I’m not going to do a day by day breakdown as some days we didn’t always do notable locations (just random shopping), but we did cram in a number of places (USJ, Disneyland and Sea, a nice ryokan, etc.).
Being my 4th time visiting after a long break (first time in 2014, 2015 and 2016), there’s a few things I’ve realized that I didn’t before. It’s only been a few days since and wish it was longer, so I’ve been binging on Instagram Japan reels and noticing they really focus on hyping up whatever they’re featuring and not the full picture. I’ve enjoyed reading about the experiences others have had so wanted to share back to the community.
I’ll cover the general things I learned, observed and then a bit about each specific location we went to:
**Keep Major Paper Receipts**
Ignorance on my part, but having flown maybe a total of 30ish times including for work, I never had the habit of keeping paper receipts because there was always a digital one in my email.
As luck would have it, for the first time ever we had a major delay flying out due to weather. We sat on the tarmac for over 4 hours, and our evening arrival turned into a super late evening arrival to Narita—we couldn’t make our Shinkansen to Kyoto, and had bought tickets for USJ the next day.
For a brief stressful hour, we did some searching and decided to take the *last* bus to the Tokyo station area so we’d be at least as close as possible for the first morning Shinkansen.
We didn’t want to do the capsule hotels (with the two of us and luggage). Searched up one hotel but didn’t realize it was an automated hotel—realized there was nobody there at the door after our taxi dropped us off. By sheer luck, we turned around and there was a Comfort Inn right behind us and they were able to get us a room.
So why the note about keeping paper receipts? Because we paid in person with cash, and my habit (during the trip) to toss all paper receipts, I had no proof we ever had to stay at this hotel. I had to find their parent company and email them directly (the hotel itself had no email) and was lucky in that they promptly found our reservation, and even manually wrote and stamped paperwork that we had paid in full.
I’m currently trying to get my travel insurance to cover the extra hotel costs, and this proof was needed to submit a claim.
**Basic Japanese Phrases and Understanding REALLY Help**
I see a lot of people sometimes talk about how Japanese people are often super helpful even if you can’t speak Japanese, but I think picking up a few basic phrases can make both parties life easier if the person you’re speaking to actually speaks no English (or has no interest in trying).
I found myself using broken strings of sentences with the Japanese versions of “I’m okay” “Please” “Do you have ___” “where is ___” “two of these” “two people” “is English okay?” “do you have an English menu” heavily during my trip and it made it far easier to just enjoy everything.
I felt like noting this because on more than one occasion I watched people just use plain English for very mundane things, and both sides struggling to navigate the conversation. I realize some people may have unique circumstances (they weren’t there for fun), so this isn’t a blanket criticism.
Google translate is super helpful too, and I think more respectful than trying to get them to understand your English.
**Universal Studios, Disney Sea and Disneyland**
I’m grouping these together because my takeaways cover all of them.
If it seems like it’s a little cold, assume it’ll be even colder while you’re waiting in line for some of the rides. When you have to sometimes wait outside for 1-2 hours, it can get pretty uncomfortable fast.
Dress to be warm, but also allow for layers so you have flexibility in managing your heat. You’ll be cold outside, but eventually the queues often go indoors so you’ll overheat if you overdressed. Gloves, hats and leggings aren’t bad ideas to consider.
If you have a sensitive bladder, avoid overdoing it on the drinks because you’re not going to a bathroom for at least 2 hours for some rides.
Less a tip and just an observation, but on one occasion while in queue I watched a group of tourists at the Indiana Jones ride **spit** over the railing since the ground was quite low below us, in addition to playing on their phones and holding up the whole line for a few meters. I know people anywhere can be crappy, but I was disappointed in how their behavior could affect the local perception of tourists.
**Exlusive Merchandise at Disney Sea and Disney Stores**
Disney Sea in particular has as I understand it specific stores that you have to get a reservation in to gain access. The problem is two fold: you have to be physically inside Disney Sea to make the reservation in the app, and Chinese (I know because my wife is Chinese and uses Chinese social media) resellers that live in Japan are there first thing in the morning in large groups to queue and basically clean out the whole store of these limited exlusive merchandise. They then resell them to buyers in China who want them at marked up prices.
We went to the Disney Flagship Store in Shinjuku another day because they just released a new toy—and again, sold out, but magically available for purchase from Chinese resellers.
I opted to not mention ethnicity when I previously complained about other tourists, but having seen photos of these resellers showing off literally hundreds of the same keychain toy they bought and are selling, I don’t think I’m being unfair with being transparent about it. For fans like my wife who just wanted one for herself, it simply wasn’t possible, and we aren’t going to pay 3-4x the price to buy it from the resllers. She tells me that Disney tried to enforce a 1 per person limit, but these people would just come in repeatedly. Staff tried asking them to remove masks (so they could recognize repeat attempts) and ask them to say the full name of the characters in Japanese, because many of them weren’t actual fans and couldn’t say it.
If you don’t care about exclusive merchandise, this won’t matter to you. If you do, well it’s going to be a grind if it’s popular and you need to get there EARLY.
**Sanrioland**
So my wife was the one who wanted to go, but I also hadn’t been before and don’t mind at all going to places she wanted to. I overall did not enjoy it for a few reasons.
It’s pretty miserable due to the number of people they let in.
* I’m sure they have an official capacity limit, but it didn’t feel like they followed it. The HVAC in the building was clearly not keeping up with the amount of heat inside, and it was mildly uncomfortable due to so many people being inside.
* …which meant the queues were pretty long for any of the shows you might want to watch. We were two adults and not obsessive fans, so we didn’t mind missing out, but I think if you were a family buying tickets, it’d kind of suck for the kids.
* …and this also extends to the show at the end they perform. If you didn’t fight for a spot in the front, if you were too short you wouldn’t be able to see anything. I watched a mom struggling to hold her two daughters up to take a peek over the railing for all of two seconds each. The kids ended up just staring at the lights on the ceiling. I was chilling and not watching, so no I couldn’t offer my spot or anything. My wife was stuck elsewhere and peeking between people.
If you love Sanrio though, it’s still pretty neat and buying merchandise is totally doable.
**Yokohama’s Gundam**
I’d never been the last few trips, so we figured why not.
Just like USJ and Disney, due to it being near the ocean it was SUPER windy and cold. I had a wool toque on, but the holes in the wool meant I was still feeling all the wind while we were there.
The wind also prevented them from making the Gundam move, so it was a pretty passive experience.
**Harujuku Street**
So I’ve been during my past trips but my wife hadn’t seen it before so we went for a spin since we were in the area. It was insanely packed with tourists (like us!) and probably a huge waste of time. We tried going to a specific cafe but the queue was way too long so we got out pretty quick.
I think my only tip here is to not plan for it to be a big part of your trip if you do include it.
**Isaribi – Ryokan in Shizuoka**
We opted for a ryokan a bit farther out than the more popular Hakone (I’ve also been there twice).
Significantly less people (as in, no other tourists), and it was a pretty quaint experience to walk around the small town and reach the ocean in just a few minutes.
The ryokan itself was also beautiful, and the view of the ocean from our private bath (we used the outside ones too) was pretty awesome. You can see a video of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH_XzJM0qVk
Note: we opted for the futon (sleeping on the floor) room, and maybe I’m just getting old, but it was way too hard and uncomfortable for me. I would have preferred the bed if I ever went again.
**More Visibly Non-Ethnically Japanese Staff?**
As I noted initially, it’s been 8 years since I last visited. I don’t remember there being so many staff that *looked* like they weren’t Japanese. I think at one of our hotels they had 3-4 ethnicities, and even our Ryokan had people speaking either perfect English or Chinese due to being from Taiwan, etc. Convenience stores were pretty diverse too.
To be clear, I don’t mind. It’s very diverse where I come from and I’m also not white, but knowing how Japan is so homogenous it’lll be interesting to see if it might affect future visits to Japan.
**I Should Pay More Attention to Google Reviews**
We had a great experience going into a small ramen restaurant that was super low key: folding tables, TV playing late night shows, beer out of paper cups, locals chatting, and just the chef operating the whole place. Super cheap and delicious. I loved the ambience. The reviews (in Japanese) mentioned the chef/owner having operated a food cart in the past which piqued my interest.
Another place that served primarily sashimi, I thought it’d be okay being in a shopping mall but despite the high price (9,000 yen for two set meals) I only realized after the fact that some reviews complained that the fish wasn’t always fresh. It did not taste fresh for us.
**Earthquake?!**
So with the new year earthquake fresh on our minds, we figured we probably would be fine for our trip. I felt like the universe wanted to give us a scare, when we felt a small earthquake in Tokyo enough that we bounced up and down in our hotel, and some building attennas shook for a while) https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/01/28/japan/kanagawa-earthquake/
I confess that I carried my backup battery bank, some snacks and water in my bag the immediate day after just in case but fortunately nothing else happened for the rest of the trip.
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Bit long-winded, but I’ve been wanting to share these thoughts and hope it’s helpful for anyone thinking about these places!
by TotoroMush