Exploring TOKYO on a BUDGET! Full Day in Japan’s Wild City under $50

Good morning guys, welcome back to a brand new vlog, I've picked the sunniest spot ever to film this clip this morning but we're currently down at breakfast at EDD Hotels and they've got a restaurant, like a cafe, called Avno and it's a really cool breakfast so we're going to show you that in a second but in today's video we want to show you what the costs are like here in Tokyo, Japan. I think it's known as this quite big expensive city but we found on this trip so far that there's actually some ways to make it a bit less expensive. For example, just got dinner here at this restaurant, George from the past, £8 for an udon curry and chicken karaage with rice. Yes. Bargain. And some good tips that we can share with you today but then also there are some things that you can't really avoid so we're going to go through how much things have been costing us as well and whether or not it's possible on a budget. So welcome back to the vlog, we hope you guys are doing well, if you're new around here please don't forget to hit that subscribe button and give the video a thumbs up if you enjoy it today. Today we're actually leaving Tokyo, we've got a very late flight this evening at midnight so we're checking out of the hotel, leaving our luggage, having a day of exploring and then at the end of the day when you're usually very tired we're getting on an 8 hour flight with a toddler. So, wish us luck, we've had an amazing time in Tokyo, we've had like a short but sweet visit and we've really really enjoyed it so we hope you've enjoyed the vlog so far, this is going to be the final Tokyo vlog for now but yeah let me quickly show you breakfast this morning. So in my breakfast selections we have gone for a nice big salad on the side of this plate and it's all organic and there's a little information about the farm it actually comes from which is amazing, quinoa, mixed beans, some caesar salad dressing, some chicken, some tomatoes, I've got a little bit of salami just on the side here and then loads of scrambled eggs with salt and pepper. There's also a really yummy yogurt with some granola and some honey and then I went for one of the teas that you can make yourself in the little tea bags. This was like a very sort of Japanese breakfast, not the food I've chosen particularly but more the utensils you use to pick it all up and the setting that we're in right now it's just really beautiful, very peaceful and it's a nice sort of taste of the culture here. Thank you. Everyone here has been so friendly as well we have to say. Beautiful day here in Tokyo today, blue skies, look at that, pure blue skies, temperature is perfect, perfect, means you can walk around without getting too hot so yeah we have been doing a lot of walking on this trip which I think is one obvious way if you're on a budget to save money because taxis in Tokyo, unlike some other countries, when we've travelled in the Philippines, Thailand, even Dubai the taxis were quite affordable. Yeah for the distance you're doing it's not bad. Taxis here are very, very expensive, we looked into getting a taxi from the airport when we first arrived to our hotel. So we flew in from Narita airport which is a further away airport, you've got Haneda and Narita, we're flying out of Haneda, we flew into Narita and it was, the difference in cost was I think it was going to be around £130 for the taxi versus about £6 for a train that's one hour, like it's a no-brainer, obviously it might have been a tiny bit comfier being in a taxi but the public transport here is so good so either yeah on foot or using public transport is definitely a lot cheaper than taxis. Also Tokyo is such an awesome city to walk around, you see so much cool stuff like you come across these little vending machines and get yourself an iced coffee or a hot green tea like we did in one of these days for, if I've got it, it was £0.60, like less than a dollar, these are cheap. You'll suddenly come across these tiny streets where you can see how people live, like small Japanese restaurants, little ramen spots. In our opinion, not only if you're on a budget but just to experience and soak in the city a little bit more, on foot is the way to go, yeah sure, Instagram opportunities everywhere. Our next tip is to use 7-Eleven for your snacks, for your water, even for meals, we actually during our time here filmed a whole video eating only at 7-Eleven for 24 hours and we had some really really good food and it's not expensive. They are also everywhere, you cannot walk a couple of minutes without seeing a 7-Eleven. First coffee spot of the day, Kielo, Kilo, specialty coffee, really really cool little spot by the looks of it, it goes quite far down but the entrance is just kind of this little hole in the wall basically. So Lucy's currently choosing her coffee, this is, we're coffee people, this is our kind of place, we've got a selection of different coffee beans for a hand-dripped coffee which is going to make the iced Americano. I'm getting myself a little double espresso. Coffee beans. What is it? Coffee beans. Coffee beans, yeah. Coffee beans. Can you just smell? Smell? Another one. Oh, smell that. So my espresso is 450 yen which is £2, £2.44 so around, probably similar to the UK price here. There are definitely cheaper options for coffee but Lucy and I do love our coffee, we like to find the specialty coffee shops and try really great coffee wherever we travel so for us it's worth spending, it's £2 at the end of the day but there would definitely be cheaper coffee options around Tokyo. Okay, trying this double espresso. Wow, oh my, that is so good. Lucy, this coffee, oh, if you're coffee people you know but this is why you find these coffee spots because it's just so good, so much better than what you can get at regular cafes, Starbucks. Wow, the flavour, unbelievable. That coffee was unbelievable, so so good, so fruity and full of flavour, one of the best coffees I've ever tried. Another quick budget saving tip that we discovered as soon as we landed in Japan was trying to get like a SIM card because Google Maps is a thing here, you want to be using Google Maps to find everywhere that you need to go, works really well, it even tells you, if you put your route and your destination it tells you exactly which metro lines to get, exactly the tickets to buy and exactly how much it costs so definitely use Google Maps but in order to use Google Maps you of course need a SIM card with data. Now when we first arrived we went and went to the first counter and we noticed that the SIM cards were limited in speed, very expensive and it just didn't seem like quite a good enough deal so we went to the next counter along, we walked a little bit further, lo and behold, half the price, no speed caps, no daily limits, it was around £30 for an eight day SIM card with fast internet and no caps whatsoever so definitely go to that next counter, save yourself a little bit of money on your data SIM card. So we're now in Anime Town and I'm going to get Koda a little cap from the vending machine, I've never actually used one of these so let's see if it works, it didn't work, okay it didn't work, unless we're doing it wrong, we may need the help of a local, what would he like here, maybe a little Pikachu or something, alright we will figure this out. So this whole area is called Anime Town, it's full of gaming stores, when we were here a few years ago we went up into the buildings and they've got loads of figurines and models and Pokemon cards, all sorts of stuff to do with that genre if you're a gamer or you like Japanese video games and stuff, this area is crazy, this is where you see the real life Mario Kart you can do racing through the streets and of course this is totally free to come and walk around, Japan is known for being expensive but so many things we've done this time have been totally free, yesterday we went to the Shibuya crossing, the busiest crossing in the world, just to be there, soak up the atmosphere, cross the road yourself, take a little video for your Instagram or whatever or to send to your mum back home is just so cool and completely free to do, so a lot of the things in Tokyo that you may want to come and see won't actually cost you anything. So we just had a funny incident, I drawed some back pain tablets, George has pulled his back a bit and I was basically miming hurting your back to try to show them what it was, because obviously it's all in Japanese and they don't just have like paracetamol, ibuprofen, because it's all written in Japanese, so I was in the shop going, I'm pretending that I've hurt my back and we were all really laughing together and we managed to find the right tablets so that was a success, also got George some nappies, Koda some nappies and some new wipes, so yeah we're fully stocked up. You have to be careful with your actions when you're trying to buy a pill, they're not blue, they weren't blue were they? They actually are! So it'd be wrong to come to this area and not have a go on some kind of game, this is my game of choice, 100 yen. I feel like I was chased. So we're never too far away from some snacks here and we've seemed to have become fond of these little custard cream fish, it's not actual fish it's the shape like a fish and they're really cheap, it's like 200 yen, 175 yen, so we're going to grab one, what flavour do you want? I think just the regular standard is the best. Where's that? The premium cream I think, do you think? It's different to the last one, it's really hot and fluffy, I actually prefer it to the last one we tried. This is the first amount of money we've spent today. Is it? Say that. So other than the nappies and the painkillers and things we've bought which are just us problems, this is the first thing we've bought today because we have a hotel that has breakfast included, so actually we've had a very cheap day and the day's almost half way done because it's nearly lunch. And we've had the best time. Yeah, it's just been so fun looking around and just taking things in. Like honestly you don't need to spend loads of money here, you can do the activities, the tourist things, the Tokyo Skytree, all the actual main tourist attractions but really the best thing for us, and maybe you guys would agree, is just walking around and taking it all in which doesn't cost a penny. Just bought a bag for £6. Oh it's gone. They've given me a brand new one in the packaging so, should I open it now? Yeah, use it. I don't really want to use it yet. I'll show you that when we get back to the hotel but it's £6 for a bag. What I also love about this area, yes it's like gaming, it's arcades, it's comic books, anime but also it's like an electronics area but obviously there's like shops selling laptops and things but there's stores selling the tiniest components and little springs and grommets. Think about like eBay, like an eBay list. You know when you need like one particular screw and you have to go on eBay, you can buy it here, you can find it here. What else? Little rubber gaskets, tiny little things and all sorts of tiny components for fixing toys, computers, it's crazy. I almost think like, are they ever going to sell that one? Do you know what I mean? And there's tons and tons of it, it's so cool. Speaking of anime, very quick story, when we first landed we went to a 7-Eleven and I shouted across the shop to George saying, what do you want to eat? And he said, this one and a meat one. I thought he said, I wanted the anime one and I thought he was saying anime as anime and I was like, what are you doing? You can't say that here. I was like, and a meat one, like I wanted an egg sandwich and a meat sandwich. I thought you were saying, I want the anime one. But Lucy thought I was saying an anime sandwich, she was like, well firstly there's no sandwiches here that have anime on, it was very confusing. Can't resist just buying little drinks at these vending machines. So many unique things that we would never get in the UK. What's that? I don't know but I think I want it because of the bottle. What is it? Do you think it's like a green tea? Apple, yeah maybe. Go for it. 50. Nice, green tea, perfect. I'll try some. So good. Okay, checking out of our hotel room, this has been awesome. You can get way more expensive hotels in Japan but in our opinion, this, you can also get cheaper but in our opinion for us, this was like a middle ground. We're actually collaborating with this hotel, they hosted us for two nights here but we will put the price on the screen per night for the room. We are in a nice big room, family room, big bathroom, they do smaller rooms here as well. Yeah we also stayed a night in the triple room and, sorry there's hair all over my face. And we're in our L4 outfits as well now, quick change. That, even though it was a lot smaller and much less space, it still had absolutely everything that you would need and it's a bit more of a budget friendly option. They have wifi, all the things you need. They just don't have things like coffee machine, TV. They don't call themselves a luxury hotel but in our opinion, it is high end. The bathroom's super nice, all the soaps and shower gels, things like that are really, really nice. But it's kind of a minimalistic hotel, DDD hotel, if you want to check it out for your Japan trip. Dizzy. Do you want to go on a plane? Dizzy. Do you want to go spinning? Dizzy. Okay, you guys are making me dizzy, let's go. So we've just found a very random little shop. It's not little actually, it's six stories high and we've been inside and we've found some bargains. I don't know why we bought jumpers because we're about to go into even hotter weather in the next country we're flying to this evening but we've just bought three jumpers and I already cannot close our suitcases so I've got three nice thick jumpers there. They were, one was 1000 yen and then George and I got one each on a mix and match deal, two for 3000. So £24 for three jumpers which is super cheap and again I know we're talking about budget in this video, you don't need to come to Japan and buy jumpers, it's not really part of it but there's definitely some like cool clothing choices and stuff. Oh this is a bag as well, I was going to show you the bag, £6. Yeah, so you can still go shopping in Japan on a budget. Yeah. So we have just stopped off at 7-Eleven, we've done a bit more shopping and we've still got two hours until we need to leave the airport for our flight. But we just got some snacks, we got one of the chicken cutlet sandwiches which we love from 7-Eleven and also these dark chocolate coated frozen blueberries which were amazing and those snacks cost like a couple of pounds so another top tip, eat in 7-Eleven because not only is it super cheap but it's actually really delicious. So we're going to do a bit more shopping, reaching around, bye bye and then head to the airport. Bye bye. But I'm feeling really tired and the flight doesn't leave until midnight so we have to like stay up later than we usually would and then have a flight. So I'm a bit apprehensive because I think we're going to just be completely exhausted by the time we get to our next destination but hopefully we can just check in to the hotel and sleep and then we're going to pick up the new vlog in the next country so make sure you stick around for that and we hope you enjoyed watching today's video. If you did please give it a big thumbs up and subscribe to the channel if you're new. Comment below if you're heading to Japan soon or if you've got plans to go or if you've been before and if you've got any other like budget saving tips because we wanted to just do a video that shows that it is possible if you're on a budget as well. We have been here before and we've like done the more expensive stuff. On this trip we've done the more expensive stuff and cheaper stuff and I think you have fun doing whatever so if you want to be on a budget, be on a budget. If you want to spend lots of money, spend lots of money. Whatever your ideal is there's ways to do it all here. So yeah, if you've got any questions or you think there's anything we missed out then please leave a comment below. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you very soon from a brand new country in the next vlog. Goodbye.