I thought it might be nice to include a bulleted list of destinations and resources so that if you’re planning your own trip, you can just grab information from here without having to dig through all my journals. Of course, I still recommend looking through the rest of the blog posts to see detailed advice and thoughts plus pictures! Trip planning was heavily facilitated and tracked using an app called WanderLog.

The 15th was our last full day in Japan :( It’s a sucky feeling! But we were prepared to make the most of it. We got coffee and pastries for breakfast at a place called Yamazaki Café and Bakery. I thought the pastries were quite good! Then we took the train to Sunshine City! Sunshine City is a big mall with a bunch of cool stuff. I was most interested in the Pokemon Mega Tokyo but we saw some other cool stuff there too.

Today we had to check out of the ryokan and leave Kyoto :(. Before we left we had the ryokan breakfast which was just as intense as the day before’s. So much tofu for breakfast! It was tough because this was our friend’s favorite city and we had a really lovely stay. But on the plus side we got to ride the shinkansen for the first time this trip. I can say a lot of things about how Japan has public utilities figured out and transit is certainly one of them.

Monday was our final day in Tokyo. For breakfast, we went to Cafe 1886 which is actually the lobby cafe for a local Bosch office. It was funny because I thought it was just a themed cafe for a while. They’ve got Bosch products on display and the order number stands were machining prototype blocks. While it’s pretty funny to eat a random company cafe on vacation, the food and coffee were actually pretty good.

For breakfast on Sunday we went to White Glass in an effort to try out as many local cafes as possible. I forgot my phone for pictures but I thought the coffee was decent and the fruity crumbly cake was good. It seems like in Japan sweets are typically less sweet and more mild than in the US. We headed over to Yoyogi Park which is an awesome place to walk around.

Today we got up to get breakfast and coffee at Hoshino Coffee which is a chain in Japan. I got a breakfast sandwich and a coffee. Look at this tiny milk pitcher!! Our main plan for the day was Teamlab Planets Tokyo. This is an art exhibit slash sensory experience. Sort of between a normal art museum, Museum of Ice Cream style Instagram photo ops and something like Meow Wolf. For Teamlab Planets specifically you take your shoes off and walk through this maze of sorts with different rooms that have their own sensory experience and story.

Ohayo from Japan! I am super stoked to be in Japan for a few weeks for my first trip abroad since COVID happened. It’s my first time in Asia and Japan so I’ve got a lot to experience in a short time. My boyfriend has been to Japan a few times and he loves it here so we knew when COVID restrictions were lifted this would be one of the first places we’d want to go.