Wrapping up 16 days between Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hakone. Thoughts and take aways.
Travels: 6 days in Tokyo (Chiyoda and Shinjuku as home bases), trips around different areas of the city (Ginza, Shibuya, Minato). 3 days in Osaka, full day trip to Kobe. 4 days in Kyoto, day trip to Nara. 3 days in Hakone at a resort.
Purpose and focus: honeymoon trip, focused mainly on shopping/site seeing/eating.
First and foremost, I’d like to say the Golden Route was gorgeous. Definitely a tourist heavy route but absolutely lovely and incredibly enjoyable. We arrived at the beginning of GW and spent nearly the entirety of it in Tokyo, something I will get into momentarily. I speak loose Japanese and can’t read quite literally any of it but we found that there were VERY few times where we were lost/confused. As many others have said translation apps have gotten good enough to hold basic conversation and enables you to get around without much issues. We are both fairly introverted but found conversation at small shops pleasant and rather fluid. eSIM was not needed if your provider has international data (my wife has Verizon and I have TMobile) but we found that the eSIM was MUCH faster in comparison to TMobile.
**Immediate thoughts, the good:**
- Food: To nobodies surprise there is good food everywhere. We had no issue finding meals in any city and actually found ourselves paralyzed by the plethora of decisions more often than not. Some places had lines, we waited in a few, but didn’t find any massive margin of quality/service between those with a queue and those without. We did find that small cafes/restaurants off the beaten path offered more polite/talkative staff as opposed to the busy fronts in populated areas. Our biggest regret BY FAR was the booking of Michelin star restaurants. They are so abundant in Tokyo and Osaka that we had 7 dinners at Michelin establishments, would say whole heartedly they were *NOT* worth it. Will speak to this later. Only two we felt were very much worth the price and experience were “Otsuki” in Osaka and “Tinc Gana” near our first hotel. Both very cool, very friendly staff, good portions, and incredible food.
- Travel: We found travel to be extremely easy. We never bought the rail cards or anything, just paid cash when we got the station. The machines are easy to navigate and there was always staff to help. Our first train ride we forgot to put our ticket back in at the end, the security politely requested our ticket and showed us the proper way. Zero issues after that. Even during GW we never missed a train due to being over crowded, we were never “crammed”, although we usually stood and opted to allow children/elderly our seats. We got lucky as there were never any delays either. Uber/taxi is cheap compared to where we lived in the states and we opted to take that multiple times after some dinners/drinks due to the overall time investment (30 minutes between train/walking vs 7 minutes and $6 for an uber, for example). Super simple. Makes me upset at our lack of public transit back home lol.
Luggage shipping: Absolutely incredible and makes me to a certain degree also upset at the lack of availability at home. To ship between our hotels was anywhere from $30-50 for 3 decent sized bags. We would pack up our backpacks and just carry that between home bases. Every hotel received our luggage without issue, although not every hotel was able to ship. Finding a store front was quick/easy and staff was always super helpful. Shipping from the HND airport was an absolute breeze. Made travel SO much easier and less stressful all around.
Site seeing: My oh my, so much! Everyone was right, there was SO much to do that you could easily spend months in each area and not run out. I wish we had been more specific and selective with our choices prior to the trip. We came in with “must, want, would be cool” priority for places and effectively ran an open itinerary. Woke up each morning, looked at places, and planned a rough route. Worked very well but because there was so much to do/see we felt as though we left a lot on the table despite starting everyday at 7 and ending almost everyday around 9-10pm and 30k steps later. Seriously endless possibilities. TeamLab Biovortex was INCREDIBLE. We cannot recommend it enough. Truly a highlight of our trip.
Hotels and people: In general locals were incredibly polite, staff everywhere were super friendly, and shops off the beaten path were usually inquisitive. All our hotels were clean and kept well, we had two that were rather expensive (Bellustar Tokyo and Madoka NoMori) but we found that those really set themselves apart with size/amenities/views. We would have been very pleased with any of our other hotels in general, but we splurged a bit for our honeymoon.
Shopping: Some areas were chaos and others were super simple in/out. Really depended on the area. Overall prices were cheaper for most items, although a few were not much of a gap. I purchased a Grand Seiko significantly cheaper than it would have been in the states and my wife got a lot of toys/collectibles that were legitimately half priced of what we could find online/home. We got some quality knives that were about equal price as home/online from reputable dealers but it was cool to watch them put together and hand sharpened/polished. Tons of tourist shops if you’re into that, usually fairly cheap. Some areas around landmarks in Kyoto and Tokyo definitely had the tourist upcharge though for things like ceramics and clothing so be aware of what you want and look around a bit.
Golden Week: Way blown out of proportion IMO. We read so much ahead of the trip and psyched ourselves out so bad that we both had anxiety showing up but quickly found that it wasn’t any better/worse than any other time. The crowd density/distribution was the biggest difference IMO. During GW most of the people we saw were Japanese with smatterings of other nationalities, following GW it was mostly foreigners with the occasional school trip at cultural sites.
**Immediate thoughts, the bad:**
People: I know I know, a tourist complaining about other tourists but bear with me. We both love Japanese culture and researched quite a bit for awhile leading up to our trip. We were consciously making it a point to be polite and adhere to local courtesies. But my god the amount of people who seemingly come to Japan and treat it like an amusement park or all inclusive resort is insane. We personally witness multiple times people who would play music at shrines or hang on the structures/posing questionably for photos, “Karens” that would argue anything/everything with staff as if they aren’t 1 of 5million people in the immediate vicinity, and overall entitled people would believed that they personally were the priority and everything was catered specifically for them (think “the world revolves around me” type). Loud yelling on trains, taking photos of people/children just living their lives, incredibly pushy on walk ways or for photo ops. Just overall lots of disrespect. It made us feel immense sorrow for locals and people who had to put up with this type of stuff daily. We lived in a big city for 7 years and this was 100x worse than anything we experienced. On a plus side though we never witnessed any fights or altercations so there’s that!
Restaurants: As stated earlier, we heavily regretted booking almost all of our Michelin restaurants. Slow, food was not much of a cut above, and they were SO slow. Not a single one outside of Otsuki and Tinc Gana was completed in under 3 hours and portions/taste would have been bested at many of our other selections. Out of them all was one called “Abysse” that I cannot condemn enough. The seating was cheap and not cushioned at all, the entire 9 course meal was 3:45 so dishes were coming out roughly 20-30 minutes apart, and no single dish wowed us remotely. Charged per glass of mineral water to boot, which was minimal fee but still felt bad when looking at the receipt.
**Observation/Recommendations**
Hotels: Not a bad thing per se but something that was far outside our preference. We booked kings at every hotel assuming they would be kings, but instead they were twins pushed together with a thin topper. Again only the 5 star resorts had a true king. I am 6’1” and often found my feet off the end or close to unless I pushed myself almost to the headboard. In addition beds in Japan are VERY firm compared to in the states. I prefer a firmer mattress but these were well beyond anything I normally enjoyed. If you’re a back sleeper, this is a dream for you. If you are a side/stomach sleeper you will wake up in pain likely.
Breakfast/Lunch: This was a culture shock that I don’t know how we missed with everything we read prior. Breakfast places don’t usually open until late morning as breakfast is traditionally eaten at home with family in Japan, which means finding something earlier is neigh impossible. We thought it would be rare but it was honestly much harder to find morning food than we thought. Due to the 13 hour time change and our desire to get up to see things before they got busy we were usually showered and ready for the day around 7, the earliest cafes we found open were generally 8am and served sweets/coffee with limited proteins. Not the biggest deal, we ended up buying fruit and granola bars for the morning after the second night just to have some sustenance prior to starting our walks. We never really got into the routine of eating a full lunch early, instead opting for 1ish. A fair warning is most shops close between the lunch rush and dinner crowd. We found many closed between 2/3pm and opened close to 5/6pm. Not a big deal but definitely something to anticipate as you go hunting for food.
Shibuya/Shinjuku: The outskirts areas of both were very cool but the core downtown areas were just not worth it in either of our opinions. Again we’ve been around crowds but nothing like this. Think main stage during peak performance at a national festival x10. It was just constant chaos and we both felt so overstimulated by the time we left. Some people will read that and think “hell yeah” and some will think “absolutely not”. We read up ahead of time but didn’t picture it being as crazy as it actually was. Truly no forewarning does it justice. Golden Gai was alright but nothing really special IMO. Cool little area with tiny bars where you can always find a place to sit/drink but the purpose we found is to engage in conversation with those around you rather than just enjoy the vibes with your own company. Extroverts wet dream right here, not so much for the introverts looking to catch a buzz with chill people. In comparison we thought Kyoto and Osaka were INCREDIBLY tame, with Hakone/Nara/Kobe being a leisurely stroll in the park.
Dialogue: Although learning Japanese is not needed, I think knowing a few polite conversational pieces goes a very long way. (Excuse my spelling) Gochisousama Deshita, itadakimasu, ippon namimas ka, etc were phrases my wife learned and practiced saying properly and it opened up dialogue at MANY bars/restaurants. She would usually have to refer to me or the translation app after but the entire mood would noticeably shift to a more pleasant tone following.
Xenophobia: Only putting this out there because it’s been a topic on this sub lately (seemingly). We only experienced xenophobia twice total, both in Kyoto, and displeasurable discourse maybe 3 times also in Kyoto (think someone scoffing at you, coughing *at* you, or shoving). The xenophobia was blatant, we had walked into a bar the first night and the bar tender rather aggressively said “no foreigner, go away” and shooed us out. The second was while showing up for a yakitori reservation (made with my very white American name) and the chef told us “leave, no foreigner” after we had already been sat down. While these all stung a bit we did not take it to heart, as explained earlier we had witnessed SO much disrespect by tourists prior to this that it almost felt warranted. Again we always tried to adhere to local social code and courtesies we know that we are just 2 people amidst the constant throngs of travels in/out. No harm no foul in either of our eyes. To a certain degree we were surprised that these were the only instances we could take note of.
Packing: We both WAY overpacked. We knew style in Japan was much different but man were we so far off base lol. Packed lots of tees and short/joggers, but also packed a few button ups, a few polos, and some dressier shoes/pants. I wore the polos and every single tee/short/jogger combo but didn’t touch the button downs or dress pants/shoes outside of our first dinner. Showed up with a button down and dinner jacket to see everyone else in denim and plain tee shirts or a casual polo. Would have saved some additional luggage space had we known!
And that’s the wrap! We absolutely loved our stay and will happily be planning another trip to more rural areas in the north in the next few years. The country was incredible as a whole, the sites were mind blowing, and the experience could not be better. 10/10 :)