By Published on

Japan

As our plane flew into Tokyo, we looked out the window and saw Mt. Fuji poking out of the clouds. From everything we’d heard from friends and seen online, this was the country we were most excited for. The vending machines, the sushi, the salarymen passed out drunk in their business suits. What’s not to love?

Akasaka

We started our month-long Tokyo stay in the Akasaka district. We landed a few days before New Years Eve, so we found the least overpriced hotel we could find. Unfortunately, there was a reason the room was so affordable. It was easily the smallest hotel room we’ve ever stayed in. Basically an 8ft x 8ft room somehow fitting a bed, shower, and toilet. There were a lot of accidental kicking and elbowing each other. However, the location turned out to be great. It was a more residential pocket of the city so things were quiet, not too touristy, and had plenty of authentic restaurants. Our very first meal was at Shinobu which ended up being one of our favorites while we were here.

After arriving in Japan, we had a newfound energy, so we capitalized. We started exploring everything we’d heard so much about: the neon skylines, the subway, the Don Quijotes, the giant electronic stores, and most importantly… the 7 Elevens. Every night we walked in to a convenience store and grabbed something we had never seen before. We got different instant ramens, candies, premade sandwiches, and a beer or two ‘for research purposes’. A couple of standouts: the egg sandwich (it for sure lives up to the hype), Hersey’s Cookies’n Cream covered freeze dried strawberries (the name is a mouthful but you’ll want a mouthful once you try one), anything in the ice cream freezer chests, and Kaitlyn’s favorite… the robot smoothie maker. You pick out a cup of frozen fruit, bring it to the machine, scan the barcode, and the smoothie robot works his magic. Domo arigato, smoothie roboto!

NYE had arrived and we were pretty excited. What’s better than finding a sake bar in Tokyo to bring in the new year?! Turns out… almost everything else is better. We got dressed up and were ready to hit the town. Everywhere we went though, the bars and restaurants were closed. Whole neighborhoods were dark and shut down with no one outside at all. Turns out the Japanese have a much more respectable way of celebrating the incoming new year. They all go home and spend a quiet evening with their family. We started getting nervous because we really didn’t want to spend our night back in the world’s smallest hotel room. Luckily, just as we were about to give up, we saw a small pack of people heading out to a lit up street a few blocks down. There was nothing to lose, so we followed blindly. Sure enough it was the Golden Gai area of Shinjuku. It was totally packed! It seemed like all the non-locals found the only open spot in town and bum-rushed it. We went into the first place we saw with an open seat. It was a 6-seater sake bar with a loud, outspoken Japanese bartender running the whole place himself. We met some people from all around, Kanpai'd everyone at midnight, and had a great night.

Asakusa

After that, we spent the next two weeks in Asakusa. No, this isn’t a typo, it’s a different place. It’s pretty busy here but for good reason. There are lots of things to do and it sits next to two of the biggest sites in Tokyo, the Skytree and the Sensō-ji temple. 

An interesting thing we started to notice in Japan was the affinity locals seemed to have for old Americana style. There were guys walking around with cuffed denim jeans and black leather jackets. There were 50s-style diners making burgers and old-school sodas. They seemed to have a better respect for American culture than we do. It’s still Japan, but there’s an unexpected hit of ‘Happy Days’. Ayyyy!

It was here that I also decided to do something a little crazy. Kaitlyn had been wanting to get an ear piercing and since I was out of the corporate world for a little bit, I decided I would join in too. We both got matching gold piercings. My mid-life crisis timing wasn’t great though. As it turns out, Japan isn’t big on piercings (or tattoos) in their culture so this process ended up being trickier than we expected. There were very few places that would actually do ear piercings. But I had already mentally committed, so we found someone across town in an old sketchy apartment that would do it. I would have preferred a Claire's, but we did what we had to. 

Ginza

Our last area of the city we stayed in was Ginza. One of the best things we did here was spend a morning at the Tsukiji Fish Market. This is where the famous tuna auctions take place and where a majority of the fresh fish comes into the city. Walking through the market and tasting a slice of fish that was caught hours ago was incredible. We would highly recommend any raw fish or sushi fan to visit. It’s a good and bad news situation, though. The good news, you get to eat the freshest sushi grade tuna that you can’t find maybe anywhere in the world. The bad news, it ruins all tuna for you in the future.

About a year ago, we came across a video on Instagram showing a small Texas-themed bar in Tokyo, called Little Texas. We thought it might be gimmicky but we figured we’d go anyways and show our support. However, once we got there, we were shocked at how authentic it was. The menu, music, and decor were spot on. The owner ensured authenticity by taking a few “business trips” to Texas to find stuff for the bar. He was actually given “Honorary Texan” status by Rick Perry in 2011. The bar was full of locals singing and two-stepping to a live country cover band. And hearing George Strait sung in broken English and a thick Japanese accent halfway across the world is one of the greatest things a Texan can hear. We stayed longer than we planned, line danced with the locals and even talked to a couple other Texans who had the same idea as us. It ended up being one of our more memorable nights and cured any homesickness we had.

During one of our last nights in Tokyo, we went to the Park Hyatt which is famous for being the filming spot of 'Lost in Translation'. We went to visit the hotel bar, so I could be Bill Murray and Kaitlyn could be Scarlett Johansson (without the adultery, of course). Having a drink and listening to the jazz band was the perfect way to top off our time in Tokyo. And we randomly saw Aziz Ansari and his wife there too. A star-studded affair!

Our time in Tokyo was up and it was time to move to the iconic city of Kyoto. If we could pass on one tip, pick a hotel in Shibuya or Shinjuku. Our normal guidance is to stay away from the popular areas, but not here. This is where you want to be, there is so much cool stuff packed here and the metro connections to the rest of the city saves you a ton of time.

Now time to board the Shinkansen!

Kyoto

Kyoto is kind of known for being the poster child for over-tourism. We’ve seen the videos of thousands of people in the streets and the recent government changes to crack down. But we figured, surely they can handle just two more people.

When we got here, though, we saw what everyone was talking about. The locals were nice but you could tell they were worn out by the constant crowds day in and day out. A few times we’d walk into a store or restaurant and got the feeling that we weren’t welcome. But after a few minutes they’d size us up, realize we weren’t that annoying, and would warm up to us. Other shops wouldn’t even give you a chance, with signs on the door saying, “Japanese only”. We couldn’t blame them though. This was supposedly the “slow” season for tourism but you could have fooled us. All the temples and sites were packed and hard to enjoy. While they were great to see, we couldn’t help but feel like we were just adding to the problem.

After a few days, we picked up on something. Everyone, for the most part, is here for 1-2 days so they all rush to the “top 5 must-see sights”. The rest of the city, however, is wide open, and it’s full of amazing temples and nature views. Most of them we found were just as impressive as the famous ones. Once we realized this, we changed our strategy and started visiting less popular places. That’s when things got a lot more enjoyable. Our advice for Kyoto is to take the path less traveled. 

Before we left Kyoto, Kaitlyn, the matcha connoisseur, planned a day trip south of the city to the birthplace of the drink, Uji. We took a matcha class where we learned about the origins and process of the tea. The teacher gave us some tea leaves grown right outside, we ground them by hand into a fine powder, and brewed it in the traditional ceremonial method. This experience was 100% worth a day trip. The only downside was, it’s another moment where all future matchas might be ruined for us.

Osaka

Our last stop was in Osaka. We had fun exploring the massive Osaka station Umeda area. It was cool to see the Glico Runner sign (it is way bigger than you think) and the Osaka Castle.

But overall this was our least favorite city. We found it to be a slightly less-exciting version of Tokyo. To be fair though, it was freezing the whole time we were there, which put a damper on our energy to explore. We certainly didn’t see everything but I think if we did it again, we would remove Osaka and add those days back to either Tokyo or Kyoto. That being said, we did have one of the best drinks of the trip here at Ourlog Coffee. Their matcha with a shot of espresso was exactly what we needed while braving the 20-degree weather.

Our Opinions

I thought I’d add an opinion section for Japan. This part may get some hate… but I have a duty to report the truth. We had high expectations for Japan. Sky high. It felt like every person that’s ever existed says Japan is the greatest place on Earth. All the memes of Japan living in the year 2500, the trains, the food, the cleanliness, it’s like a city in its own category. Maybe because of this, we found it to be slightly underwhelming. We didn’t see the city in the same cherry-blossom colored glasses everyone else seems to. I have theories as to why this was though:

First off, Japan is not great for slow traveling; hotel rooms are tiny, the city is packed, and there are no real third spaces. The time we spent in our hotel felt very cramped and got old quick. Restaurants and coffee shops are built for people to move in and out rapidly, so we could never find a great spot to relax while we were out exploring. On top of that, we stayed in China longer than expected which put us at a very cold time of year for Japan. We didn’t pack a lot of warm clothes either, so the outdoors was less than ideal for us.

If the average person visits for a week though, this doesn’t really matter. You have the energy to keep pushing through the day and your goal, most likely, is to spend as little time in that tiny hotel room as possible. We’ve been traveling for 9 months, so the things we have to do, like laundry, planning, and making meals became a real pain point that the normal person wouldn’t even notice.

Second, and maybe the biggest, was the direct comparison of Japan to China. Japan is famous for its cleanliness, metro efficiency, technology, lifestyle, etc. But honestly, we just left China where we found all of that to be more impressive. To be fair, both were super impressive but the typical Japan ‘Wow’ moments people seem to have weren’t as strong for us. Also, Japan is a super popular destination and packed with tourists. The locals have been dealing with over-tourism problems for years so we felt a little bad at some points. Alternatively, China had virtually no tourists and the locals were more than excited to have us. Sites in China we’d have to ourselves but in Japan we were shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other people fighting to get a good picture.

All that said, we really enjoyed our time in Japan and there are many things that will bring us back. We had a ton of fun exploring all the neighborhoods, shopping, checking out the Don Quijotes, eating black cod sushi, and getting a lemon sour with every meal. It will be greatly missed and we can’t wait to come back.

Our next stop is back to China, sort of… we are headed to Hong Kong and Macau for Chinese New Year and some warmer weather!

Places we loved:

Food:
Coffee:
Bars:

 

This article was updated on 16 Jun 2026

Comments