Post themes: hindsight successes and regrets, food/drink, museums/art, bathhouse/spa experiences
My friend and I visited Tokyo and Kyoto from 2/28-3/9, and here’s how it went! For context, we are both in our mid-30s and this was our first trip to Japan. We are both pretty experienced and flexible travelers. I did most of the planning, finding stuff through various channels – google searches, social media, friend recommendations, etc., and I generally scheduled one set thing per day, and before/after that we decided what else to do on the spot. We spent the first 5 days in Tokyo, then 3 days in Kyoto, then my friend (who only had a week off) left and I spent the last 5 days back in Tokyo by myself. I’m writing this up as observations in different categories, rather than a daily blow-by-blow, leaving out things that were just okay or didn’t make a huge impression. It’s pretty long so hopefully the categorization is helpful. 🙂
**Transportation**
* Do use the Visit Japan Web page to fill out all your forms ahead of time. Confusingly, the website says: *”No longer required to register your passport and answer the questions on the web for the Quarantine process (Fast Track) from Dec. 28, 2022. Due to these updates, QR code for Quarantine will not be shown any longer.”* I don’t know what that is actually referring to, because the website is still having you enter your passport and is indeed giving you QR codes for immigration and customs. I’m glad we forged ahead and completed the process anyway because it’s definitely what the border officials expected everyone to have done. There were a handful of people who didn’t seem to have completed it, and it looked like they were having them fill it out online on the spot.
* A foot sling (like the kind that slips over your tray table, I got mine on amazon) and a Trtl travel pillow were *game changers* for me from the last time I traveled internationally.
* Taking the train from the airport into the city was an issue, purely from our bad planning. We weren’t able to get cash until the next day, which wouldn’t have been a problem except all the train ticket machines only take cash. Thinking back, I vaguely remember reading that all subway ticket machines only took cash, but it didn’t sink in at the time…my bad on that one. In the end, I loitered around the ticket machines listening for someone speaking English, and then asked if they would buy us tickets if I venmoed them money. It took a few tries but worked out. 0/10 would not recommend, but ∞ /10 to the fellow travelers taking pity on me, the idiot.
* On that same note, I regret not spending more time before we left making the suica/pasmo app work on my phone. I gave up quickly because, like for other people, it wasn’t working with my Visa card (which had no foreign transaction fees). But with the hassle of having to get cash out to reload, plus the ATM fees, it would have been worth it to use my Mastercard, fees and all. Given the chance to redo the whole scenario, I probably would have gotten a no-foreign-fee Mastercard before I left.
* I found the Tokyo subway system easy to use through google maps to get directions, and google gave us all the information we needed. It’s super convenient that there are platform numbers, station numbers, clear exit numbers, and that the times are so precise that even if you’re not completely sure it’s your train, if it’s the time google maps says, you’re almost guaranteed it’s correct. The MTA could *never*.
* We bought JR rail passes (I know now that didn’t make sense as we were just going to Kyoto and back, but when I initially looked up the price to compare I unknowingly was looking at the Nozomi line price so it appeared more expensive). I didn’t realize that there are actually only a few train stations with JR pass redemption offices in Tokyo (and we missed the one in the airport), so it took more planning than we expected to redeem the vouchers.
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**Language**
* Friend spoke no Japanese, and I only know common phrases (from hours of teenage anime lol). But being confident in those common phrases was super helpful, and I felt much better about interacting with people when I was at least able to greet, thank, compliment the food, and apologize in Japanese. I had basically no understanding of what they might say back, but I do think coming prepared to at least start the conversation in Japanese before asking to switch to English was good.
* Most people we interacted with had some English, and were happy to work through google translate for anything else. Everyone was very polite and accommodating through our inevitable communication difficulties, although we were mostly in more touristy areas.
* It was pretty common for people to revert back to Japanese after a few sentences in English. Depending on how badly we needed to know what they were saying, we either thanked them and moved on, or gave them a sheepish confused look and they would try again in English or get out a translator.
* The difference in speaking volume is *astronomical*. Any time we were in public, we were at a true whisper, even in restaurants. Like, even quieter than a library whisper. Friend has a pretty loud speaking voice normally – he applied a lot of willpower to maintain a low volume and he was comfortable with me shushing him if he started slipping. We had some good running jokes about it and were happy to follow along with the norms and make the effort, but I was blown away by just how big the comparative difference was to our Western norm.
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**Food/drink**
* Dietary restrictions: Friend is vegetarian, and we were a little challenged finding vegetarian food. When we said vegetarian, most people assumed fish was okay, and we had to further specify, and often he was stuck eating a random collection of side dishes. We didn’t think about this beforehand and probably should have done more research on restaurants. He’s not particularly a foodie though, so it was ultimately fine.
* Sakurai tea experience: 5,200 yen for a tea tasting set could definitely be out of some folks’ budget, but it was easily one of my favorite things we did. We were thinking of booking a classic tea ceremony experience but ended up doing this instead, and I think the quality and diversity of tea and artistry of the employees at this place far surpassed what we would have experienced elsewhere. We booked it in advance through the website; I don’t know if they take walk-ins as it is quite small. A little confusing to find – the lobby of the shopping building it’s located in looked to me like you were entering just one store, rather than a general lobby.
* Udatsu: booked directly through the website. I got the lunch set without appetizers. It was good, but nothing phenomenal – the fish was clearly excellent quality and very fresh, but I’ve had more interesting sushi for less in New York. Not worth the hype imo.
* Nogizaka Shin: booked through ikyu (tabelog wasn’t accepting my phone number no matter how I entered it). I did the chef’s recommended dinner set. This was a super cool experience – much more traditional, all the dishes were so beautiful, lovely flavor combinations I had never had, and it was definitely a more off-the-beaten path place for tourists. The owner spoke good English and explained all the dishes, chatted with me, and recommended excellent sake. However, I don’t think I would go back – everything was delicious but there were only a few things I was absolutely obsessed with, and I would rather spend the money trying new things.
* Dashi Chazuke En: a chain specializing in chazuke, tea broth poured over a rice and fish bowl. This was one of the best meals I ate in Tokyo, and so incredibly cheap (between 700-1200 yen for a set). You order from a vending machine (you could switch the language to English) and then seat yourself and give the ticket to the waitstaff. There are multiple locations all throughout Tokyo (often in shopping buildings the bottom food court level) and it’s such a fast, amazingly flavorful meal. I went as often as I could!
* Shiki no Daidokoro: another chain, this one for set meals with meat and rice cooked in a traditional earthenware pot. Again, so fast, so delicious, and so cheap (800-1200 yen I believe). They didn’t have English menus but I used DeepL to translate the pictures. When I googled the restaurant name, I got a bunch of random stores, so [here](https://www.shikinodaidokoro.co.jp/restaurants) is the website.
* Shinpachi shokudo: a final chain, with set meals of charcoal grilled fish. Here you order from a screen at each seat and again there’s no English, so I chose based off of the photos. The fish I got was so incredibly delicious and, as always, fast and cheap. Overall, I am far more impressed with the “fast” food in Japan than any of the expensive meals we had!
**Bathhouse/spas**
One of the big things I was excited to do was get a bunch of spa treatments I’ve seen on the youtube channel ASMR Twix, so that’s most of this section 🙂 I made an account with hotpepper, the booking site most often linked in the Twix youtube comments. Generally, using the site through a translator was super easy, but one thing I found frustrating was around the “coupons” that spas would do (basically like a set course of their popular offerings for slightly cheaper). I was booking in mid-January for a appointments happening in the first week of March, and all the coupons I saw expired at the end of February. I booked one appointment through the regular menu, and then, even though it felt like a risk, waited until the next round of coupons for March was up on the website during the last week of February. There were still plenty of appointments available so it ended up being totally fine. When I booked the appointment, I would put something to the effect of “I don’t speak Japanese so will use a translation app” in the comment section when I was booking the appointment. All the estheticians I saw spoke minimal English but had the translators up and running when I arrived, so overall it was easy to communicate.
* Vivace: I booked through their website and did the 2 hr bi-zen facial with Mari Funatsu; in my message I gave them a list of about 5 days that could work and thankfully was able to get an appointment. I was so desperate to go here I booked this even before hotels lol. It was all of my hopes and dreams and everything I could have asked for; she is so amazing and I cannot fully describe how good everything felt. I’ve gotten more expensive facials here in the US and none of them have been nearly this good in terms of facial massage; I would have immediately booked another session right there if I could have. [youtube link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQUlRKV2UdU&t=2s)
* Rienge Head SPA: I did a 60 minute head spa with a bunch of add-ons – the 5-step tokio treatment, carbonated head soak, doro cleansing mud, and ear massage. The esthetician was so lovely and so kind and the head massage she did was intense and amazing. I could not believe how shiny my hair was after this! I’m really glad I went here but don’t know if I would go back – I didn’t realize until after I booked this that it was like 40 minutes outside of central Tokyo. I already had my heart set on it so I didn’t cancel, but keep that in mind if you are looking – even if it is technically in Tokyo it could still be a long way away. [youtube link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGQfVcbXPTk)
* Head Spa Salon VELETA: I got a 60 minute herb peeling pack (so, nothing like what was shown in the video but it’s what I felt like). The pack smelled so good and definitely did give a bit of a glow! I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more massage during the appointment (just a quick decollete and longer face massage) but I still enjoyed it. [youtube link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZWoCWuIjRE)
* Head Mania: I went to the Shinjuku location for a 60 minute sleep dry head spa. This was the only one I didn’t love; the person was just kind of going through the session by rote rather than really feeling was he was doing (like, no thank you I don’t need my shoulder *blade* massaged). It wasn’t terrible, and I didn’t know enough Japanese or care enough to try to speak up about it, but I definitely wouldn’t go back. Probably with a different staff member it could be better. [youtube link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLGNZdfe800&t=5s)
* Spa LaQua: huge spa complex with lots of different baths, saunas, and a large restaurant and relaxation facility. I went on a weekend so it was more expensive. I additionally paid extra for the Healing Baden section, which I don’t think was really worth it for a few extra sauna rooms, although that section was clothed and not segregated by gender so it could be worth it if you went with a bunch of people and wanted to all hang out. I enjoyed the variety of baths and the milky carbonated bath especially.
A final note around bathhouses- I am a cis woman, but my clothes, haircut, and vibe lean masculine, especially with a mask on. I had a number of instances where people tried to tell me I was in the wrong bathroom. The first time I was taken by surprise and the only thing I could think of was to pull my shirt taut and like, cup my boob (lol), and after that I looked up how to say “I’m a woman.” I also had a wildly confusing experience in a small local bathhouse where I couldn’t find the locker number they had given me; I was going back down to the desk for help when I realized the bracelet I had was the color of the ones other men had, so I needed to let them know I was a woman so they could swap out for the correct locker key. After that I started pulling my shirt tight across my boobs and verifying the color coding in case I needed to clarify whenever I went to a bathhouse. There were a lot of other little instances of people I interacted with confusing me for a man; I’m not taking offense as I’m assuming the overall intent was benign, not to police my gender. But, if you are somewhere on the gender non-conforming spectrum you may want to think through in advance how you’d be comfortable handling this possibility.
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**Museums/art**
* Tokyo National Museum: definitely worth a visit, but we did not go in feeling like we needed to see everything and only visited the main building. Highlights for us were the textiles, lacquer boxes and tools for incense, and ukiyo-e prints.
* Shitamachi Museum (Tokyo): we had a great experience here. It’s quite small, but I loved how it is set up like distinct living spaces; it felt much more alive to me. It just happened that an English-speaking museum employee greeted us after we bought our tickets and guided us around. I’m not sure how one would replicate that (maybe you can book a guided tour in advance?), and I don’t know if it would have been quite as lovely without the guide. But certainly worth the 300 yen either way!
* Nezu Museum (Tokyo): This one was a one of the most expensive museums (1200 yen I think), and I don’t think the exhibits were worth the price – it was quite small and very austere-feeling. But the surrounding gardens are *stunning*. It looked like there were tea houses, and perhaps one can book a tea ceremony here; that’s definitely something I would look for on a future trip.
* TeamLab Tokyo Planet: lives up to the hype! We got tickets a few weeks in advance for the earliest time slot (10:00-10:30), got in line around 9:45, and were in around 10:15. It was busy, but not crowded.
* Shoyeido incense: We booked a free factory tour through their website and it was wonderful. The woman gave us a quick overview of the different types of materials incense is made out of, then walked us through the small section of the factory where we saw people working on various stages of the incense. Very cool!
* Theater performances: We went to two performances of traditional theater. The first was a collection of kyogen in Kyoto, which I booked through LivePocket Ticket. It was very interesting to see the differences between this and Western theater, and there was a short English synopsis of the acts in the program. The second was a kabuki performance in Tokyo, which I booked through the Japan Arts Council [website](https://www.ntj.jac.go.jp/). They do have an English website, but I found that if I used the Japanese site with a translator, I was able to see more performances than I could on the English site, go figure. The kabuki performance was visually stunning and had a lot more action to follow and more musical accompaniment. We knew going into these that we would miss a lot because of the language barrier (and we definitely did) but I’m glad we saw them.
* Kyoto City Heiankyo Souseikan: a very small museum with dioramas of Kyoto when it was Heiankyo, the capital. I was pretty disappointed in this (though it was free). There was one huge diorama of the whole city, a handful of various artifacts, a larger diorama of a section of a palace, and some art. There was very little information in English which definitely made it less engaging to me. It did look like there was possibly an interactive section with a traditional game, kimono, and calligraphy, so maybe that’s something one could book?
* Kyoto Costume Museum: I really enjoyed this, although it wasn’t what I expected from a “costume” museum. This also had a lot of dioramas, but larger scale, showing different scenes from a Heian era-palace (many of the scenes were taken specifically from contemporary literature). The scenes all had little dolls dressed meticulously in court robes, and it was really carefully laid out. There were three mannequins with real life-sized court outfits. It was a small museum and I was definitely expecting more in the way of textiles and extant garments, but I found it lovely nonetheless. But don’t go expecting to see lots of real historical kimono and information about textiles.
**Masking**
* Masks are definitely still a thing, even outside. The overwhelming majority of people were wearing them everywhere (minus restaurants), although the mask-down-below-your-nose was pretty common and seemed acceptable inside as well. However, the majority of (assumed) white people were maskless outside and occasionally inside. Not passing judgement, just an observation. We felt most comfortable following others’ lead and doing whatever the majority around us were doing. This differed a little bit by area and demographic – there were more younger people in Shibuya with masks off, for example. However, as of 3/13, the mask mandate is lifting so who knows what it will be like now.
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**Other thoughts**
* Morning activities: Because of jetlag, the first week we were up and ready to go most mornings by 7:30 am. In hindsight I wish I had prepared a list of activities we could have selected from during this time, since the main stuff wasn’t open. We ended up using that time to just wander around, and one morning went to see a temple bell ringing at 6 am which was cool, but I think we could have made better use of the time if I had planned ahead.
* Phone plan: I used ubigi after reading recommendations on here. I screwed up the settings when I first installed it, but was able to mess around and get it sorted out. I turned my primary esim completely off, which isn’t what it says you have to do, but I wanted to be absolutely sure that I wouldn’t get charged. This meant I couldn’t use imessage or facetime, but whatsapp was my go to anyway. I bought the 30-day, 10 GB plan because I wasn’t sure how much I would need. I was on google maps very frequently, texting and scrolling through social media throughout the day and especially on the trains, and used all but 1.75 GB.
* Entering my name on websites: I saw a comment on here where someone mentioned translating their name into katakana if a website needed a name entered in kana, and this was a super helpful tip in my experience. I did what OP suggested: found some famous people with my name or close to my name on wikipedia, changed the language to Japanese, and cobbled together what I needed from various pages.
* Cash/credit: Most places took cards, but smaller stores and restaurants (especially ones where you placed your order via the vending machine type things) were cash only. In my experience, convenience stores didn’t bat an eye at making change for a 10,000 yen bill for a transaction of only 1,000 yen or so.
* Hotel beds: We wanted a room with two separate beds, which was harder to find than expected (although I was pretty budget conscious in this category so maybe not so challenging if you like fancier rooms). The first hotel I booked was listed as having 2 twin beds, and when I emailed the hotel to confirm, they said that room actually had only a single bed. It had free cancellation, so no problem, but I’m really glad I checked.
* Gifts: We packed a bunch of miniature bottles of maple syrup from our region, and had one or two on us most of the time. I don’t think we were in any situation where gift-giving was even remotely expected, but it felt really nice to be able to give something small but thoughtful to people who went above and beyond for us.
Overall it was an amazing experience and I’m ready to go back right away! Like I said, there’s lots of little stuff I left out, so feel free to ask other questions!