuji area - either Hakone or five lakes - there's a private railroad that takes you there and you can arrange a circuit tour in one day (busy day) with various views and transportation methods (railroad, cablecar, ship, etc.)
Nikko - has several temples and is 2 hours away from Tokyo so seemed easy enough
For any trip to japan I'd recommend looking up the JR tourist rail pass - you have to buy it in advance outside of japan, and it can save you money depending on how much you get around. We got it for a week of travel that included Kyoto and Nara, but even the trips inside Tokyo were probably worth it because JR can pretty much get you anywhere in the city without using the (separate) metro system
We were in Tokyo last February, and it was about 45-50 degrees and sunny. The imperial grounds were nice, but not as nice as the grounds in Kyoto, IMO.