Hello all!
I'm pretty new to this sub, and while I'm in the process of planning a trip for next year, I figured I'd share my experiences from my first trip to Japan earlier in February with my wife.
Day 0: Arrival
– Arrived at Haneda, set up our e-sims, and made our first foray into the Tokyo subway systems
– After some initial difficulty with the way Google Maps behaves when using the metro, we were able to navigate to our AirBnB in Shin Okubo
– We were pretty exhausted, but still went out to dinner (as we heard the tales of people messing up by going to bed too early on the first day) – our first meal consisted of tempura and sashimi, and I discovered the joy of lemon sours (how are these not more popular internationally?!)
– Finished the evening with a conbini trip (Family Mart was our first (more on that later)).
Day 1: Shinjuku
– Started the day with a Lawsons breakfast (folks were not kidding about these egg salad sandos!!!!)
– Walked from Shin Okubo to Shinjuku as we wanted to stretch our legs a bit.
– We didn't really have a lay of the land, so our first destination was the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. This place was amazing, we got an excellent view of the city (and it was free!!). We also happened to go on a super clear day, so we got to see Fuji-san on our first day 😀
– After a bunch of walking, we found a well-rated chicken ramen place in Shinjuku that is to this day the best ramen I've had in my life.
– We spent the afternoon just wandering around Shinjuku taking in the sights, heading towards Kabukicho as it got dark. We found a little izakaya for dinner (that honestly was not too great – avoid places with too much english signage).
– After dinner we hit up Golden Gai. I absolutely love it there. As a drinker and a smoker, this was heaven to me. We found a couple of rock'n'roll bars and stayed out way too late (worth it!)
Day 2: Yokohama
– We surprisingly woke up (reasonably) early, had a nice breakfast a Lawsons, and hopped on a train a headed down to Yokohama.
– Our first stop was the Chinatown. I know it seems weird to want to visit a Chinatown in Japan, but let me tell you, it is absolutely worth the trip. The whole fried squid was one of the best things I've ever eaten.
– We walked down to the bay, and took a boat tour on a whim. The Gundam was still there (though the display was closed), but we got to see it from the water, and it was pretty reasonably priced.
– From there, we headed to Cosmo World as my wife is quite fond of Ferris Wheels. We got a nice afternoon view of Fuji-san again from the top of the wheel.
– We headed back to Chinatown to grab some dinner at a lively Chinese restaurant before heading back to Shin Okubo.
Day 3: Shibuya
– Another day, another Lawson's egg sando for breakfast. I'll also state for the record that after trying all three of the major chains, my ranking of the conbinis: Lawsons -> Family Mart -> 711
– We took the train down to Shibuya and did the Hatchiko statue and the crossing before heading into town to do some shopping.
– My main goal was to hit up Tower Records. I found some really cool LPs and some CDs of some of my favorite Japanese bands (Maximum the Hormone, Ningen Isu, Band Maid).
– We also shopped at the huge Donki here, where I hit my head pretty bad coming down the stairs too fast 😛 (for the record, I'm 6'3"/190cm – and I was fine)
– We had some kaitenzushi for lunch which was fantastic for the price.
– After doing a bunch of shopping, we headed back to our AirBnB to unload our treasures before heading back out to explore our neighborhood a bit and find something for dinner.
– We stumbled across a local ramen place where I tried salt ramen for the first time (it wasn't my favorite, but the shop was super nice, and the owner was friendly even though we didn't share a language outside of the few Japanese phrases I learned).
Day 4: Meiji Jungu, Harijuku, Koenji
– We got a little bit of a later start, but we wanted to first hit up a Michelin starred tempura restaurant in Shibuya. It was absolutely amazing.
– From there, we walked to Meiji Jingu and explored the park and the temple. I know this is a super touristy thing to do, but it was well worth it to me. It was really nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city for a bit and enjoy the tranquility of this area.
– From there, we looped around to Harajuku. I don't have much to say about this place – it clearly was not designed for me (I'm a 40 year old man who is not concerned with fashion at all). This part was more for my wife 😛
– After freshening up back at our AirBnB, we went to Koenji to meet up with some people I had met on a forum some time ago.
– We got a little tour of Koenji from a local, and had dinner at a metal-themed restaurant.
– Afterwards, we hit up a bar until we had to leave to catch the last train.
– One of my few regrets was not spending more time in Koenji. I absolutely loved it there.
Day 5: Shinkansen and Osaka Arrival
– We had to be out of our AirBnB pretty early, so we packed our stuff and headed to Tokyo Station to catch our bullet train.
– This is another place we messed up. We had a bunch of luggage, and all the luggage lockers were full. We didn't pack in such a way that we could use the luggage forwarding service, so we were basically stuck in Tokyo Station for hours. We had hoped to explore the area around the station, but that just wasn't feasible with so much luggage 🙁
– We bought some ekiben and drinks for our ride on the green car, and the trip itself was actually quite nice. I loved having the smoking rooms aboard the train, and I was even able to buy more beers once the first ones I bought were gone (apparently this is only available on the Green Car).
– It was actually lightly snowing when we arrived in Osaka
– After a mixup in locating our AirBnB, we finally dropped our stuff and headed out to dinner.
– We found a sukiyaki place with a VERY energetic hostess. I was also able to try horse meat which was surprisingly good.
– We walked around Dotonburi for a bit and snacked before finally heading back to bed.
Thoughts on Tokyo:
We had initially skewed our trip more towards Osaka because we didn't know how much we would enjoy Tokyo. In hindsight, I wish we had split the days a bit more evenly, and started and ended the trip in Tokyo instead of flying out of Osaka. My wife and I were both surprised by how much we loved Tokyo. It was super busy, but it had a charm unlike any other place we've been to. I'm quite excited to explore it more thoroughly on our next trip!
So this post is already super long, so I will turn this into part 1. If there's any interest, I'll be happy to type up our experiences in Osaka, Nara, and Kobe as well. I'm also happy to answer any questions or clarify on any of the stuff from above 🙂
by drgolovacroxby