Five Week Trip Report: April-May; Kansai, Kanto; Previous long-term resident family

# Preamble:

We are a family of three. I previously lived in Japan for about 10 years. My wife is Japanese from the Kansai region, and we have a 6 year old son born and raised abroad, but who speaks/reads/writes Japanese at a native or near-native level for his age. My wife and son traveled back to Osaka several times during Covid, but I did not join them due to the additional logistics requirements at the time, and the sense that it would not be particularly enjoyable. Prior to covid we would typically spend about 4-5 weeks a year in Japan, but this was our first long day-in-the-life trip together in the past four years.

It was a phenomenal trip, and I wanted share what we did. Our trip is probably a little bit unconventional compared to most of the reports here as we all speak Japanese and are very familiar with Japan having lived there for quite some time in the past. Our main goals for our trip were to provide our son with immersion opportunities, to meet family, and to visit with old friends. We lived for many years in both Osaka and Tokyo and I have relatives in Shizuoka. We also love craft beer, games, and quirky museums; I think our trip itinerary reflects all of this.

# General Pre-trip Preparation:

Our son is a second-year kindergartener in Zurich, Switzerland, but he also speaks Japanese and attends a Japanese school part time. He’s very outgoing and enjoys new adventures (probably because we have been dragging him around to San Diego or Osaka almost every year for most of his life). This year we thought it would be interesting if he could experience a real Japanese elementary school during our stay. To this end about 2 months before we left, my wife contacted the local elementary school near her parents house in Osaka and inquired about the possibility of doing a short ‘study abroad’ (体験留学) at some point during our stay. To our surprise she received a prompt reply from the school principal, who was very enthusiastic about the prospect, and happy to arrange all the details upon our arrival. Apparently he had previously worked at an international school and had a very positive outlook on this sort of interaction. Final details were to be determined on site in a short family interview in order to get a sense of our son’s Japanese ability and disposition.

We typically spend our long-term stays with our relatives but this time we decided to break our trip up into several stages: Osaka at Home, Osaka at Large, Return to Tokyo, Shizuoka, Osaka at home. The remainder of the report is broken up accordingly.

## Part 1: Osaka-at-Home I.

The first week we flew in to Osaka KIX from Zurich via Seoul, and took the Hello Kitty Express 🙂 directly into Umeda where we met up with family and went straight to a Yakiniku experience at [Yakiniku Toraji](https://www.ebisu-toraji.com/en/shop/osakafu/osaka/lucua-oosaka/) on the B2 floor of the Lucua building at Umeda. At first we planned to make the journey home to drop off our luggage but after we realized that the airport express now drops you off at essentially the Lucua B1, we decided to just head straight to dinner. Needless to say, it was epic. We grabbed some bread and pastries for the following morning and headed home with mom and dad.

**GENERAL ANECDOTES:**

**Masks**; Even on first arrival it was clear that we made the right decision to come after the covid restrictions finally lifted. Everything was open, and people were out. Roughly 90+% of people were still wearing masks everywhere, but this percentage steadily declined over the duration of our stay to, I would say, 65%-70% by the time we left on May 20th. We chose not to wear them, and my MIL/FIL were also not wearing them. At no point during the trip did I feel there was any concern about this in either direction. Anyone traveling in the near future should feel completely free to go whichever way you prefer.

During the first week we sorted out our jet lag, and spent a lot of time roaming around conbinis and the supermarkets remembering all the little delicious nothings that Japan has to offer. We stayed with mom and dad in Ebie, Fukushima, right on Yodogawa. This is about 5 min bike ride from Nodahanshin station, and 10-15min ride to Fukushima station or Umeda. We made all these rides many times during our stay! We made some mellow probing adventures:

**Prepaid SIMs**. I still have to answer emails and typically work on-and-off during these trips. One of the reasons we are able to do it is because I work in IT. This means it’s always important to get a good prepaid SIM. On my last visit, four years ago I was able to find a great deal on a prepaid SIM at Yodobashi in Umeda, so one of my first orders of business was to repeat that experience this time. However after discussing with the sales and purchasing a SIM with 50GB for 1mo @ Y8000, I found out that it did not permit tethering. This was stated as a ‘possibility’ in the fine print and when I asked at purchase time the sales person said they couldn’t guarantee it but thought it should work. I gambled and lost. This was quite annoying given the main purpose of purchasing a high volume prepaid SIM was for tethering to my laptop. Anyway as a result I discovered the eSIM tech which was also supported by my iPhone 14. I ended up buying another eSIM plan using Ubigi and this worked great and supported tethering without issue throughout my trip. It also worked great for our short return stop in South Korea. I’ll never go back to prepaid physical SIMs and I still cannot believe that Docomo is still blocking tethering in 2023. Completely ridiculous.

**Exercise**: I am an avid swimmer and cyclist. Since we typically stay for around 1 month I like to be able to continue my swim workouts while we are in Japan. Cycling isn’t a problem since we end up biking and walking all over the country anyway. I always join the [Konami Sports Club](https://www.konami.com/sportsclub/) network for 1 month as a regular member the first day we arrive. They provide a bunch of different plans and most of the Type III and Type IV gyms in the network have a 25SCM lap pool. If you join the network you can use any of facilities anywhere in the country, which is great if you spend time in more than one city. The Type III and Type IV facilities all have really great bath house areas as well, with multiple sento-style baths and usually a big sauna. You need to make sure that you join and quit on the same day (or at least in the same week) so that your membership will be properly cancelled at the end of the first billing cycle. This might be tough if you don’t speak Japanese well, but if you do the staff is super accommodating and will definitely help you make it happen. In addition to the exercise, one thing I really like about doing this is that it gives me another day-in-the-life experience; it’s like living there again; doing things that locals do. The Kitahama facility in Osaka is particularly nice; It’s a new one and it’s my favorite.

**Internet Cafes**: I worked on and off during the trip and usually do work days at local internet cafes. The three I liked best during this trip were:

* [Brooklyn Coffee Namba](http://brooklynroasting.jp/location/namba/) : Big spacious area with lots of sockets and reasonably fast free wifi if you don’t have a SIM (or don’t have one that supports tethering…). It’s really dedicated to remote work so there is zero pressure to leave. You can spend the whole day working there with a couple cups of coffee and no one will bug you. The only downside is that it is a bit of trek from Namba station.
* [Brooklyn Coffee Kitahama](http://brooklynroasting.jp/location/kitahama/) : Same chain as above. This one is smaller, but has a similar vibe. It’s right on the river which makes for a cool view. It’s closer to the station but I definitely prefer the Namba shop.
* [Starbucks Umeda MeRise](https://store.starbucks.co.jp/detail-2083/?utm_source=GMB&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=store&utm_content=2083) : This is a pretty sweet Starbucks that is much more ‘devoted’ to remote work than most. They have a ‘startup’ area on the second floor, loads of seats, loads of plugs and a solid wifi connection. It’s a hop skip and a jump from Umeda which also makes it convenient.　Starbucks Japan still offers the one-more-coffee receipts which is a great bonus here. You can get a second cup of cold brew or hot coffee for about Y180 in the same size as the first one you purchase.

**Cycling**: We keep a couple of momma-charis at my in-laws place, including one with a kid-seat on the back. We did plenty of riding and my son loves the unique-to-him experience of riding on the back of the bike. We considered getting him his own bike this year, but eventually decided against it due to the complex traffic. Osaka is pretty easy to get around in by bicycle in terms of terrain – there are very few hills in the city proper, however the traffic is a little bit gnarly. Midosuji street is a great example of this. It runs in a mostly straight line from Umeda/Osaka station, across Oebashi and Yodobashi past Osaka city hall, and down through Dotonbori to Namba. It’s a cool little ride if you have the time and inclination and it is mostly flat. It runs only in one direction for most of this length however many Japanese cyclists seem to not be aware of this fact. I was surprised/amazed/terrified by how many people I encountered riding against the flow of traffic on this quite busy street. Plenty of mama-charis with kids on back as well. It’s pretty chaotic and not for the faint of heart! That said I enjoy the rides and the people watching and the adventure that a little chaos can provide as long as you keep your eyes open.

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**LOCATIONS, FOOD AND ADVENTURES**

* [Osaka Kids Plaza](https://www.kidsplaza.or.jp/en/) : We made a solid day of visiting Osaka Kids Plaza. This place is great if you have 3-8 year olds and want to find something to do with them, especially on a rainy day. In past years we have also visited [KidoKido Bornelund](https://kidokid.bornelund.co.jp/grandfront-osaka/) in Grand Front Umeda, but at 6 our son seemed to have outgrown it this time around. Osaka Kids Plaza was still plenty of fun.
* [Yakitori Masaya](http://yakitori-masaya.co.jp/): We looove all Japanese food and Yakitori is no exception. We usually visit the local [Torikizoku](https://www.torikizoku.co.jp/) but it was their day off so we tried this new place in Fukushima. It didn’t disappoint.
* [Honmachi Seimenjo Ten](https://www.lucua.jp/en/shopguide/id802_e.html): I love cold bukkake udon and sanuki udon. This place in Lucua is pretty passable, easy access and great value for money. It’s definitely not as good as [Tokyo Mentsudan](https://trulytokyo.com/tokyo-mentsudan/) in Shinjuku, Tokyo – which is absolutely banging – but it was a good first taste.
* [Round 1 Stadium Sennichimae](https://www.round1.co.jp/shop/tenpo/osaka-sennichimae.html) : My son has started to enjoy gaming and I wanted to explore this with him so we dedicated our first father-son adventure day of the trip to a large game center – the likes of which simply do not exist in either Switzerland or the US. Needless to say it was a massive hit. They have plenty of Mario Kart, Densha de Go, and Taiko no Tatsujin (our favorites) as well as bowling, pool, gokarts and more. Of course there are also oodles of crane games to waste your money on as well. After the game center we walked for Ramen near Namba:
* [Namba Ramen Ichiza](https://ramen-ichiza.edion.com/en/) this place is pretty much brand new from the look of it. It has a slew of different ramen shops and all they all looked delicious. We visited twice after the first success. There are many tourist oriented ramen shops in the shotengai in dontonburi and sennichimae, but IMO this was a much better experience. We found it because my son wasn’t into the crowded dark vibe in the shops below. This place was well-lit and spacious, and the shops readily provided kid utensils and smaller tori-zara so that I could scoop more reasonable portions for him. It’s also right next to Namba station.
* [Edion Namba Kids Park](https://namba.edion.com/floor/7f/) : the Edion building with the Ramen Park on the 9F also has a huge toys, models, and kids park on 7F. We visited this before heading home. They have a big games section, a Bandai section, a very large Plarail and Tomika section, and a great Lego section. Super fun to browse; plenty of open stuff for the kids to play with too.
* **Osaka Castle park:** We roamed the park a bit then had lunch at the little Ramen park in the Castle Terrace area adjacent to Osakajokoen. The weather was nice and the back area of the ramen park has a great view of Osaka castle. After that we took the tourist road train that runs around the park and road it up to the last stop right in front of Osaka castle. There is always a lot of commentary about walking in this sub; if you don’t want to walk all the way through the park for whatever reason, the little road train is a great option. You still have to climb maybe 4 floors worth of steps to get to the castle entrance, but the train gets you pretty close. In the end we decided not to go into the castle since the line was looking pretty long and we’ve been multiple times before. We ate some jihanki ice cream in the main plaza under the castle. After that we hiked back down to exit via the Otemon gate and made a quick stop at my wife’s alma mater Osaka Otemae High School before hopping a bus headed towards Kitahama and eventually back home.

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**BEER**

As I mentioned, we love craft beer, and we particularly love Hazy IPAs in all their various forms. We made it a point in this trip to explore this aspect of Japan as it seems to have really exploded in popularity since our last visit. We followed (hazy\_mmy)\[[https://www.instagram.com/hazy\_mmy/?hl=en\]](https://www.instagram.com/hazy_mmy/?hl=en]) for some great ideas outside the brewpubs.

* [Lucua Craft Beer Market](https://www.lucua.jp/en/shopguide/id805_e.html): This place has been around for several years, and is still going pretty strong. It features a lot of interesting IPAs, Stouts, Sours, and standard Pilsners and Pale Ales. They usually have a Hazy or two on tap as well. There is an unrelated beer and wine shop on the same floor that has a great selection of IPA and Hazy IPA cans as well.
* [Ape Brewing](https://www.instagram.com/ape_brewing/): One of our first craft beer explorations of the trip was Ape Brewing. These guys just got started and we got to meet their brew master and taste some awesome brews. Food is great and the ambiance was great too; there’s bar seating and nice views of those shiny vats if you’re into that sort of thing. They were also very child friendly (as were I think all the spots we hit this time) and had plenty of soda and juice and non-alcoholic drinks.
* [Yellow Ape Craft](https://yellowapecraft.com/) : Ape Brewing is an offshoot of the Yellow Ape Craft brew pub which we had visited on previous trips. It’s also located in Kitahama, nearer to the station, and has a more general, different array of craft beers as well as a different menu. We ended up turning our Kitahama visit into a mini pub crawl and stopped off at this spot on the way home as well. It didn’t disappoint.

We wrapped up this mini pub crawl with a walk through the Kitahama/Yodoyabashi area in the evening. This is more of business district but it actually has some interesting novel historical sites. There are a number of cool Meiji Era buildings with large explanatory placards. These are predominantly in Japanese and maybe a bit obscure, and you also won’t be able to enter most of them, but if you are into this sort of thing it’s can be a fun bonus. I’m guessing google translate in photo mode can get you most of the way through the placards:

* [https://osaka-club.or.jp/](https://osaka-club.or.jp/) (a business social club / salon)
* [Ikoma Building](https://www.ikoma.ne.jp/)
* [Former Konishi Family Residence](https://www.bond.co.jp/konishishiryoukan/) (I believe you can actually enter this one)
* [Douza no ato](https://www.city.osaka.lg.jp/kensetsu/page/0000009604.html) this is an even older one dates to the Edo period. It was initially seat of the local copper trade, then converted to an elite Kindergarten – the first in Osaka – in 1880. It still operates as a kindergarten.

there are a bunch more, these just happen to be the ones that caught our eye as we passed by on our mini pub crawl.

# Part 2. Osaka-at-Large

We spent roughly our first two weeks in Osaka, but in order to get a change of pace and give our family a break, we opted to spend the second week in an apartment-hotel near Umeda. This was a great decision and a lot of fun. We were able to host friends, had even better access to Umeda and could relax and enjoy the city from a fresh angle.

We spent 7 nights in the rooftop luxury suite at [Minn Kita Umeda](https://staytuned.asia/brands/minn/hotels/minn-umeda-north/) and it was epic. My wife booked this about 6 months in advance and it was worth every last yen. The room was spacious and quiet with two large comfy beds. The bathroom included a deep Japanese style bath. There is a large rooftop deck with a jacuzzi overlooking Lucua/Umeda/Osaka station. This view at night was phenomenal. At present there is also a ton of highrise construction going on behind Grand Front which my son got a kick out of (and me too). The apartment has a large kitchen and living room space as well, and we used it to host some visits from friends.

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**LOCATIONS, FOOD AND ADVENTURES**

I ended up working most of this week so we only managed one major adventure.

* [SpaWorld Osaka](https://www.spaworld.co.jp/english/): Onsen from around the world. This was probably the one experience I would categorize as a strong do-not-recommend. My son and I were looking for another adventure day target and settled on an onsen adventure. I’ve been to [Oedo Onsen Monogatari](https://minoh-spa.ooedoonsen.jp/) a couple of times and there is also a new one in Osaka city: [Solaniwa Onsen](https://solaniwa.com/en-us/) but for some reason we picked Spa World. It is located about 5min walk from Dobutsuen-Mae station. This area is basically skid row; my wife and MIL warned me, but I didn’t really believe them since I’ve never seen any truly ‘run down’ area of Japan. This area was hilariously decrepit and I got a lot of I-told-you-so’s after we got back. Spa World itself is somewhat OK. The facility is pretty clean and the baths are relatively well kept. However the water-park area on the top floor was honestly pretty gross. We floated around the lazy river quite a few times; but it was more like a gross, overly warm moat. There was a kiddy slide area but it was not particularly great and had a bunch of really hard surfaces in the play areas that were not kind. There were a couple of pretty cool looking tandem water slides but they had a scale and a weight-differential requirement of ‘no more than 20kg’. Unfortunately for us I’m 6’3″, 92kg and my son is a gangly 6 year old weighing in at 21kg. They took one look at us and didn’t even bother with the scale. The kicker here however was the bathroom. Right before we left to go down to the sento area, I used the mens room and it was absolutely filthy. The mens urinals had a high wooden shelf which is probably not visible to 95% of Japanese visitors but as I mentioned, I’m pretty tall. I could see this thing and it was not only absolutely filthy but crawling with little black bugs. I just about retched and headed out immediately afterwards. The Spas of the World on the floor below was in much better shape. It was clean and good fun; we visited Greece and Spain and Italy 🙂 and finally headed home. My son had a great time and I would have classified it as ‘OK’ if not for the bathroom experience which was just unbelievable. In retrospect I honestly should have reported it. As it stands I’d give it a hard NOT recommended; Oedo Onsen or Solaniwa should be much better bets.
* [Hep5 Ferris Wheel](https://www.hepfive.jp/en/ferriswheel): We’ve ridden this a few times in the day but never before at night. It was pretty cool and gives you a nice long view of the city from all angles. The contrast between the Osaka city night and Zurich is pretty extreme! My only minor complaint was that they had some kind of Care Bear theme going on an there was a large temporary Care Bear decal on the side of the car which obstructed part of the view.
* [Shuns Kushiage, Kushikatsu](https://www.lucua.jp/en/shopguide/id525_e.html): We also love kushiage/kshikatsu and we ate a ton on this trip. One of our favorite haunts is Shuns on 10F Lucua.
* [Curry House CoCo Ichibanya](https://tenpo.ichibanya.co.jp/search/shop/pc/detail.php?SCODE=1861): I also love Japanese style curry and CoCo Ichibanya. This is standard chain that can be found throughout Japan. They serve a bunch of Japanese style curry rice and you can customize them with things like tonkatsu, hirekatsu, sausage, cheese, etc. You can also customize the spice level and it goes up to *seriously* spicy which is sometimes tough to find in Japan!
* [Pause Coffee](https://www.instagram.com/pause__coffee/): This little hole in the wall coffee shop is located just next to the Minn apartment hotel we were staying at. It was always packed with locals and made great coffee and great sweets.
* [Craft Burger Co.](https://craftburger.jp/) : Solid burgers and some good craft beers on tap. They also had sliders that were perfectly sized for a 6 year old. We visited the Dojima shop. This wasn’t the best burger we had, but it was definitely tasty and worth a visit if you like burgers and are in the area.
* [Saien Yakiniku](https://gurunavi.com/en/kad6600/rst/?sc_cid=gorp-foreign_en_bnr&_gl=1*65dr4h*_ga*NTcxOTIzMzc4LjE2ODQ3Njg2MzE.*_ga_L9BHK8C28C*MTY4NDc2ODYzMS4xLjAuMTY4NDc2ODYzMS42MC4wLjA.&__ngt__=TT142ef4499006ac1e4ae72c_JWldCjpHYMs0sfTNsiGmI) : This is a little hole in the wall yakiniku place that we’ve been visiting for over 20 years. It’s good and we always visit at least once, but the biggest reason for this that we know the owner and it’s a family tradition dating back to my wife’s childhood. Their ‘aji kurabe’ (taste comparison plate) is pretty good though and comes with a selection of beef from every major region of Japan.

**BEER**

* [Yellow Ape Craft: TheBottleShop & Kitchen](https://yellow-ape-craft-the-kitchen.square.site/): This was the final installation in the Yellow Ape franchise, also located in the Kitahama area. This one was really cool in that they have a self-serve tap setup using IC cards. The staff hands you an IC card when they seat you, and you can order food as normal. But the taps are all installed in a public facing wall on the opposite end of the pub and you pour your own beer by inserting your IC card into the reader above the tap. It then records your pour by the ml and charges you sort of like a gas station. I’d never seen this before and visited it with a friend, and later again with the family. It was pretty fun. They also have a few games and a rubiks cube if you’re into that. They also have plenty of bottles for takeaway and had 3-4 Hazy IPAs on tap when we visited.
* [Drunk Bears Osaka](https://www.instagram.com/drunkbears_osaka/?hl=en): This place has deep dish pizza and we were hoping it could compare with [DevilCraft](http://en.devilcraft.jp/jiyugaoka/). The pizza was OK but the beer lineup ended up being pretty subpar.

# Part 3. Return to Tokyo

For our third week we returned to Tokyo to visit old haunts and old friends, and take in the even bigger city. We headed up early on the Nozomi shinkansen after checking out of the Minn. We bought bento in Shin Osaka station and our son picked out a shinkansen shaped [Ekiben box](https://japanrailtimes.japanrailcafe.com.sg/web/filebox/Shinkansen%20combined.jpg?_t=1604156924) to bring back for school lunches.

We previously lived for about 7 years in Jiyugaoka, and planned to spend time there meeting friends, but we decided to stay in an area we were less familiar with in order to get a fresh perspective on the city. We spent 6 nights at the [Blossom Hotel Hibiya](https://www.jrk-hotels.co.jp/Hibiya/) which is about 5 min walk from Shimbashi station. It’s a highrise with the hotel on the top. We had a room facing Tokyo Tower with a great view. The rooms themselves were clean and comfy with the external wall composed of a single huge bay window. The city scape was amazing night and day.

I ended up having to put out fires at work again during this week even though I had tried to take it off, and this put a little bit of a damper on some exploration plans, but we still managed to see all our friends and make a go of the time. Also since we already spent almost 10 years in Tokyo altogether, we didn’t feel nearly as pressured to check out multiple tourist sites and focused on eating, drinking, and meeting with friends.

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**LOCATIONS, FOOD AND ADVENTURES**

* [Poop Museum Tokyo](https://unkomuseum.com/tokyo/): This place was absolutely bonkers. My wife found it randomly and jokingly suggested that we should check it out. We wandered around Odaiba and visited. There was a huge line. My wife opted to go shopping but my son and I decided we couldn’t pass up this opportunity. It was bizarre, hilarious and entertaining and well worth the entry fee. The highlights including a fuzzy mechatronic Poop-animal petting zoo, an Unko speech recognition game where screaming ‘unko’ (poo) resulted in a poo tower visualization with size corresponding to the volume of your scream – this was then aligned with a landmark of corresponding size for reference, e.g., the Eiffel Tower. There were also various games and photo ops with cute poo and you receive a poo on a stick as a souvenir. Just a bizarre unique experience.
* [Tokyo Tower](https://www.tokyotower.co.jp/en/): We climbed Tokyo tower with friends on a beautiful starry night. It was great. I had hoped to climb the stairs but we were too late. There was a special lighting arrangement related to Golden Week which we managed to catch. The view is great but the tower is now almost entirely surrounded by gigantic Mori office skyscrapers that are as tall or taller than the lower viewing platform!
* [Tokyo Sky Tree](https://www.tokyo-skytree.jp/en/): We also climbed the Sky Tree on another day. This was fun too. It’s way higher, but it’s almost so high that the features of the city are a bit obscured. I’m glad we did it and checked it off, but I kind of preferred Tokyo Tower in the end.
* [GiGO Akihabara 1](https://tempo.gendagigo.jp/am/akiba-1): With my son newly addicted to Game Centers, we couldn’t pass up a chance to visit Akihabara :-)! We made a trip to the GiGO centers. This was a lot of fun. There are five installations, but we focused on 1 and 3. One was definitely the best. We found our favorite games: Mario Kart and Taikou Tatsujin, and also found a top floor packed with 80s and 90s hits, many with co-op options. We spent a few hours here trying as much as we could. Taikou Tatsujin was particularly fun as there were a couple of absolute masters just ripping apart the drums, yet still kind enough to take a break after 10min or so and let us get in a round of easy-level Tonari no Totoro. One thing I noticed was that there were a lot of tourists that seemed to want to try some of the games but had a lot of difficulty with the Japanese only interfaces and writing.
* [Jiyuugaoka](https://savvytokyo.com/jiyugaoka-guide-tokyos-little-europe/): As I mentioned, we lived in Jiyuugaoka for about 7 years so we made sure to return and spend a day wandering around and wallowing in nostalgia. I don’t have anything in particular to say about it; it’s just a nice area to wander and hang out. Plenty of good food and shopping, more relaxed than many areas of Tokyo.
* [Akamon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamon_(Tokyo)): I had planned to go back and visit my old lab here, but unfortunately time did not permit. The Todai Hongo campus is definitely worth a visit though. There are some good eats and it’s an easy walk through the campus to Ueno.
* [Karaoke-kan](https://karaokekan.jp/shop/detail/50): We made one karaoke stop for old time’s sake. This particular place in shimbashi is not notable; just part of a chain, but I think Japanese style karaoke is worth trying once, especially if you are only familiar with the western approach.
* [Shu Shimbashi](https://shu-shinbashi.gorp.jp/): We had a nice group dinner at Shu in Shimbashi. Pretty standard izakaya style fare but reasonably priced and tasty enough.
* [Henry’s Burger Jiyuugaoka](http://henrysburger.com/): Great burgers and a nice rooftop area for eating. It’s a 5 min walk from Jiyuugaoka station. It also has some nice craft beer that you can add to a set menu.
* [Nantahama Jiyuugaoka](https://www.instagram.com/nantahama1971/): This is an amazing little Okinawa style izakaya that has been run by the same family in the same spot for the last 50 years. When we lived here we visited it regularly. Food and ambience is great and the family that runs it is very friendly.
* [Mujaki Ramen Jiyuugaoka](https://digjapan.travel/en/featured/id=82): Amazing ramen. Amazing.
* [Clann Irish Pub Jiyuugaoka](https://www.instagram.com/clannirishpub/): Great little Irish pub with a friendly owner. My wife and met her 17 years ago so we always make sure to stop by for a pint of Guinness and a chat with the regulars.
* [Boulangerie Asanoya Jiyuugaoka](https://b-asanoya.com/): Great bread and pastries.
* [Devilcraft Tokyo – Jiyuugaoka](http://en.devilcraft.jp/): Epic deep dish pizza and solid selection of craft beer on tap. There are other locations in Kanda, Hamamatsuchou, and Gotanda.
* [Sushi Gyoshin](https://www.sushi-gyoshin.com/): Great kaiten sushi restaurant in Jiyuugaoka just a few steps from the station. This was another of our longterm haunts and we were happy to see that it hasn’t changed. Our son ordered his first sushi by himself and we enjoyed another great meal.
* [Quan an Tam](https://quanantam.com/): Great little Vietnamese place in Jiyuugaoka.
* [Katoriya Jiyuugaoka](https://tabelog.com/en/tokyo/A1317/A131703/13021338/): Great Yakitori place.

**BEER**

Tokyo is overflowing with great craft beer these days!

* [ibrew Shimbashi](https://craftbeerbar-ibrew.com/): This little chain was great. The first one we visited was the Shimbashi installation. This is located in the Shimbashi Ekimae Building-1, just adjacent to Shimbashi station. The building screams Showa inside and out and the beer pub is just a little hole in the wall. They were just wrapping up an all-Hazy-IPA campaign and had a slew of great stuff on tap. The food was also great, and they had a decent non-alcoholic selection as well.
* [Isekadoya Shimbashi](https://isekadoyabeer.jp/shimbashi.html): This craft beer bar is located inside Shimbashi station, just outside the wicket gates. It has a more modern vibe but plenty of good food and brew. The kushiyaki lineup was great.
* [ibrew Akihabara](https://craftbeerbar-ibrew.com/): ibrew has another installation in Akihabara and we had a dinner here as well. They had great food and a different lineup of brews on tap. One thing to watch out for was that they only accepted cash, and the nearest ATM is about 5 min walk back towards the station. Fun spot with friendly staff.
* [Antenna America Tokyo](https://www.antenna-america.com/pages/tokyo#r-1648603589037): We stopped by this place for lunch on the way to Shizuoka. Nice selection of cans, and a few good ones on tap. It’s an open space, and they have a free-to-lay Fussball table which my son and I played a few games on.

# Part 4. Shizuoka

After our stay in Tokyo we started making our way back to Osaka for the last segment of our trip. On the way stopped off in Mishima for one night to visit my relatives. Here we stayed at the [Toyoko-Inn Fujisan Mishima-eki](https://www.toyoko-inn.com/eng/search/detail/00215/). This is a no frills spot but it had nice clean, quiet rooms and a surprisingly good breakfast buffet. We wandered around Mishima in the afternoon then had a big Yakiniku family dinner with my relatives at [Anrakutei Yakiniku](https://anrakutei.jp/menu/). I tried Horumon for the first time and actually enjoyed it!

The next day we headed to Mochimune for one of our long planned trip highlights:

* [The Villa Barrel and Lounge](https://thevillamochimune.com/). This place was flat out amazing. It’s a brewery/hotel run by West Coast Brewing. We stayed one night in the Nelson & Mosaic loft room. This place was so much fun. The restaurant has some great food. We shared several flights of tasty brews including a bunch of tasty Hazy IPAs and the rooms were equipped with a personalized keg with 10L of beer to ‘drink at your leisure’. They recommend bringing a growler to take the leftovers with you, and unfortunately they don’t sell them onsite. The reservation also included free entrace for the whole family to the adjacent onsen, which was also fantastic and offered some nice views of Mt. Fuji.

It rained heavily in the evening and all through the night, but this made for a fun trip to the nearby 7-Eleven, and a good excuse to just hang out and tap the keg while watching Doraemon reruns on the big screen TV in the room. In the morning the weather had cleared up so we took a long walk on the beach which is just a few minutes from the hotel. The walk from the hotel back to Mochimune station is also quite nice if the weather permits. Truly amazing experience. Also requires booking several months in advance.

**OUT OF CHARACTERS – SEE COMMENT FOR FINAL TRIP SEGMENT**