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|Itinerary | Accommodation|Nights|
|:-|:-|
|Tokyo | Nakano|5|
|Nagano| Yudanka|1|
|Takayama | West of Train Station|2|
|Osaka | Shinsaibashi|3|
|Kyoto | Nijo|3|
|Tokyo | Shimokita|2|
Hey All –
Just finished a trip with my partner of around 17 days 16 nights. Since the country was just opening up and more of us are planning trips, figured I’d give some of my impressions. It was my second time going and my partners first, we’re late 30s just for context.
**Overall**
* Google Maps app is the key to the experience, its very good in the cities we went to. Excellent in Tokyo.
* Google Translate and Lens are essential, english isn’t widely spoken. A lot of places have english menus. A lot of the really good places we found, didn’t. Google translate helped when chatting with bartenders, cooks, random folks in shops. Found many people in the service industry were used to using it to communicate.
* That said, we took the time to learn some key phrases and it seemed to take you pretty far. Very polite culture so we found we got a much better response when we could say a few things but then apologized at the limit of our japanese and used google. very issues and i think folks appreciated the effort. Idiots guide to Conversational Japanese was super helpful here.
* Get a Suica immediately. Put a bunch of cash on there, so you dont have to worry. But also…
* Bring or Get a coin purse. I used a small tech pouch for currency, it made things so much easier when paying and avoiding fishing around in bags and pockets at the pay counter.
* The exchange rate to the USD was lovely and inspired more shopping than I had planned.
* Getting around is super efficient but can take more time than you’re expecting. Especially when transferring lines. Some times they are clear across the station.
* Don’t try and do too much. Plan an open day in all the places if your trip can afford it.
* The best experiences (food in particular) were stumbling into places based on where you were and what looked good on google maps.
* Make sure you buy both fare tickets when traveling on the Shinkansen and Express Trains.
* Beers are great but Highballs and Chu-Hi(?) were more popular with locals in a lot of the places.
* the good Coffee spots aren’t open until 10 am sometimes, so plan accordingly if you need that to start your day. Tokyo this was less of a problem depending on the area.
* The thrift trend is alive and well and its all american stuff usually like college sweatshirts or small town tshirts. Quite funny when you recognize the places and see people wearing them just for fashion.
* Did the math and we opted to not do the JR pass as we would have paid for a 14 day but actually only would have really used it a few times. Also we wanted to take the Nozomi (train nerd)
* Japans bakeries might exceed what I had in my travels in europe. Same level at minimum
* Do food/Drink tours at least one night in each city. It can be touristy but we met some cool folks from around the world and get a layer deeper than we other wise would have. Make sure you book one that gives you contact info and/or a place to go if you’re late. We booked one and got turned around in shinjuku and they left us with no recourse or way to catch up.
**Tokyo** (1st round)
* Stayed in Higashi Nakano. Quiet area 2 stops away from Shinjuku, 1 stop away from Nakano. Thought this was a great area to stay in for proximity to transit hubs and tourist districts without having to be directly in the mix all the time. There’s a great coffee shop right by the station.
* Did a day trip to Kawaguchiko to see the Mountain. Covered by clouds per usual but still a nice day trip, Fall foliage!
* After what happened in Seoul we opted not to do much for Halloween so we stayed away and met a friend in Kichijoji.
* Tourist volume was low during this part. Mostly domestic Japanese, Singaporeans, Koreans, some Chinese. Not very many westerners, very few americans. Personally this was great.
* Highlights: Teamlab: Planets. Shopping in Harajuku. Tokyo Nat Museum. Nezu. Nights out Kichijoji, Nakano and Nishi-Shinjuku( the bar below Bar Benfiddich, was enough for us)
* Lowlights: 21\_21 Design. This makes all the top museum lists but the exhibition was sort of blah and there wasn’t much else to look at.
**Nagano/Yudanaka/Takayama**
* Onsen and Ryokan experience was a highlight.
* Snow Monkeys weren’t really in the park and that was the whole reason we went to Nagano/Yudanaka Check the cams and see if they’re there when you go. Otherwise you can get the monkey experience in Kyoto.
* On hindsight we would have loved more time in Nagano, if nothing but for the apples were being harvested and there was delicious Cider and pastries on offer everywhere.
* Takayama beautiful and nice change of scenery from urban sprawl Tokyo. Took a while to get there via train but was nice ride through the mountains.
* Dinner spots opened a bit later than our bodies were ready for.
* Boulangerie Noboriya. Wow. Some really delicious french type pastries.
* Hida Folk Village we thought was cool.
* Hida Beef rivals Kobe Beef.
* Home of wood carving and carpentry, suggest getting something carved by them to support the local craft. there are shops around where they are carving right there.
**Osaka**
* Highlight of the trip as it was both of our first times.
* Berlin is one of the fav cities and this was big Berlin vibes.
* Food, nightlife, the people were friendly. Did the food tour and it was worth it. Lost a morning being hungover but again worth it.
* Wanted to do more like Universal, Sakai, Wakayama, Okayama, Hiroshima but decided against trying to over extend ourselves and just enjoy walking around a place.
* Shoutout to Dragon Coffee. Such a nice guy, let us try his nitro cold brew, “tayaki mandarin oranges”. All just for hanging out and chatting with him. Great pour over.
* Shoutout to Tower Knives.
**Kyoto**
* Go to House of Kin No Bi, especially if you like the gin.
* This is was the most touristy portion of the trip i would say. Most of the main spots are tourist spots so we tried to get them out of the way. Temples, Bamboo forest, Imperial Palace…all had tour buses of people.
* Highlights here were Kin No Bi and dinner at Bun Jo. Its a bit of challenge making reservations at some places because of the Japanese websites but if you can make it work its worth it.
* Stay on the imperial side of town I think. Liked our spot but would have been way more convenient to stay near city hall.
Tokyo (2nd Time)
* Stayed at an urban onsen type near Shimokitazawa. (Yuen Bettei) place that was great to end the trip with relaxation and stroll through the neighborhood.
* Shimokita was noted as one of the best hoods in the world and its easy to see why. Cafes, thrift shops, antiques, food and music bars. Not everything was up and running but you could see the potential.
* strolled through Shibuya just to see it and kinda immediately regretted leaving the area.
* We did do Shibuya Sky, some of the best views in the city, but experience was that of Any Global City With A Tall Tower. Still it was really well done.
Thats it! Happy trip planning y’all. Left a lot out but still this was probably longer than it needed to be. Happy to answer any questions or make recs here or in DMs .