My wife and me just finished a three-week trip to Japan. I sense that there is a lot of anxiety among people who have plans to travel to Japan, and so this write-up is an attempt to hopefully alleviate some of that. My precursor to this is that most all of this is subjective. It’s just what worked for us and everyone has different priorities and approaches to travel, obviously. Having said that, we’ve traveled internationally extensively, and this was the best trip of our life.
First some details about our itinerary: we left from Denver and arrived in Tokyo on March 24th and were in Japan for a total of 18 days. We spent the first five nights in Tokyo, then four nights in Kyoto, five nights in Osaka (with three day trips to Nara, Himeji and Hiroshima, and Mount Yoshino), two nights in Fujiyoshida, and two nights in Tokyo on the tail end. I bought a DS and took Pokémon Soul Silver to play on the plane. It made the time go super fast and made me even more excited about Japan.
Hotels: Hotel Metropolitan Edmont (Tokyo), Sora Niwa Terrace (Kyoto), Mitsui Garden Premiere (Osaka), Hotel MyStays Fuji Onsen Resort (Fujiyoshida), and JR Blossom (Tokyo). All hotels were fantastic but my favorite stay was Sora Niwa. It was right across the river from Gion, had an awesome rooftop terrace, and on-site onsen. Kyoto was the destination we were most excited about, and so it was kind of a “splurge hotel” by our standards. Two of our hotels had onsite onsen, which was great after long days of walking. The hotels (especially in Tokyo) were very small and it was difficult to maneuver large luggage. My wife and I actually had separate beds at the JR Blossom (because only a double was available) and having the extra space for luggage and shopping was awesome.
Ultimately I felt like the number of days (18) we spent in Japan was just about perfect. It felt like we had time to settle into each location and explore at a steady pace, but none of our stops felt shortchanged. I didn’t leave anywhere wishing that we would have had more days. The cherry blossoms were sparse for the first week or so, but they really exploded around the time we hit Osaka. We took ¥300,000 (approx. $2,000 USD) in cash and it was handy. Most all places took card except for the odd street vendor here and there, though my Visa cards were not working with setting up the transportation cards. Just don’t forget your cash in the hotel safe like me and you won’t have to rush from Tokyo Station back to your hotel and back to the station…
So now I’ll start off with some macro-advice on mindset and approach to Japan.
First: Let. Things. Roll. Before leaving on our trip, I had a long conversation with one of my friends who spent several years living and working in Tokyo. He said that in his experience, the people who really enjoy Japan, are the ones who let things roll and go with the flow. That mantra was in the back of my mind the entire trip and allowed me to maintain a positive outlook even in “frustrating” situations. Sandwiched into a rush hour car in Tokyo? Let things roll. The restaurant you wanted has a long queue? Let things roll. Google Maps goes crazy and leads you astray when you arrive at a huge station? Let things roll.
Second: relatedly, not everything that you do in Japan needs to be the “best of.” Obviously you should branch out by trying unique foods and experiences, and hit the prominent tourist locations that are popular for a reason, but not every meal or site needs to be life changing or come from a prominent list or social media. Our favorite experiences were the things that we stumbled upon: an Italian restaurant in a back alley in Fujiyoshida (Kagashippo), a table tennis shop in Nara, a random temple we found from a hotel coffee table book in Kyoto, random rivers and streams lined with cherry blossoms, local art stores around Tokyo, listening to a guitar player by the river in Tokyo, and so on and so on. Find your own unique experiences and moments by heading down back alleys, walking instead of taking transit here and there, and interacting with Japanese people.
Third: be a good tourist. More on this later, but the treatment I observed from tourists toward Japanese employees, and towards other tourists, particularly in hotel lobbies and at popular photo spots, was absolutely absurd. Treat the Japanese workers kindly and try to engage with them, if you can. Attempt to communicate with them in Japanese before bombarding someone with a confusing English statement. It is not that hard to learn the twenty or so keywords that you’ll need in most hotel and restaurant situations. If there was an upcoming interaction where I needed to say something, I would write it out in translate and try to quickly learn it on the fly. This wouldn’t always work, but I could sense that the effort was appreciated, and I felt like workers in tourism were more inclined to help me because of it. Telling “oishi” (tastes good) to workers here and there goes a long way.
Fourth: remind yourself to enjoy yourself. It’s ok to try and get some rest and relaxation. It is vacation, after all. I think there is a tendency to try and pack itineraries to the brink, especially in Japan where there is just so much to see. I have done this before on other trips and usually regret it. Of course, not everyone can take three weeks in Japan like us, but the couple of slower paced days that we had (which we planned to correspond with rain) were essential to recharge our bodies and minds. Getting that two hour nap to feel fresh for the next day was more valuable than crossing off another temple.
Now I’ll go into some more specific advice on things that made my life much easier in Japan.
-Invest in a good pair of shoes. Do it. You won’t regret the up-front expenditure, but will certainly regret it if you start having foot issues shortly into the trip. Some of our friends went to Japan once and the woman had blisters all over her feet after two days. Not fun.
-Get a physical transportation card if you can. We were able to acquire them from the JR counter at Narita Airport. This is not necessary, of course; it was just nice to be able to keep the card in my right pocket, take it out at the stations, and not have to worry about phone battery etc. You can “charge” them with cash at any convenience store.
-Phone: eSim purchased through the AirAlo app worked beautifully the entire trip. You just buy it and activate it right before leaving. For me it started working as soon as we passed through Japanese immigration (be prepared for a long line).
-Taking taxis to the tourist hotspots early in the morning was essential for us. In order to beat the crowds, we took taxis from our hotels to our list of “must see” spots that we knew would get busy. Those sites included: Senso-Ji in Tokyo, Ariyashima Bamboo Forest near Kyoto, Fushimi Inari in Kyoto, and Universal Srudios in Osaka. None of those rides (with the exception of Ariyashima, maybe) were more than ¥4000. This method of transportation might not be for everyone, but for us, the calculation of spending $10-$20 USD to experience these places in complete peace and serenity, or start off the morning with more energy and comfort, was worth it.
-Try to get going early in general. Even if you aren’t a super early riser, I noticed that each hour at popular spots gets progressively busier. For example, we took a day trip to Nara from Osaka. We arrived at Nara Park around 8:00 a.m., and it was relatively peaceful, serene, and “normal” for a couple of hours. Then sometime around 10:30 a.m. the area simply exploded with people.
-Get a power bank, keep it charged, and take it with you. We had an Anker power bank, and the thing was a life-saver. Navigating around the cities, researching sites, taking photos, and pulling out your phone for transportation eats up a lot of battery quickly. With the power bank we could use our phones at our leisure and never had to worry about running out of battery. Of course you can always find a coffee shop or station to charge your phone, but it’s much easier to just plug it in and keep exploring.
-Luggage forwarding is essential. This was something I’d read about before leaving for Japan, and I didn’t anticipate needing or wanting it. But after hauling our carry-ons, backpacks, and a large suitcase from Narita to our hotel in Tokyo, I needed it more than I needed water. A sub-tip is that you can send luggage one destination in advance, that is, skipping a destination. For example, we were in Osaka, from there we had two days in Fujiyoshida, but we sent the luggage from Osaka to the next hotel in Tokyo. It was there waiting for us in our room when we arrived. Very nice. In my experience the cost was approximately ¥2000 per bag per time, and I don’t regret a single cent of it. Edit thanks for kind reply: or just pack lightly, do laundry (easy) while there, and buy a suitcase in Japan for souvenirs.
-I found some of the perceptions of Japan to be overblown. Finding a nice, clean bathroom was never an issue. Much harder in Europe, in my personal experience. Disposing of trash was never an issue. Sometimes we would carry it down the street for a while, but you eventually come across a disposal. People generally respect the crosswalk lights, and we did, but it won’t shatter the earth it someone crosses without a walk signal.
-This one may be controversial and put me in an extreme minority, but I preferred Apple Maps to Google Maps. I just like the user-interface of Apple Maps better and find it easier to use. I am the primary navigator (my wife has navigational…issues), and I used Apple Maps for the entirety of the trip. It did not lead me astray, though sometimes I would cross-check more remote addresses on Google. All of the train lines and times were totally accurate. I understand that this is subjective, but try it…you may like it!
So those are my general tips. Here are some of the highlights of our trip:
My personal highlights:
-The day-to-day interactions with the Japanese people. Engaging with the Japanese people was an absolute pleasure. Whether it was the old man on our first train ride who recognized that we were tourists and tried his best to wish us a good time in English. Or the man who was sitting next to us at the Tokyo Swallows baseball game who gifted us a Swallows “umbrella” (the fans lift umbrellas when the team scores a run). Or the man who chased me out of a train to hand me a souvenir bag I’d forgotten. Or the guy in McDonalds who noticed that I was struggling to order an extra barbecue sauce and approached me by saying “may I help you kind sir, it would be my pleasure.” I get teared up thinking about it. It goes on and on. Just lovely and respectful people.
-Our “private” sushi experience. One of those “go with the flow” decisions, we had sushi at the restaurant in the basement of our hotel in Tokyo (hotel metropolitan Edmont). There was nobody else in the restaurant and the chef prepared the dinner menu right in front of us. Everything was so fresh and delicious. Could there have been better, or cheaper, sushi alternatives? I’m sure of it, but for us, it was the sushi experience of a lifetime.
-Daigo-ji Temple in Kyoto. This was by far my favorite temple in Japan. The zen garden, the pagoda, the grounds, all of it.
-Himeji Castle and Koko-en. This was my favorite morning of the trip. We got to Himeji early and walked the area surrounding the castle. The cherry blossoms were exploding. Then we found a zen garden nearby with the best display of Koi fish that we saw in Japan. It was so tranquil and serene and the whole thing felt like it wasn’t even real.
-Mount Yoshino. This was the only “real” hike that we did in Japan and it was so memorable. The fact that it was peak cherry blossom viewing was the distinguishing factor, though. It took us probably 90 minutes to meander up the mountain from Yoshino Station early in the morning, and it was already packed with Japanese people enjoying their weekend. The pathway is lined with shops and stands, and on the way down the mountain I decided to booze (unlike me) and had an absolute blast. It was liberating to drink openly in a setting like that. Looked like there were lots of neat traditional Japanese inns on the mountain.
-Meiji Jingu shrine in the early morning. I walked from our hotel to Meiji Jingu at around 6am and it was just beautiful. The monks were out sweeping and there were maybe five other people in the grounds.
-Japanese baseball. We went to a Tokyo Swallows game at Meiji Jingu Stadium. Even if you don’t enjoy baseball, I think anyone would enjoy the atmosphere and environment at a Japanese baseball game. They are just so passionate about it and it’s a beautiful thing to behold. The stadium was clean and even the “stadium prices” for food and beer were reasonable. It was everything that American baseball should be. Get tickets to Japanese baseball. You won’t regret it.
There are too many highlights to list in details. Those are just a few of things that had an impact on us. Almost all of it was amazing. Some others:
-Pokémon Center hunting and Pokémon card hunting in Tokyo
-Andaz rooftop bar (awesome cocktails and view but very expensive comparatively)
-TeamLab Planets
-Shibuya Crossing from above
-Gyoen National Garden
-Senso-Ji
-Kyoto samurai experience
-Kinkaku-ji
-Pipiko (awesome a la carte taco bar in Kyoto, go on Tuesday’s for a discount)
-Lake Kawaguchiko walk to Oishi Park
-Feed the deer in Nara Park
-Hiroshima Peace Museum and A-bomb Dome
-Arashiyama Bamboo Forest
-Nintendo World at Universal Studios
The lowlights:
-Kabukicho. After checking out the lights and wandering around for a few minutes I was done with Kabukicho. I didn’t like the vibe there and felt…unsafe on some of the less-busy streets. It was definitely an outlier in terms of areas we visited in Japan. It didn’t help that I slipped and fell on a massive pile of vomit while walking through a huge crowd near the station.
-Minions at Universal. My wife really wanted to go on this ride and so we waited two hours in line. The ride itself was a letdown in my opinion. Lots of talking and instructions in the lead-up just to sit in a stationary car for a couple minutes.
-Other tourists. I can’t complain about the amount of tourists or crowds themselves, since we were there contributing to the number of people. Yes, it’s busy, particularly at peak travel times. But the actual behavior at popular tourist locations, “Instagram spots”, and hotel lobbies is depressing. 90% of people are totally fine and polite, but there were far more obnoxious and annoying tourists that I expected. I try not to generalize, but my observation was that the Americans actually got along pretty well and treated the Japanese well.
I found the English, however, to be a complete international embarrassment. Here are some experiences with English tourists:
-lady yelling at a female Japanese hotel clerk because she wanted to check in at 2:30pm and check-in wasn’t until 3pm.
-English “photographer” at Yasaka Pagoda (Kyoto) telling a Japanese delivery guy to move his car out of the street since it was in shot
-lady calling me out for quickly passing in front of her camera lens
-group of English guys drinking on the train and being loud and obnoxious and clearly annoying Japanese locals
-group of English women essentially trying to get a hotel clerk with poor English to book every experience and restaurant for them in Kyoto
That’s what I can recall off the top of my head. That, and any English person that I happened to be nearby was complaining about something. No sense that they enjoyed being there or appreciated it whatsoever.
So yeah, not sure what’s going on in England, but it was kind of amazing to me.
My advice would be to people-watch at these tourist hotspots. It’s pretty funny, though sad, to see “influencers” all glitzed up for what they thought would be an easy photo shoot in front of some Japanese icon, then to watch the visible look of frustration on their faces when they realize that they’re just not gonna get the perfect shot they want. I’m a huge proponent of taking pictures and preserving memories, and of just doing whatever you like in general so long as it doesn’t disturb others, but don’t make photos the end-all-be-all of these spots. Just try to laugh at the absurdity of everyone taking pretty much the exact same photo a million times over. And, pro-tip, take the photos you want, and if, gasp, some people are in the background, head over to r/photoshoprequest and they’ll fix it for you.
Anyway, that’s what I have to say about Japan and our time there. For us, it was an absolutely beautiful time and an experience we will cherish forever. There were several times that it would randomly just hit me “you’re in Japan right now” and it would make me well up a bit. I think that the best way to experience it is to have a loose itinerary with a willingness to be spontaneous and free. I hope that something in here helps you or impacts your trip to Japan in a positive way. Don’t miss it. Let things roll.
by bernerdude2020
