Trip Report – 14 days in Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, and Hakone

Weather is fun!

* As the trip got closer, we noticed the weather report was notably wet. Rain every day for 5 days. That prediction stayed pretty solid right up to landing as it was raining when we landed so we hit a FamilyMart and grabbed some umbrellas.
* My backpack was not waterproof. This wasn’t too big of a problem as long as I thought about it. Storing our goshuinchos and a journal in a ziplock bag I’d brought plane snacks in.
* My shoes were also not waterproof and weren’t really great for prolonged tourism in the rain. I was really, really happy when everything dried up later in the week. I probably should have just bought some new shoes but I was stubborn.

Language is fun!

* I spent about 4 months studying some Japanese before I went, mostly just conversational stuff so I could ask for things, be polite, and handle myself. That was an overly ambitious goal, but I knew that going in. I knew I’d be learning overly polite forms of everything. It was definitely time well spent to help me get around.
* There were three types of responses I’d get when trying to handle interactions in Japanese:
* They’d be very excited I was even trying to use Japanese, encouraging me through it all and working with me.
* They’d not care either way and just do the transaction.
* They wouldn’t understand me, or try to guide me towards just using English
* Interactions where I felt like I’d done well or where I was encouraged really made me want to keep studying even now that I’m back.
* The ones where I felt like I was getting eye-rolled were almost always in super touristy areas and its probably my bad not just launching into English at the start. I was usually pretty good at gauging that but definitely had some bad misses. You can’t be perfect for two weeks, in my experience.

Food is delicious!

* We went in without reservations for anything and the intent to just find things for lunch and dinner. It worked out really well with only a couple of long waits for meals.
* Once at a Sushiro in Ueno on a Friday night because… well.. I mean Ueno was finally dry and it looked like it was date night. Everyone and their mom was out eating in Ueno.
* Once at a Tonkatsu place in Porto by Kyoto station… and… the place was hopping. The whole restaurant block in Porto had lines and I had at least learned how to use the reception machines without even needing a language.
* We only ate at one spot that needed a reservation, but without one because my card kept declining the transaction to set one up. It was a Sukiyaki restaurant next door to our ryokan near Hakone-Yumoto. They just needed about 10 minutes to get set up and got us into quite possibly our most memorable dinner of the entire trip.
* Some of the other memorable restaurants we ate at were the kind of places with like 5 – 10 seats and an old lady chain smoking at the seat closest to the door. A little tiny izakaya that only serves karaage, but its the best karaage you’ve eaten. Those were the kind of places we really enjoyed.

Shipping your Luggage is AWESOME

* We shipped two times, Tokyo -> Kyoto and then Kyoto -> Hakone, and it was pretty awesome. We just carried backpacks and got where we were headed.
* We opted not to ship from Hakone to our hotel by Haneda and it honestly wasn’t that awful. We reserved seats with the extra baggage area from Odawara to Shinegawa. It went fine. We stored them in Odawara for a bit so we could run to a place, and it was pretty easy to get them on the Keikyu line to Anamori-Inari.
* Coin lockers can be hit or miss. We found them in Odawara but they were a particularly expensive bank. The less expensive banks were completely packed.

A lot of places are awesome

* I thought Nara was a really cool place to spend a day. I found the deer adorable. We worked our way through the deer and park to Kasuga Taisha. We grabbed lunch at a small Thai restaurant and then hit the Isui -en Gardens.
* Climbing Mount Takao was a great experience, even if it was raining a bit. We went up the “easy” path which was pretty hard for my wife. Yakou-in Temple was really cool and had some amazing views. We had some soba at a restaurant by the cable car landing and it was delicious, as was the cablecar down.
* Ueno was an amazing place to select as a base of ops for Tokyo. Our hotel was only 5 minutes from the station which made getting around easy. Ueno park is beautiful in the rain, beautiful dry, and an awesome party atmosphere thanks to the Cherry Blossoms. There are also a lot of great places to eat and most everything outside of the Ameyoko area doesn’t have bad waits.
* It was also great for running, because I could hop on the train to Tokyo station and run around the Imperial Palace, or just run to the Sumida river and follow the paths there for miles.
* For me, at least, Fushimi Inari Taiga was the best spot in Kyoto. We went early and hiked all the way up and enjoyed the atmosphere. Early morning casts a lot of great light everywhere and my wife and I found it simply magical. By the time the hike was over, things were open and we could get our goshuin and have breakfast at a cafe.