Trip Report

Hello everyone,

As promised after many were kind enough to answer questions about my upcoming trip to Japan, here is some info on how it went for us. I will try to focus on main points/surprises we encountered so apologies for the length of this post and for the random order. I will be happy to answer questions if anything is unclear. Hopefully this can help some people plan their trip.

For context, we travelled July 1 – July 14 (well 15, but more on that later…). We hit (in order) Osaka, USJ, Kyoto, Kanazawa and Tokyo. We are a family of 4, including 2 kids aged between 9 and 12. I mention this because a lot of posts on reddit and other places are NOT targeted at families. It’s absolutely fine of course but not always helpful for people like us :).

We stayed 4 nights in Osaka (we did not change hotels to go to USJ or Kyoto), 2 in Kanazawa, and 7 in Tokyo (4 nights in Shinjuku, 3 in Ginza).

Main lessons learned (sorry about the random ordering):

• Hotels:
  • Based on a friend’s advice, we did not change hotels in Osaka when we went to USJ and Kyoto. This proved to be great advice for us. With 15-20 minutes of public transit between Osaka and these places, it was great not to have to haul luggage across hotels and have our homebase where we had a decent idea of our surroundings.
  • In Osaka, we had connecting rooms and in other hotels, we looked for larger rooms for 4 people. Beware that if your kids are not small, you may need to look for rooms for 4 adults instead of 2 adults and 2 kids. I don’t know if I am allowed to name places but will be happy to answer if there are question and it’s permitted.
• Crowds:
  • Be prepared for big crowds. Most people are nice, but to be perfectly honest, some groups of Chinese tourists were (1) loud, (2) rude (i.e., cut the line etc.), and (3) overall behaved like they owned places… This was particularly problematic in USJ where there are many lines to take and they let their kids do basically whatever they want…
• Weather:
  • Be prepared for high heat and humidity(we are from Eastern Canada…). Best advice I can give is to head to Don Quijote or something else and buy UV umbrellas. Because there are also downpours, sometimes little, sometimes big, sometimes with gusts of wind. We did not take any windbreakers or rain jackets and considering the heat and humidity we are glad we did not. Otherwise we’d feel like we are sweating in plastic bags lol. On the very hot days, we also got cooling wipes and cooling towelettes that you wear around your neck, helped a lot. These can be bought anywhere really.
  • Based on the previous point, have 2 pairs of shoes: good walking shoes, and something like crocs or whatever, that you can wear if your primary shoes get soaked. Happened to us on our first night literally. Thankfully, there are lots of coin laundry places (including in hotels often), and some (but not all) have sneaker dryers. Yes, you will lose a bit of time doing laundry this way but the alternative is to walk in wet clothes (not cool). We actually did our laundry while eating at a small restaurant one day and it was fantastic. Note that hotel laundry rooms get crowded so it may be worth going to a coin laundry place a block away.
• Itinerary:
  • For Kyoto, we avoided Gion and other crowded areas and did a long walk starting from Tenryu-ji. Loved it and personally I did not miss the IG photos everyone has! Kanazawa is beautiful (Kenroku-en garden is really pretty, the grounds around Kanazawa castle are really nice), less crowded and the people there are very nice. And the more traditional geisha/geigi area in Kanazawa has a lot to offer compared to Kyoto without the crowds so for us it was perfect. We stayed 2 nights but wished we did another to maybe try to go to Uchida. It was a good break from Osaka and before Tokyo.
  • Each area in Tokyo has its own vibe and “pace”, to us it’s different from Osaka where it felt like the city was “one”. We did Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ginza, and to a lesser extent Minato, Asakusa, Ueno and Odaiba. I think we did quite a bit but there are many things to see.
• Transportation:
  • Train tickets: you can purchase train tickets from abroad but we had mixed results: JR West worked well with my MC but not with my Visa prior to arrival. With JR East, I could never buy tickets online. So we had to go to Tokyo Station to buy the tickets at a machine and there my Visa worked. It’s really a problem with online payment processing and it’s a hit and miss.
  • Metro and train tickets: Use the machines, they always have an English version available and after a bit of a trial-and-error process, you get the hang of it and all is good. If you buy Shinkansen tickets and the machine gives you multiple tickets per person, you are to stack them when you validate them at the gate. Took us a while to figure that out…
• Hauling stuff:
  • Don’t bother with big suitcases if you can. Come in light, buy an extra suitcase (again, Don Quijote etc.) and fill it up toward the end of the trip so that you only have 1 extra suitcase. We actually had a small duffel bag folded in a carry on that we could hang on the carry on’s handle when we started buying stuff. Eventually we got a suitcase but it allowed us to make it to Tokyo without having to drag extra luggage, which was great.
  • Not all places/metro/train stations have elevators, and when they do, they tend to be small. So again, travel light. Because there are many stairs to climb up and down. When you are rushing to catch a train, it’s a pain to break your back and arms carrying heavy things.
• Money/Paying for stuff:
  • Cash vs credit cards etc.: We left with a chunk of cash, which we used but we only encountered one or two places that really did not accept cards. Even cabs were 100% fine with CCs. The only odd thing is that not too many places let you tap (7-11 and Starbucks do though), but you can always insert your card and sometimes you may not even have to put your pin. You should have a card with a chip, not just a magnetic band. And there are many ATMs that let you withdraw.
  • Tax-free shopping: the amount to get the 10% tax back is low (approx.. 5000 yen) so you often have the opportunity to shop tax-free. On that, we found a range of ways of handling it: some stores remove it straight from the price (best!), others will ask you to go to a tax-free counter (long lines…), others require you to install an App and register. Sometimes there is a cut of the tax refund that you lose, sometimes not. And some stores simply do not participate in the tax-free program. Usually, they have a sticker that shows they do.
  • Tipping was never expected or asked for, and we never tipped. The only place that had a tip jar was some halal shawarmas stand in Harajuku that was definitely not run by Japanese people. So, forget about tipping and enjoy that, we sure did.
• Getting around:
  • You will walk. A lot. And that’s ok. We averaged about 15k to 20k steps a day. The kids were real troopers. But with the heat and humidity, we always did frequent stops for vending machines (Pocari Sweat for the win!) which will typically accept cash and some IC cards (e.g., Suica) but not always CCs, and you can always walk into a store because AC runs everywhere. Great part for me is that the AC was there but it was never super cold, so we were always in shorts and t-shirt from 8am until bed time, whether inside or outside. Because of the amount of walking and seeing some people in wheelchairs or crutches struggle around, I would honestly say that if you are not ready to walk a lot, you probably want to wait until you are ready to enjoy a trip to Japan.
  • Navigation: Google Maps was super useful for navigating transportation in Osaka and Tokyo. It tells you what your options are, where to go, which car to enter, which exit to look for etc. The only issue is that underground and sometimes outside, the gps signal/positioning does not work well so it gets confusing. Just make sure you have some leeway to get around is the best advice I can give. And have patience, it’s frustrating but also part of the experience. Our kids actually helped us spot things lol.
  • There are many fun things to look for as you walk around: could be cute manhole covers, eki stamp stations, Pokemon stuff etc. you can plan walks based on those (we did the Sailor Moon manhole covers in Minato) but sometimes it’s just a fun surprise as you get on your way somewhere.
  • If you go to Teamlabs Planet in Tokyo, take advantage of being around there to go to Odaiba see the Gundam base and the mall around there. Otherwise, it’s a bit out of ways from typical Tokyo attractions to be honest. We enjoyed Teamlabs. However, we did not enjoy the Tokyo Art Aquarium Museum. It wasn’t that spectacular to us to be honest, especially for the price we paid.
  • We got ICOCA cards in Osaka as the kids don't have their own phones. These worked great but to be honest we could have done without them in the end as we bought metro tickets "manually". We did find them convenient to pay at the laundromat though interestingly enough.
• Specific to USJ:
  • Buy the express pass. It will cost a lot, but without it, I find the parc is largely inaccessible in terms of rides. We were there on a Wednesday which is supposed to be less busy but it was crazy busy. We arrived after door opening though because we already had our timed entries for Harry Potter and Super Nintendo World and we did not feel like dying in the 7am heat before even entering the park. Reserve a spot at one of the restaurants as soon as you arrive though. We did not and it sucked… For the park tickets we used a reseller as the USJ app and websites were not good with foreign credit cards.
  • Everything at USJ is very expensive and on par with other big parks. We looked at it like a once in a lifetime kind of thing with the kids. We bought the Harry Potter wands that are supposed to allow you to do interactive stuff in the park. This was very disappointing as the lines were very long for those and it just does not work very well… The Mario Power Up Bands are more fun and the key challenges are nice to complete because that unlocks a final challenge. The Mario Kart VR thing is fun, the Yoshi ride is… underwhelming unless your kids are very young. Kids really liked the Harry Potter rides though.
• Food:
  • Restaurants are usually somewhat small, and people have no issue lining up for a long time to get a spot. Dropping unannounced is not always feasible. My advice is that if you really want to eat somewhere, make a reservation or ask the hotel staff to help you with that. Beware that some restaurants allow smoking and therefore can refuse service to families with kids. Also, you will probably feel cramped up compared to North American restaurants. But man, there are a lot of options, and pretty much every building you see has one or more floors of great food options. There are still many stores that have lines due to limited capacity inside so expect to wait to enter some stores.
  • Also, many places sell great food but have no space to sit… And we did not find many food courts where there are tables and you just bring your food. So my guess if you are expected to eat it at home/at your desk etc.? Either way, sometimes it’s a bit disappointing because you want to get food but have nowhere to eat it.
• Misc:
  • If your kids like arcades: most arcades span multiple floors, and kids are allowed, but after 10pm they are not if they are under 16 if I remember. We actually got told off nicely one night as we were trying to catch jetlag. Wasn’t an issue at all, we just finished our game and left and apologized.
  • Trash cans: There are trash cans, just not everywhere. Especially around vending machines there is typically a container for empty bottles. I had a Ziploc bag in my backpack and every day, I emptied in our room. On that, note that some of our hotels had a note stating that large garbage disposal was possible, but at a cost.
  • Washrooms: we never had issues finding a public washroom that was super clear and well maintained.
  • Our return flight was cancelled so we had to scramble to find lodging etc. for another night. Hotel staff was super helpful, and we had a lot of time to kill at Narita so we went to Aeon Mall. It’s a mall but there’s shops, a good food court, and an arcade so that helps to kill time.
  • I got a 10 Gb eSIM (US $17) from the most recommended provider here (for an iPhone). It worked well but I found it slow and lagging to get that first connection running everytime I unlocked my phone after a while. I only did navigation and some random sites, no streaming and by the end of the trip, I had almost used all of it.
• Language:
  • Many people speak a bit of English, but in most restaurants, there are either pictures or English menus available or both. In addition, many people in stores, etc. have apps on their phone where they speak and it translates and you can do the same. We found Google and Deepl and the Translate app on the iPhone useful to take pics and get translations. The point is we never experienced critical issues with this, we were even able to change train tickets etc. this way.
• Things we did NOT do:
  • Onsen/Ryokan: we are not fans of this and considering the high heat, we figured going into a hot bath would not feel super good. Our pit stops were also not the best locations for that. Our kids were also not excited for this so we just did not do it. Another time of the year might be a good opportunity to try it though!
  • Ghibli museum: Could not get tickets for it :-/

That's it, sorry for the length again. We had an amazing trip and the post Japan trip depression is now settling in ;-). Happy to reply if there are questions!

Cheers!