A Celiac’s Trip Report: April 13-28, Tokyo, Kyoto, Yokohama

**Howdy!**

I just got back this past weekend from my trip and I wanted to do a little write up about my experiences. A lot of the posts on here were invaluable for picking and choosing things I wanted to do and what to avoid, and I wanted to give a report from the perspective of someone who absolutely has to avoid gluten in food, as I have Celiac disease. **Note: I employed the services of a company from Australia to act as my scout/interpreter/arranger of food for the trip so that I could eat safely, so when I mention food below keep in mind these guys had pre-scouted the area and found safe places for me to eat**

**Tokyo Accommodations:** [APA Asakusa Kaminarimon](https://www3.apahotel.com/hotel/syutoken/tokyo/asakusa-kaminarimon/)

✈ 📅 **Day One: The one with the 16 hour flight**

* Flew Delta into Haneda, some others flying from the US may have run into this too, because of the volcano in Kamchatka erupting they couldn’t do the usual great circle route so the route from Atlanta into Haneda turned the flight into a 16 hour flight. Oof. (Thank god for Premium Select)

* Landed, made it through customs and immigration in 20 minutes, picked up JR Pass, pocket wifi (I don’t have an unlocked phone), pocket cash, and headed to the taxi stand. After that flight I wasn’t about to try navigating from Haneda to Asakusa via public transport.

* Checked in just fine, dropped my bags, by that time it was 7PM japan time, and all I wanted to do was sleep but I forced myself to stay up to try to get adjusted to local time. So, I showered, changed clothes, and wandered around Asakusa for the evening. Realized I had forgotten my umbrella and ducked into the Don Quijote for one. I tell you what, for my jet lag addled brain that place was crazy to navigate but I got it done. Had dinner at a yakitori place and experienced my first real in country Japanese food, a bunch of chicken skewers and tempura which was awesome. It was delicious.

☔📅 **Day 2: Akihabara/Shibuya**

* Rainy day, so I focused on indoor things. After unpacking I realized I forgot to pack a belt. So I scrambled to find a big and tall store close to my hotel or where I was going and found a place in Akihabara. **For those of us of the bigger persuasion the chain Aoki carries big and tall clothes**. Belt acquired, I did the usual things in Akihabara, played some arcade games in various GiGo arcades, shopped anime stuff and generally bummed around, before heading over to Shibuya.

* First stop in Shibuya was the Shibuya Parco. Mainly went for the Nintendo Store and Pokemon Center, browsed and just generally had a good time. Crowds were pretty heavy though. The Capcom popup was still there and a few other interesting things. Recommend the Nintendo store if USJ isn’t in your plans.

* Headed to lunch for gluten free ramen (which was excellent) and then went to Scramble Square. I had booked tickets for the observation deck weeks ago so I couldn’t anticipate the rain. They don’t let you on the roof but they do let you on the level below it so I at least got to see the city from there. I tried to go back later on in my trip and they were sold out. Maybe next time! After that I descended through the shopping levels just browsing.

* Ended the day with a mini-izakaya crawl, having dinner in a tiny local place my guide knew of that could accommodate me and then to a rare cider bar.

🌞📅 **Day 3: Ueno/Nezu Shrine/Shinjuku**

* Weather cleared up, beautiful day. Grabbed the usual 7-11 breakfast, then headed to Ueno, where I started a leisurely walk through the park and up through Ueno to Nezu Shrine, where the Azalea Festival was in high swing. Ueno is such a beautiful neighborhood in general, highly recommend a walk through it. As far as the shrine and the festival, this was one of the days with taiko drummers so I got to see them too which was cool! It was absolutely beautiful as well. One of the highlights of my trip! I was so happy I got to to go to a real Japanese festival.

* Lunch was japanese curry at a tiny place near the Nezu metro station. Then I hopped over to Shinjuku Gyeon and explored the grounds there. Absolutely beautiful place even without the cherry blossoms (although there were still a few in full bloom?). Ended up resting in a covered bench while an afternoon thunderstorm went over, it was very relaxing and peaceful.

* From there I walked through Shinjuku to the Tokyo Metropolitan building for the observation deck where I got some non-cloudy/rainy views of the sun set, and then headed to the Park Hyatt to make it to my dinner reservations at the Park Hyatt. Dinner was excellent (they had the best gluten free rolls I’ve ever had) and the views were killer. They even had a jazz band playing (like in Lost in Translation) so it was a nice cap to the evening before heading back to base.

🌞📅 **Day 4 & 5: Nikko Temple Complex/Ryokan stay/Tokyo Return**

* Woke up, grabbed my 7-11 breakfast so I could eat on the shinkansen, and caught the shinkansen from Ueno to Utsunomiya, and then the local train to Nikko. Check in wasn’t until the usual 3 at my ryokan and I had gotten there at like 10 so my goal was to see the Nikko Temple Complex. I explored most of the temples and there I ran into another festival! Completely unplanned. Its called the [Yayoi festival](https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/294/) and it was going on all day as I explored.

* Nikko is absolutely beautiful. But be prepared for all the verticality. Getting to the top of the temple complex where Tokugawa Ieyasu is buried is no joke but worth it. Loved the pine forest and everything.

* Finished there and it was time to check in, so I went to my [ryokan](https://chicappa-hoshinoyado.ssl-lolipop.jp/en/) and dropped my backpack and made use of their onsen to get clean and relax before my kaiseki dinner. They could accommodate my need for a gluten free kaiseki meal and it was excellent. Loved the onsen too, so much that I (thanks to jet lag) woke up at 5 am and had another soak and just relaxed until check out time. Then I wandered around the actual town portion of Nikko, which is very quaint and cute and then headed back to Tokyo.

* Made it back to my hotel and took a nap for an hour or two, then made my way over to Ginza for my arranged sushi omakase. This has ruined sushi at home for me, honestly. It was so good. Then I wandered Ginza and visited the Star Wars popup simply because I walked by and saw the banner.

* It was still early and I still had energy so I hopped on the train over to Shinjuku and walked through the craziness of Shinjuku at night, wandering through Kabukicho and then Golden Gai. Ended up a tiny place in Golden Gai drinking sake with a nice little old Japanese dude and a bunch of other foreigners like me for a couple hours. it was great! Then I headed back for the night.

🌞📅 **Day 5 & 6: Magome-juku / Nakasendo Trail hike / Tsumago-juku / Tokyo Return**

* Day 5 was a true travel day, with over 4 hours of mass transit travel to get to Magome-juku. I realize now I probably should have shortened my stay in Tokyo and added this onto the Kyoto leg of my stay because travel to Magome-juku would’ve been much less than from Tokyo but hindsight is 20/20.

* Once I arrived, it was time to check in so I hiked to the [temple](https://goo.gl/maps/xZo4BVLqqCSj99ry5) I was booked to stay in for the night. Freshened up, relaxed in my room in the peaceful surroundings, had a simple but good dinner and then retired for the evening early because I needed to be up early.

* Woke up, had a simple breakfast, then headed out to hike from Magome-juku to Tsumago-juku along the Nakasendo Trail. This was simply one of the most memorable and best experiences I had on my trip. The scenery is stunning, there were no crowds of tourists, and once I got outside of the town perimeter it was just me and the bears in the hills. I’m a large guy, and the hike up to the mountain pass was no joke, but once you reach the pass from Magome-juku thankfully its all downhill from there. This was bucket list material for me, and worth coming for alone.

* Hike took me around 4 hours to make it to Tsumago-juku (for in shape people it would probably be less). I wandered around exploring Tsumago-juku and dived into my packed snacks for food before starting the long process of getting back to Tokyo. I was exhausted by the time I made it back and I overexerted one of my feet so I hobbled over to the little yakitori place that was safe for me by my hotel for dinner and then crashed for the evening.

🚅📅 **Day 7: Travel to Kyoto/ Rest Day**

**Kyoto Accommodations:** [Hotel Resol Kawaramachi Sanjo](https://www.resol-kyoto-k.com/en/)

* Check out day for my Tokyo leg. Packed up and handed my big suitcase to the hotel for shipping to Kyoto and headed out for Tokyo station. Had lunch at this awesome little taco stand in Tokyo station, then hopped on my train to Kyoto. Taxi from Kyoto station to my hotel, dropped my bags and then took a breather. My foot needed some rest so I let it rest before wandering around Kawaramachi. Such a beautiful little neighborhood with the canal running through it. I picked the perfect hotel. I ended up at a completely gluten free restaurant where I may have binged on karaage and tonkatsu before going back to my hotel and relaxing for the rest of the evening.

🌞📅 **Day 8: Kyoto**

* My foot was feeling much better so it was time to see some things in Kyoto. Took the bus to the Imperial Palace and explored the grounds and bought admission. Beautiful place, well worth the visit. Wandered over to a 100% soba noodle place for lunch that was completely delicious.

* Then I ventured cross town to Kiyomizu-dera. The crowds were awful but it was still a great visit, beautiful views and temple, but I got none of the quaint “old town Japanese neighborhood” because of the crowds. Luckily I had already experienced that in Magome-juku/Tsumago-juku. Still recommend a visit, but if you don’t like crowds don’t go in the afternoon like I did.

* Headed back into town, had a nice chicken teriyaki dinner, then went back to my room to relax.

🌞📅 **Day 9: Kyoto**

* Foot is back to 100%. Good thing too. First stop of the day was Kinkakuji. Absolutely beautiful and surprisingly not crowded. Learned that someone apparently burnt it down via Arson in the 1950’s? That was very surprising to me. Excellent place to visit.

* Next up was Nijo Castle. This was excellent! I always thought the “nightingale floor” thing was fictionalized but nope, its real. A large portion of the castle is under reconstruction though so keep that in mind, you can only see the Ninomaru portion of the inside at this moment. Still well worth the trip for it and the beautiful grounds.

* And yes of course, Fushimi Inari. Crowded as hell, but still beautiful. Yes I know I should’ve gotten there at the crack of dawn but my body just couldn’t do it. Was still beautiful and I had a nice contemplative walk through the small loop section. Maybe next time I’ll get there early and do the full hike.

* Shake Shack in Japan is pretty lit. Also, cut me some slack i went almost 9 whole days eating only Japanese food. I needed a break.

🎢📅 **Day 10: USJ and Osaka Den Den Town**

* USJ was a bust for me. I had my tickets for Mario Land and I guess I didn’t realize how small it was. I haven’t been to a theme park in eons because I can’t usually ride the rides because of my size, so I was thankful I was able to fit on the mario kart ride (and use the single rider line). But all in all I just don’t think I like theme parks. Your mileage may vary. I aborted after I was done with Mario Land and ended up exploring Den Den Town in Osaka.

* Akihabara had changed since my trip in the mid 2000’s. Gone were all the anime figure shops and 4 floored manga/doujinshi shops (I guess they tried to clean up for the Olympics?). Osaka definitely did not do this. I spent a decent amount of time just window shopping and wandering around before heading back to Kyoto.

* Went to a yakiniku place for the first time. Was absolutely delicious!

☔📅 **Day 11: Kyoto & Nara**

* I realized I probably put too much mileage on my foot the previous day so I rested and relaxed for the morning before heading out to Nara for the afternoon. It was another rainy day, but Nara was still beautiful, and the rain made it a little moody so that was cool. Ended up walking through the deer park and seeing the deer and then to the big temple there and saw the giant statue of Buddha (my first time ever seeing anything like that in person). The rain was a nuisance but a great little afternoon trip!

* Wandered around some of the covered shopping streets to get ramen at a local shop that does gluten free ramen and it was delicious (despite waiting in the pouring rain for a half hour). Then headed back to crash.

☔📅 **Day 12: Kyoto**

* Still raining, but hard this time, it kept me from getting out to Arashiyama so I opted to spend the day in Kyoto proper. I explored 3 or four of the various covered shopping streets, went to an arcade, thought about seeing a movie but they only had one that was subtitled (and I didn’t realize Mario was only coming out on the day I went home) but chose not to. Just a relaxing day while trying to stay dry.

🌞📅 **Day 13: Arashiyama/Yokohama**

* Finally made it to Arashiyama in the early morning. Somehow I got myself turned around and got lost and went to the wrong park but I eventually ended up in the right place. The detour helped me see a bunch of the little town and it was really cool and quaint and quiet. If you can just wander around here its very nice. Arashiyama had not reached peak crowds before I made it there so it was a nice meditative walk, and then I toured through Tenryu-Ji and its gardens, before making my way to Kyoto station to head to Yokohama.

* Yokohama was just meant as a place to stay relatively close to the airport without having to go into Tokyo proper, and my [hotel](https://www.newotani.co.jp/en/innyokohama/) room was a bit of a splurge but the views over the harbor were absolutely killer. I had a quiet night wandering Yokohama and final dinner at another yakiniku place with this awesome Japanese guy that wanted to talk to me about everything because he couldn’t believe I had found their little place. This was a nice little cap to the end of my trip.

✈📅 **Day 14: Going Home**

* Much to my disappointment I had to go home. Managed to snag a last sushi meal in Haneda before security. Random note: They won’t let you check in for a Delta flight internationally more than 3 hours in advance? I’d never run into that before.

**Tips and Overall Experience**

* Eating gluten free is tricky but it can be done. You should note, lots of places mean well, and they’ll say they have something safe but they really don’t because they don’t really know all the ins and outs. Thankfully the company I hired filtered these places out before I ate anything that made me sick. Just be careful. Maybe think about investing in a company to help you like I did for your trip. It was well worth it.

* I rented a pocket wifi and it was great. I do not have an unlocked phone. **Please remember all the advice here saying don’t get one only applies to you if you have an unlocked phone.** I had to use my att plan on arrival and departure and the speed was not good compared to the pocket wifi.

* Contrary to recent posts on here, Japan is definitely not a “cash is king” place to visit anymore. I was there for 14 days, I went into the deep countryside, and I don’t think I spent more than 💴30000 in cash. I always had some on me because the places that don’t use other means are mainly: Temples (admission and shops), Historical sites (admissions, usually, some took suica), and Ramen and Soba places as far as restaurants. Everywhere else I used my mobile suica on my iphone to pay, or my mobile amex tap to pay. I think I only ever had to present my actual card at my hotels. So… of course your mileage may vary but my experience doesn’t line up with what some people say here. But then again I can’t just walk into any restaurant to eat and I avoided buying a lot of random stuff to clutter up at home.

* Which leads me to my next point, if you can just get a mobile suica and put it in your iphone wallet (if you have an iphone). I paid for so so many things with it and it was just so easy, and extremely easy to refill with my amex, no clunky cash refills needed. Some historical sites even took suica for admission, I used it in every convenience store, kyoto buses and subways, tokyo subways, so many things. It makes life so much easier.

* Next time I’ll probably come for 3 weeks. I didn’t get to do or see half the things I wanted to but I was very pleased with what I did do (except for USJ, that was a bust)

So that’s it! I hope this was helpful, especially to those people with celiac disease who may be on the fence about visiting like I was!

Edit: If you’d like my rundown on how to survive as a bigger person in japan, [here is the link to my process on that from that recent post](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/133tb5e/a_few_things_i_learned_as_a_large_person_from_my/jiej09e/)