JAPAN
Japan 2023 Day 1-2 - Tokyo
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. He’s proficient at basic Japanese and I started Duolingo a few months ago. We’ll see how useful it is once we get out of the city!
Here I have copy and pasted the general “traveling Japan tips” I collected before our trip and added a few comments of my own:
- You’ll need the equivalent of a Clipper, which is called Suica. There is no way to charge that with a card from the stations or machines, but there is a “hack”. You can add the Suica card to your Apple Wallet and if you have you card in there, you can transfer money from your US card to the Suica card. The Suica card can also be used to pay at most of the grocery stores.
- True, but since we’re also traveling between cities by train and staying so long we ended up getting the JR pass which you need to plan ahead because they will mail you paperwork which you have to bring to Japan and hand in to get the ticket.
- We also got the PassMo which can be acquired here and is similar to the Suica but managed by a different company.
- Google maps does not support offline mode in Japan - either get a Sim card, have T-Mobile or Google fi, or check if your hotel room comes with a loaner phone
- Our party is large enough that we have a couple phone plans so my phone is just on airplane mode and I’m along for the ride. So far in Tokyo we have had good Wifi connection out and about.
- Everything is cash-only, so come prepared. You can find ATMs at any 7-11, and it’ll be in your best interest to pull out 10,000 yen at a time (about $82 USD). The weird thing is that 10,000 yen comes in a single, crisp bill, so keep it safe!
- Very true, tap to pay with credit cards or phones seems to be very uncommon.
- There are no public trash cans in Japan. Anywhere. And the country is one of the cleanest places I’ve seen. You will have to give your empty food tray back to the vendor or hold it basically forever. Choose wisely.
- Also true, it’s good to have a backpack to bring with you to hold the trash.
- Paper napkins or paper towels are a little rare or are tissue thin. A lot of food places gave us wet napkins instead.
We flew out Wednesday afternoon for a 10 ish hour flight to Tokyo Narita. I was nervous for the length of the flight but it ended up being no big deal. Our flight was mostly empty which was nice and the JAL service I had no complaints over. Also had the novel experience of having a bidet on my commercial flight.
Thursday we landed at something like 5 PM local time and headed to our hotel. We’re staying at the Shibuya Granbell Hotel which is pretty well located amongst restaurants, convenience stores and close walking distance to the train. We settled in and were so zonked we just got some fast soba at a nearby place Fuji Soba. You select what to eat and order it on a machine that prints you a ticket that you then bring to a counter. It’s only hard because we can’t read Japanese and the English signage wasn’t super clear but we got through it.
Friday was tough because I woke up at 3 AM local time. So by breakfast time I was already pretty tired. We headed over to A Happy Pancake for some Japanese fluffy pancakes. It wasn’t too crowded here either (because January/February is the off season here). The pancakes are quite delightful. We tried the fruit and sweet cream pancakes as well as the chocolate and nuts. I think the sweet cream and fruit is better.
Afterwards, we headed to Akihabara to check it out and go to an arcade called Taito Station. It’s certainly an interesting part of town with a lot of manga book stores, electronics stores, and big advertisements on the buildings. I think COVID hit the arcade game biz hard as there weren’t even that many arcade games at the arcade. Instead the first three levels were all claw games! I did get the fun experience of beating Justin at Tetris. They also have a game for playing as a train driver which I think is funny.
While walking back to the train we passed a poster for a cat cafe and we couldn’t resist. We went into Mocha. This was surprisingly crowded so the cats seemed a little done with people. They do sell treats in vending machines to lure the cats towards you so that was pretty cute.
Since we were still pretty jetlagged, all we could manage the rest of the day was dinner with my boyfriend’s friend that lives in Tokyo. We got the tsukemen at Fuunji. This is a pretty popular spot and is apparently contested to be some of the best tsukemen you can get. It’s also a very small building so don’t expect to necessarily sit with your group.
Again, you order by way of a ticket and pass it along at the counter. When a seat opens up, you sit there, eat your noodles, and immediately leave once you’re done. It was also again a little confusing not knowing enough Japanese to communicate but luckily Justin’s friend got us sorted out.
In my opinion the tsukemen was good but not life changing. It was very hardy and had strong umami flavor from the seafood in the broth. However I wish the broth had been warmer and I wouldn’t have minded a bit of acid to cut the “stew-y” flavor.
After dinner the boys went to an izakaya called Shinjidai but the gals were beat so we headed back to the hotel to hit the hay.