Trip Report: Tokyo, Okinawa. A few new things I learned this trip and some advice.

I’ve been to Japan a few times now so this trip me and my spouse tried to take it a bit easier. I still learned a few new things, though, and I thought I’d share some advice.

Itinerary: Tokyo 4 days (Akihabara, Ikebukoro, Kichijoji, Asakusa, day trip to Nikko), Naha 4 days (scuba diving open water course), Zamami Island 3 days, and then return to Tokyo for 2.5 days (Jiyugaoka, Shibuya, Shunjuku).

We didn’t need to see the super toursity things we had seen before, so we focused on food and seeing things at our leisure. Rained the first day, but our plan was to go to Tokyo Skytree the first morning for a few. Lesson #1: If you cannot see the top of the Skytree from the ground, you will not be able to see anything from the top. It was cloudy and there was no view. Went to Ikebukoro instead because of the large underground shopping area at Sunshine City. Ikebukoro is kind of like Shibuya-meets-Akihabara: lots of shopping and crowded busy, fun streets, but with more otaku culture in parts. Quite fun, I’d consider staying there next time.

Did a day trip to Nikko and took Spacia X. Lesson #2: Don’t take the Spacia X on a day trip. It leaves too late, you arrive at 11am and it’s starting to become peak times. We went to Kegon falls, with plans to see the other falls in the Oku-Nikko region, before running out of time and turning back. Lesson #3: Don’t try to see the Nikko Temples AND Oku-Nikko on a day trip if you don’t have much time. Lesson #4: The sun sets at 5:30PM this time of year, it gets dark EARLY. If you want to day trip Nikko, take the earliest train you can. As for fall foliage, we were there week of October 8 and I would say the colour change even in Oku-Nikko was only at 10%, so the end-of-October is probably better for fall colours than early October, especially since the weather hadn’t really gotten very cold yet.

After Tokyo we went to Okinawa. Now, this could have been a whole trip report in itself, as Okinawa is very different from mainland Japan. We stayed 4 nights in Naha but if we weren’t taking a diving course we would recommend renting a car and leaving to go up the island. However, Naha was nice for four days, even though it’s easy to get stuck going up and down Kokusai Dori over and over. Overall very few Western tourists, mostly Japanese groups. People actually spoke much less English in Okinawa but luckily my Japanese language skills are actually a lot better now. I learned Hiragana and Katakana for this trip as well, so here’s Lesson #5: focus more on Katakana if you can, since it’s for loanwords it means you will often be able understand the word!

Next we spent 3 nights in Zamami in the Kerama islands. We had the choice of either renting a car and driving up the island, or taking a 1 hour ferry to a beautiful, walkable island with stunning beaches and crystal clear water for diving… so we chose that option! Zamami was phenomenal but very quiet. Loved it there. Did some diving but also the snorkeling for free at Furuzamami beach was phenomenal. Snorkeling at Ama beach was not good. Also, the ferries all booked out, but luckily we had a booking, so make bookings!

Finally we went back to Naha and then flew back to Tokyo for 2.5 days before our flight back to Canada. This time we went to Jiyugaoka to check it out and it was *amazing.* I did a lot of research before I left trying to compare Jiyugaoka to Kichijoji in terms of what suburb would make a better day trip and we ended up doing both. Kichijoji was nice but we got bitten by mosquitoes at Inokashira Park, but we both agreed that Jiyugaoka was waaaaay more fun and interesting. So that’s my lesson #6, for anyone reading this, Jiyugaoka was an awesome day trip, Kichijoji is maybe not that interesting unless you live there or unless you plan on going there anyway for Studio Ghibli (but we did have awesome flambe shaved ice in Kichijoji).

Last day in Tokyo was shopping, and we went to Shibuya and Shinjuku. Shibuya is of course an absolute force, it’s a truly amazing place and has tons of shopping, but the Tokyu Hands (just Hands now) is way better in Shinjuku. Tried to get a reservation for dinner somewhere nice but couldn’t since it was kind of last-moment but did get in at Kinka for sushi and it was OK, it did have some fun rolls which was nice because my wife doesn’t like fish sushi (sadly). So lesson #7: always, always make reservations for dinner! If you try to get in somewhere last minute you will usually be turned away at the door. It’s sad walking door-to-door gettting turned away for dinners all the time because everywhere is booked out, especially at prime time (6-8pm) and especially Friday and Saturday. We even dealt with the same in Naha. So, do your research and make reservations a week or even a month in advance for very popular places! The Japanese restaurant scene really does revolve around reservations.

Anyway, that’s it for me, hope some people doing their research online find my post sometime and find the things I learned valuable. Had a really wonderful trip, and it was quite easy overall, especially since we didn’t need to do the usual tourist route this time.