Top
Japan

Guide Book

This post is for travelers looking for itinerary tips and ideas. If you are usually here for the stories, feel free to skip this one. It is about to read more like a guide-book. If you are looking for ideas on how to structure an itinerary for one month in Japan, then here we go!   Transportation Japan Rail Pass Japan offers the Japan Rail Pass to tourists in increments of 7 days, 14 days, or 21 days, at prices that locals can only dream of. These rail passes will give you unlimited access to MOST of Japan’s railway system for the amount of

Japan

Travelogue

Japan Day 26 - Tokyo Our flight back to the western world wasn’t until late in the afternoon, and so Fletch and I decided to spend our final morning visiting Tokyo Skytree. We had been meaning to go, and I had been scanning the weather apps for the clearest day possible. Today was our lucky day. We checked out of the hotel and left our bags in the lobby, then rode the subway over to Japan’s tallest structure. The Skytree is new since my last visit to Japan, and definitely demands attention when you catch a glimpse for the first time.

Japan

Rambling

Japan Day 25 - Tokyo Our last full day in Tokyo was spent more or less lazing around. We met up with my friend from high school again in the evening, and another mutual friend from college. Fletch and I requested okonomiyaki, the delectable cabbage pancakes, for our last dinner in Japan. I laid awake in bed that night reflecting on the place that Japan had become. An overwhelming sense of emptiness and loneliness had been growing somewhere deep inside of me ever since stopping in Tokyo. For cities so crowded, we had observed so little in the form of human interaction.

Japan

Rambling

Japan Day 24 - Tokyo We trekked over to Harajuku for brunch. They had an Eggs ’n Things there (a Hawaiian chain we had discovered early in the trip) and we were both in the mood for American breakfast. Harajuku is an area in Tokyo known for its colorful street art and fashion scene. On the weekends, it is usually teaming with young people dressed up in cosplay and Lolita fashion (or so I remembered my high school Japanese teacher saying). Japan as a whole is a fairly conservative society. Women don’t typically show their shoulders, or any amount of chest. None

Japan

Travelogue

Japan Day 23 - Shibuya, Tokyo Our last four days in Tokyo were spent at a much slower pace, wandering around the city, exploring, and watching the fast-paced world turn around us. That is what Fletch and I have become good at over the years, planting ourselves in a spot and getting to know the neighborhood like locals. I notice the cultural nuances and he has the uncanny ability to never get lost. I pick up bits and pieces of the language, and he reads context and people’s intent, making language almost unnecessary. It makes for good wanderings. Now that we

Japan

Cute Animals, Travelogue

Japan Day 22 (Part II) - Akihabara, Tokyo When our MariCar tour was over, Fletch and I were both feeling pretty hungry from all the adrenalin and excitement. Most of the restaurants in Akihabara were advertising either pasta dishes (the Italian type) or random fried foods. A few times we even passed by a massive dessert served inside an entire loaf of white bread. It was all novelty to look at, but none of it was screaming eat me! Finally we found a 24-hour seafood joint. I know what you’re thinking, 24-hour raw fish sounds a little sketchy, but it

Japan

Activities for Your Bucket List

Japan Day 22 (Part I) - Akihabara, Tokyo There was just one thing left to do on our Japan wish lists: dress up as Mario Kart characters and race around the streets of downtown Tokyo in go-karts. I’m not talking about a track, or a virtual realty experience, but actual vehicles zooming around the city streets. Who wouldn’t want to turn the world’s best video game into a real-life experience? Enter MariCar, where you can live out your childhood fantasies in a city as colorful and bizarre as a Mario Kart course. (Disclaimer: MariCar is in no way associated with

Japan

Foodie

Japan Day 21 - Shibuya, Tokyo Fletch and I had been on the go for 20 days. 20 days of touring around Japan, of hopping between major cities, of riding bullet trains across the country. 20 days and so many different hotels that they were all starting to blur together. I went in trying to keep notes on each hotel's differences, for the purpose of writing a post of hotel advice for other travelers. But the truth is, in the $100 per night range, all business hotels are created pretty equally. They're all clean and neat and provide an almost-too-stiff

Japan

Culture, Cute Animals

Japan Day 20 - Himeji to Tokyo I would have happily traded the time we spent in Kyoto for an equal amount of time in Himeji, but alas, after a mere night it was already the beginning of the end, and time to make our way back to Tokyo for our final days in Japan. The trip from Himeji to Shinagawa took three and a half hours, after which we boarded the Yamamote line for Shibuya. That probably sounded like Greek, but after so many weeks riding trains across the country, we were well versed in matching up the correct lines. Shibuya

Japan

Activities for Your Bucket List, Culture, Travelogue

Japan Day 19 - Hiroshima to Himeji Fletch and I had saved our cheese tarts from the previous night for breakfast. They weren’t hot out of the oven anymore, but they still had the sweet richness of the best possible combination of a cheesecake and a tart. The six miniature pie crusts with creamy, cheesy goodness were gone a moment later. Hiroshima was the end of our line, but to break up the journey back to Tokyo, I had scheduled a one-night stay in the little town of Himeji, just enough time to visit the namesake castle. Miniature model of Himeji

Japan

Culture

Japan Day 18 - Hiroshima Fletch and I took our time in the morning. We knew it was going to be a heavy day, so we weren’t in any real hurry to get an early start and jam-pack as much as we could into our hours of daylight. When planning our trip, I had asked Fletch what he wanted to see and do in Japan. His only real request was that he wanted to see Hiroshima, and learn about the Japanese side of WWII. That had been on my list as well, and so our only goals for the city

Japan

Foodie, Travelogue

Japan Day 17 (Part II) - Hiroshima This is a short one, but it didn't belong in the same post as the roller coasters. The two experiences were as different as night and durian.  Halfway dazed from hours of fun and adrenalin, we rode the train back to Osaka, picked up our bags from the lockers, rode the local train to Shin-Osaka Station, and finally the bullet train to Hiroshima. What a day. Luckily our hotel was practically connected to the train station, and so we hardly had to walk outside. The Hotel Granvia Hiroshima was a hotel that had been the

Japan

Activities for Your Bucket List

Japan Day 17 (Part I) - Osaka I liked the Hotel Mystays Dojima. They had given us different sized pillows, some foam, some normal stuffing, some rollers, and none of them felt like newspapers. We also had plenty of space to spread out, and plenty of outlets scattered everywhere, some of which were just USB ports which made them even more convenient. The mirror in the bathroom even had a square patch at eye-height that didn’t fog up when the bathroom got all steamy from the shower. I had always wondered how they managed that, and discovered that the square

Japan

Foodie, Sharks

Japan Day 16 - Osaka It’s difficult to know what to do when you have one full day to explore a city the size of Osaka. Reading Lonely Planet had given me two ideas. One was a biking tour of the city that stopped off at various points to try different foods. We hadn’t attempted any guided tours up until this point and the idea of having a local show us some of the things we might not find on our own was intriguing. Plus it was a food tour. I love food. My other idea was to give culture a

Japan

Foodie

Japan Day 15 - Kyoto to Osaka The strange “hotel” room we were staying in had given us a checkout time of 10:00 - 12:00. We took that as permission to have a lazy morning and took our time packing up. At 10:00 sharp someone was knocking on the door to make sure we were out of there. So much for that plan. Japanese people are very into water conservation. If water is going to be running to flush the toilet anyway, why not have it run through the sink first?  We rode the bus back to the train station, walked across

Japan

Tourist Trap

Japan Day 14 - Kyoto There were two places in Kyoto I definitely wanted to see. The first was the bamboo forest, which I had never been to before. The online reviews said to arrive early, before the crowds, and so Fletch and I did our best to wake up at an early hour. Despite our best efforts, it took an hour and two busses to navigate over to the outskirts of the city where the forest was located, and so we ended up arriving at a normal hour with the rest of the crowds, and crowds was an understatement. The bamboo

Japan

Crazy Cat Lady, Foodie

Japan Day 13 - Kyoto Villa Front Kyoto Seimei was a strange place to say the least. I had booked it for $60 per night, which was a steal in Japan, and so I suppose I couldn’t complain too much, but it was still an odd place. It wasn’t really a hotel or an Airbnb. It was a building full of rooms like a hotel, but without the staff. Instead, someone at a drug store, a 20-minute bus ride away, was working the check-in and check-out. The room itself could have been really nice. It was brand new, spacious, with two

Japan

Travelogue

Japan Day 12 - Hakone to Kyoto Many places in Japan have early checkouts (around 10:00 AM) and late checkins (sometimes as late as 4:00 PM), so even though it would be around a three-hour journey to Kyoto (including some generous transfer time), we had some time to kill before our next accommodation in Kyoto would hand over the keys. I had just assumed we would make our way to Kyoto and kill the extra time there, but when we made it back down to the main train station in Hakone, we were greeted by a beautiful, clear, sunny day.

Japan

Activities for Your Bucket List, Foodie, Romantic, Travelogue

Japan Day 11 - Hakone Is it possible to hear the word Japan without an image of Mount Fuji coming to mind? Japan's tallest mountain has long inspired many an artist and poet, and imagery of the majestic volcano is nearly synonymous with the country. It is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1708, and a subject of Shinto mythology. Such an incredible natural wonder and yet it had eluded me over the course of three trips to Japan. Today was the day we were searching for a view of Mt. Fuji. Of course that also meant that it had

Japan

Foodie, Travelogue

Japan Day 10 - Tokyo to Hakone After checking out, we collected some coffee from the Belken Hotel before walking back to the train station. The little coffee machine in the lobby offered “weak coffee” or “hot coffee.” Who drinks weak coffee? After pushing the button for hot coffee, it was reassuring to hear the sounds of coffee beans being ground right then and there, somewhere inside the little machine. Or maybe it was just sound effects. If Japanese toilets could have sound effects, why not the coffee machines? Coffee in hand, we walked the twelve minutes back to

Japan

Travelogue

Japan Day 9 - Sapporo to Tokyo Fletch and I were getting into the groove of packing up and checking out every couple days. We did just that and checked the train schedules heading back down to Tokyo. Most of the trains in Japan run hourly at the least, but for that eight hour journey, our options were slightly more limited. Our choices were 10:44 or 13:30. We opted to try for the earlier itinerary, just incase anything funny happened where tickets were sold out. Best to have 13:30 as a backup option. We bought our tickets without any issue, and

Japan

Foodie, Travelogue

Japan Day 8 - Sapporo Our morning coffee was interrupted by the sounds of music drifting in through the window. The thermostat on the apartment’s heater didn’t work, and we were keeping the window open to cool it down, even though it was still brisk out. I ran over to poke my head out the window, and noticed a small parade making its way down the street below. Day two of the Hokkaido Shrine Festival was apparently in full swing, and how fun to be able to sit and observe from above with a cup of coffee. Parade making its way

Japan

Culture, Travelogue

Japan Day 7 - Sapporo Fletch and I woke up to the most amazing view from the apartment, overlooking the park and the mountains in the distance. After booking everything, I had realized that we would be spending almost our entire time in Japan in cities, and while cities are definitely a change of pace from our normal lifestyle, they all begin to look the same after a while. It was nice to see some green. I watched the little lake with amusement for a while, where several couples were trying to figure out how to maneuver the oars on

Japan

Foodie, Travelogue

Japan Day 6 - Sendai to Sapporo Fletch and I checked out of Hotel Vista Sendai where we had spent the last two nights, and walked the five minutes across the street to the train station. I had tried to strategically position us as close to the train stations as possible in each city, so that we wouldn’t have to deal with maneuvering our backpacks through packed subways or local trains. Japan is a place where you definitely don’t want to overpack, because maneuvering between crowds and small areas can get to feeling very claustrophobic. I feel claustrophobic at times

Japan

Culture, Travelogue

Japan Day 5 - Matsushima The other most memorable thing that my host family did with me while I was in Sendai, was take me on a day trip to Matsushima. Matsushima is the Palau of Japan, just take away the warm, tropical setting, and crystal clear blue water. Lots of pine tree-covered islands dot the coastline, making it one of the three most scenic views in Japan according to the Japanese people. I had to show this beautiful scenery to Fletch. We left the hotel with the intent of finding Manhattan Bakery again. We didn’t make it quite as far this

Japan

Culture, Foodie

Japan Day 4 - Sendai Pouring rain was forecast for the entire day, so we decided to do the local sightseeing first, even though it was Monday and that meant that the museums were closed. We could always duck inside some shop in the city if the rain got to be too much. A sudden cold front seemed to have settled over Japan, one that was not on the forecast when I was deciding what to pack. I remembered Japan being hot this time of year. Everything I read said Japan was going to be hot this time of year. So

Japan

Foodie

Japan Day 3 - Tokyo to Sendai We woke up to a rainy day. We did come to Japan during rainy season. Most of my trips here have been during rainy season and it has never been a bother before. It was quite early so I spent some time scouring the internet for breakfast places. Japanese breakfast usually consists of rice and fish, and while I do love fish and Japanese food, my palate isn’t quite ready for such adventures yet first thing in the morning. I’m a big fan of fruit and/or eggs. My early morning search brought us around

Japan

Culture, Foodie, Travelogue

Japan Day 2 - Ginza, Tokyo I am nearly certain that there is no such thing as sleeping in on your first day in Japan. For one there’s the jet lag. But there’s also the fact that you are in the land of the rising sun. That’s not just some catchy name. The sun rises at 4:20 in the morning in the summertime in Japan. Since we were on the 12th floor, we found it unnecessary to close the drapes the night before, instead enjoying the small view of the city. That was a mistake. We both woke up happily,

Japan

Travelogue

Japan Day 1 - Narita to Tokyo There is a lot that I left unwritten about Fiji, but perhaps that is for the best. Life in Fiji was slow, which was a beautiful way to live life, but not all that much to write about. Fletch and I lived on a little island where we never had to worry about shoes or wallets. We did lock the door, but our key lanyards were left in the open window of the dive shop, so it’s not like it was really that necessary to lock up. Plus every door could be opened