Yay hunny, can't wait for our trip
As you knows I have been twice so got a good idea of cheap "business" hotels in major cities.
For fashion trust me you will love Osaka triangle-land.. sorry ame-mura..but triangle land sounds better and I am sure it has a nickname something like that anyway due to the bizarre mini park in the middle!
Wiki describes it pretty rubbish I'll find you more later
Amerikamura - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I thought I might as well post some of our plan discussion here then others can give us extra tips =)
I was thinking we split the time between Osaka region and Tokyo region, we can fly into one and out from the other for under £600 with emirates on current prices.
JR rail pass will pretty much pay for itself as we can get the bullet train between the two main cities on it, I also totally relied on it for getting around the Greater Tokyo region including going to Hello Kitty land (I know you want to go there
) As a bonus we can use it for inner Tokyo for all the places everyone has heard of like shibuya/harajuku/shinjuku/akihabara/ueno although certain parts you can walk between. If we have it we don't have to worry too much about budgeting travel into going to see places if we suddenly see a city online with a random thing in it we want to see!
Hotel wise, we should be able to get a room for around 4000Y in osaka more like 5000Y in tokyo (£30-£40 at current exchange pray for it to get better lol) a night each for a twin room.
In Osaka I liked both
Guest Rooms - Osaka business hotel, Hotel Kinki (best location ever,2 min walk from a street of arcades and shops that are open all night 10min walk from a central big shopping area open in the day and also near cheapy food cafe things, doesn't show summer prices yet but winter prices is 3200 each)
Toyoko Inn Umeda Nakatsu little more expensive at 4200Y each but you do get free breakfast, location is still walk-able from some shops but I don't remember it being quite as good as kinki for me
In Tokyo area I need a find a cheapy one because the ones i were in before were only cheap for double rooms (sharing a bed lol)
Something like this might do but its a bit far out but we can jus get train into town everyday
http://www.kurumi-mansion.com/room_eng.html
I was also running away with the idea of staying a little bit longer and getting an apartment thing like the on above
but we would have to spend at least a month in each location to make any real saving.
Depends how long we can afford to/want to stay really like I said just an idea
As for places to see and things to do, there are far too many to list here for now hehe