12 Days in Japan
Japan is a country with something for everyone. There’s access to cities, nature, sightseeing, sports, entertainment, and a whole lot of delicious food. It’s also insanely clean and most of the locals we encountered were very friendly.
I was last in Japan in 2018 with my family and, like most first-timers, we visited the popular destinations of Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. Since it was now Keon’s first time visiting Japan, we planned to spend time in those same cities, but also mix in a short trip to Sapporo and a day trip to Kobe.
(In contrast to our day-to-day journaling during our summer road trip around the United States and Canada, we’re slowing it down while we’re abroad to keep our long-term travel lifestyle sustainable and avoid burnout. This means a lot of our days are filled with doing “normal” things like watching TV, working out, sleeping in, etc. We will just share highlights of our experiences, neighborhoods we explored in each country, how much time we spent in each place, and any lessons we learned along the way.)
Days 1-5: Tokyo
Asakusa
We stayed in Asakusa while we were in Tokyo and thought it was super fun. Our hotel was just at the corner of Hoppy Street—a street lined with izakayas and small side alleys with spots popular amongst the locals—and just a few blocks from the popular Senso-ji temple. This neighborhood had a lot of variety with its many bars, restaurants, shopping streets, and historic features for sightseeing. Anyone not staying in this neighborhood could spend the longer part of a day here as it’s lively both during the day and night.
Nakamise-dori Street is the main street leading up to Senso-ji temple and is often packed with tourists. Here you can find rows of stalls selling snacks and desserts, souvenir shops, and specialty stores (like knife shops, to name an example). We walked along it for a few minutes before getting tired of being shoulder-to-shoulder with the crowds and decided to venture along the side streets instead.
One of my brothers sent me a YouTube video of some food spots in Asakusa (not knowing we were staying there). It turns out most of them were within one or two blocks away from our hotel so we checked them out and they quickly became some of our favorite spots in Japan.
We recommend:
らぁめん めん○ - Shoyu ramen for just ¥350 (~$2.50 USD)
Asakusa Unana - Unagi (eel) onigiri; get there before noon to avoid the afternoon line that can stretch down the block *KEY’S FAVE*
Giraffa - Cheesy curry bread *LIL’S FAVE*
Kotobuki-sei-an - Matcha tiramisu crepe
Asakusa Kagetsudō - Matcha soft serve filled melon pan (sweet bun)
Namara - Miso ramen with spicy and curry options
Okina Soba - Traditional soba and udon noodle shop
Akihabara and Ueno Park
We dedicated one afternoon to Akihabara and Ueno Park because they were within walking distance to our hotel. I suppose “walking distance” is subjective, as walking to Akihabara from Asakusa still took around 45 minutes, but the weather was perfect and the streets of Japan are pleasant to walk down, so we happily made the trek.
Akihabara is a neighborhood that spans a few blocks and is the electronics hub of the city. There are so many electronics retailers, both big and small, and you’ll also find stores dedicated to anime, manga, and toys. Anyone who loves these types of collectibles will have a field day in Akihabara.
Keon could probably have a field day in Akihabara but, since we are not shopping a lot as backpackers, we just walked around a few stores—most notably the giant BIC Camera department store—and window shopped for the most part.
After grabbing some lunch, we walked about 20 minutes to Ueno Park. The main shopping district leading up to the park is Ameyoko Shopping District, where you’ll see a lot of restaurants, souvenir stalls, and specialty shops. There seemed to be smaller shopping streets and alleys everywhere you look in this area. Some of them specialize in leather goods while others have shelves upon shelves of sneakers. You really can find it all around here. Ueno Park is a large metropolitan park, like Golden Gate Park in San Francisco or Central Park in New York City. It has museums, gardens, buskers, and—on the day that went—a latin festival that had many food tents and some public Zumba classes taught on a stage. We didn’t go to any of the museums, but it was fun to people watch for an afternoon.
We recommend:
Akihabara Menya Musashi Bujin - some of the best tsukemen I’ve had
Roppongi and Shibuya
My family and I stayed in Roppongi the last time we were in Tokyo and I’d remembered it to be fun and lively. Keon and I came back to walk around and it must have been a little too early since nothing seemed that packed yet. It actually felt very quiet. Looking back, my family and I were really just in the neighborhood at night, after exploring other areas during the day, so this checks out since the area is known for its nightlife.
We decided to move on and explore Shibuya—about a 15-minute train ride away—rather than waiting around for Roppongi to come to life.
The most popular attraction in Shibuya is probably Shibuya Crossing, a large intersection that halts traffic from all directions to allow all pedestrians to cross. It’s right outside Shibuya station so would naturally get a lot of foot traffic anyway, but with tourists coming from all over the world to cross this street as well, it feels extremely crowded and chaotic. To add to the madness, we now live in a world of content creators, vloggers, and influencers who all want to show the internet what it’s like to cross the street at the same time as hundreds of other people. This means someone walking right in front of you is likely be paying attention to their devices rather than the street, and they’ll also stop out of nowhere to set up for the perfect photo. Like I said, chaos. Tall people like Keon probably don’t have as hard of a time but for shorter people like me, it can get pretty stuffy in a giant sea of people. People also view the crossing from above, at viewpoints like the nearby Starbucks or other stores. These places tend to be crowded as well.
From here, we walked around and wandered through the many alley ways, passing by bars, yakiniku restaurants, and love hotels. We met up with my aunt and uncle for an AYCE yakiniku experience and ate our weight in premium wagyu before getting a nightcap at a nearby brew spot.
Shibuya is hectic and busy in a way that’s less tolerable that Asakusa is for me, so I probably wouldn’t choose to stay there. However, I know a lot of people do. After all, it is a large neighborhood with local and international shopping, has a large train station, and tons of food and drink options.
Shinjuku
Shinjuku is another popular neighborhood for Tokyo visitors. It’s home to a few well-known tourist alleys like Omoide Yokocho and Shinjuku Golden Gai. We walked through both and found the latter to be more lively and centered around pubs. These pubs are tiny, with many only have a couple of seats wedged between the bar counter and the wall. Because they’re so small, a lot of them (if not all) also charge a cover so you’re not hogging up extra seats. Both Shinjuku and Shibuya are known for having good nightlife and entertainment.
Tokyo Main Station
We spent the least amount of time in this neighborhood. It’s great if you want to go shopping for designer goods or enjoy a fancy cocktail, but being lavish is neither fun nor possible with our backpacker wallets. We did find a great aburasoba spot for dinner, though, and that we can recommend going to this area for.
We recommend:
Tokyo Abura Soba Ginza Main Branch - aburasoba or mazesoba; come hungry because all the sizes were the same price
Days 6-7: Sapporo
Sapporo was a place we wish we spent more time. It’s a tiny city compared to Tokyo but seems to be a jumping point for a lot of the Hokkaido national parks, which we regret we didn’t allot time for.
One of the main things to do in the city of Sapporo is to visit the Sapporo Beer Garden and Museum. We didn’t visit the museum, but we did make a reservation for the Beer Garden which has all-you-can-eat Genghis Khan BBQ and all-you-can-drink Sapporo beers and cocktails. Genghis Khan BBQ is a Hokkaido special and consists of cooking meat, primarily mutton, on a dome-shaped grill. In the Sapporo Beer Garden, you order your food and drinks from an iPad and either a robot or human staff brings it out to you. It’s unclear to us how they decide who gets the job that round, but it’ll get it to you either way! There are a few different halls where you can be seated and all of them get crowded fast, so I highly recommend making a reservation in advance. We walked in during our first evening to find that the wait was 90 minutes and we’d be seated 30 minutes before closing time. We ended up making a lunch reservation for the next day and it was a much better option than waiting over an hour and then rushing to eat before the kitchen closes.
We walked around the Susukino district of Sapporo on our last night, an area known for its nightlife and entertainment (a LOT of go-go bars). I highly recommend making reservations for restaurants in this area too. We went to maybe 2-3 different places that turned us away because they were booked up for the night and were taking reservations only.
Overall, and Hokkaido definitely left something to be desired. We will be back.
We recommend:
Sapporo Beer Garden - all-you-can-eat-and-drink BBQ; make reservations
Soup Curry Garaku - thin curry soup with a side of rice (no noodles); get it with cheese!
The Soft Cream House - Hokkaido soft serve where the cones are the star of the show; they’re not your average waffle cone and taste like cigarette butter cookies
Days 8-12: Osaka
Tengachaya
Tengachaya is a small, local neighborhood just 15 minutes, by train, south of the frequented Namba and Dotonbori tourist areas. We enjoyed staying here because it was close to two different stations, had a large grocery store that we went to every day, and it was near a local park that we utilized for getting some exercise in. It’s a quiet neighborhood that was nice during the day and still just a stone’s throw away from the hustle and bustle if we wanted it.
We recommend:
たこ焼き 彩り - takoyaki that we thought tasted better and were less runny than others we tried on tourist streets like Dotonbori and Shinsekai
Kajita - okonomiyaki that’s cooked on a hibachi grill in front of you
Shinsekai and Nipponbashi Denden Town
Shinsekai is known for being a colorful district and home to the Tsutenkaku tower. You can get views of both if you stand in one of the district’s intersections, just like I and 30 other people did in order to get the photo below.
It’s quite touristy, with many restaurants waving you inside to sit and snack stalls with long lines. We didn’t find it appealing enough to stay for long and we’d already eaten so we moved along. Regardless, it is fun, lively, and lets you experience the colorful and bright side of Japan that you see in media.
Just a short walk north of Shinsekai is Nipponbashi Denden Town—Osaka’s equivalent to Tokyo’s Akihabara neighborhood. It’s lined with stores selling electronics, toys, games, and anime with some cafes and restaurants sprinkled in between. It probably took us about 30 minutes to walk through if you didn’t count our restroom breaks and stopping at a store for Keon to get a souvenir.
Walking through Shinsekai and Nipponbashi Denden Town was a good way for us to get from our Airbnb to Dotonbori.
Namba and Dotonbori
We went to Namba a few times during our stay in Osaka. It has a lot of large shopping streets, a mall, and Kuromon Ichiba Market, a market that with seafood vendors and souvenir shops. We ended up going to the market twice because we weren’t hungry the first time and wanted to return and try some foods like uni (sea urchin) and pufferfish sashimi. I ended up not caring for either but Keon loved both—so if you love trying different seafood dishes and want to make your way to a couple vendors, definitely come hungry.
At night, Namba becomes a hotspot for dinner and drinks, with endless options to choose from. We wandered the alleys and looked at countless menus until we found one that we were in the mood for. One of our favorite restaurants from our entire Japan trip is here (more details below) and it was in such an unassuming location. This is a reminder to literally look up when you’re wandering the streets of Japan, because some of the best spots can be higher than eye level.
We didn’t spend too much time on the main street in Dotonbori because it was pretty similar to Shinsekai in the sense that there’s a lot of people, lines, and marked up food. We walked through and spent most of the time walking along the river, giving us a different perspective than those viewing the buildings from the footbridges. You can see the giant Don Quijote and the Glico Man, and they both look even bigger when you’re standing below near the water.
Between the shopping and eating, you could spend an entire day walking around the Namba and Dotonbori areas.
We recommend:
Niboshi-Ramen Tamagoro Kuromon - tsukemen and ramen just outside of Kuromon Ichiba Market
21時にアイス - seemingly trendy, but actually good, ice cream with various toppings
Gyukatsu Tomita - gyukatsu that’s just as good as, if not better than, the popular Gyukatsu Motomura chain; it has less of a wait and is cheaper *A KEY & LIL FAVE*
Day Trip to Kyoto
I didn’t join Keon in Kyoto until later in the day because I’d already seen some of the temples and attractions during my last trip. Kyoto is a 45 minute train ride from Osaka and is known for having many temples, shrines, traditional homes, and a famous bamboo forest. It’s also a popular city for relaxing in an onsen and staying in a ryokan, but we didn’t do either. Maybe next time.
Keon spent his day visiting the Arashiyama bamboo forest and its neighboring temple, Tenryu-ji, before we met at Nishiki market. He said the bamboo forest was crowded, but we expected it to be. It apparently no longer makes a huge difference if you go right when it opens because the forest has large crowds at all hours of the day.
Nishiki market is a long stretch of vendors and stalls selling all sorts of snacks and souvenirs. And on the east end of it, Kawaramachi-dori St is a huge shopping street that runs perpendicular to the market, so it feels like the shopping never ends. We hadn’t eaten so we went on a little food crawl down Nishiki. Most of the food we tried was okay—good, but nothing compared to some of our favorites from Osaka and Tokyo. Afterwards, we walked through Pontocho towards Gion, Kyoto’s geisha district. It is fun to walk around and looking at the traditional-style homes and shops.
Further down from Gion are Ninenzaka and Sannenzaka which are pedestrian areas that showcase Japanese architecture and house a lot of souvenir shops. We found these areas to be even more crowded than other parts of Kyoto, possibly because the streets were narrower here so it felt more shoulder-to-shoulder. It was hectic during these late afternoon/early evening hours and made me wonder if it’s better earlier in the day.
We ended the day at Fushimi Inari Taisha, which many people may be familiar with from seeing pictures of its neat line of red gates. There are hundreds of gates lining paved trails and it’s a unique attraction. We didn’t walk through the whole thing, but felt content since the whole area is lined with the same style of gates.
We recommend:
Hanayori Kiyoe - various croquettes; we liked the curry croquette and the soy milk croquette
Day Trip to Kobe
Going to Kobe was more of a half-day trip for us, but I could see how you can spend a full day or more there. One of the main reasons we went to Kobe was to eat some Kobe beef in its hometown prefecture. Fun fact: most of the beef marketed as “Kobe beef” in the US is actually not Kobe beef! This Forbes article can give you the gist.
In Kobe, the dining experiences are usually one of two: teppanyaki-style with a chef or cook-it-yourself. Cooking it yourself tends to be cheaper but carries more risk of it being under- or over-cooked. A dining experience with a chef will cost few more dollars but you can usually trust that they’ll cook it to your liking and you get the added bonus of watching them, which is quite entertaining. It’s also better to go for lunch if you’re looking to save a few bucks. The beef options are usually the same but its less crowded and slightly more affordable than if you went for dinner.
After a filling lunch, we walked to Sorakuen garden to walk around and enjoy some peace and quiet. It’s a small, gated garden near the city center and they do charge a small admission fee. We probably walked around for an hour or so and basked in the serenity while digesting our meal.
Chinatown in Kobe is also a fun few blocks to explore. Like most Chinatowns, this one had food stalls and shops lined up in all streets and alleyways and a lot of people were walking around looking at the different menus in front of the restaurants. It was the liveliest area in Kobe’s city center that we walked through. Too bad we were coming from a steak lunch and weren’t even close to being hungry, otherwise we may have stopped for some dumplings or tea.
Kobe has other things to offer from a street of Western-style homes to waterfalls and hikes. We didn’t do any of these things because we were tired, but the few hours we did spend here were a nice break from the hustle and bustle of Osaka. It was very easy to get to—just 15 minutes to an hour from Osaka depending on the train you take—and we’d recommend it.
And just like that, twelve days in Japan have gone by! We’re already dreaming about the day we can return to Japan as there’s still so much we have left to explore, history to learn, and food to eat. It’s easily become one of our favorite countries we’ve visited together.