This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/japantravel by /u/irregularcontributor on 2024-11-05 20:51:27+00:00.
My wife and I just got back from our 2nd trip to Japan, our first was in 2019 and we had done Tokyo, Matsumoto for a night + Kamikochi, and then Kyoto. There was so much we hadn’t seen in Tokyo last trip that we wanted to go back, but chose to avoid the Kyoto crowds this time. This isn’t really a detailed itinerary review but more some quick thoughts for anyone considering these cities or moving around this much.
Osaka 3 nights
Incredible city, I’m surprised I don’t hear more people specifically recommending it but maybe it’s just a given as it’s one of the big spots? The food scene is very competitive here so there are unlimited great options, all very cheap for what you’re getting. The obvious spots are fun, Dotonbori’s a bit of a mess so we kind of avoided it after one pass-through but I really enjoyed the old-school flavor of the Tsutenkaku area and the MCM design of the tower itself. Nakazakicho is probably the most picturesque, cutesy neighborhood I’ve come across in Japan, tons of fun cafes and little shops to explore, highly highly recommend that area. We hit everything big on our list but I was sad to leave Osaka and would absolutely come back to spend more time here.
Nagoya 2 nights
We got a couple nights in the Mitsui Garden right near Nagoya station to help facilitate our trip to Ghibli Park. I was not particularly excited about Nagoya because it was tough to find much about this massive city online - food and tourist recommendations are tough to come by, you mainly get people hating on the place for not having any personality. I was also not excited about Ghibli Park as I don’t like theme parks at all, the crowds, noise, etc. Was happy to be wrong about both. Mitsui Garden was an excellent hotel, the nicest of our trip by far and very affordable considering the location. We were able to find good food nearby (friendly chef at a small sushi place and an easy izakaya chain restaurant), walked to the castle grounds, went to a very nice little shopping street. Ghibli Park was gorgeous and felt like a little adventure to explore, the vibe of the park matches the movies very well and it was a much more peaceful and fun experience than I was expecting. Easy to access from Nagoya station, we took a train, one transfer, very simple. Back in the city we found a very nice little cafe for breakfast the next morning, and overall the Nagoya side-quest was a nice experience and a pleasant surprise.
Tokyo 3 nights
Stayed in Ueno at a small hotel that had good reviews and appeared nice online but was a bit dingy IRL and made me wish I had done my homework a bit better (I missed Mitsui Garden). Ueno worked well for accessing the rest of the city and lots of entertainment/food right near the hotel for those gaps in the itinerary. Don’t really need to say much about Tokyo itself, we checked out some of the iconic areas we missed on our last trip and everything was great, we had one night of rain and went to Asakusa then which was nice, not crowded and made for some good moody photos. Some Youtube research led to Cappiness (a capybara cafe that was awesome, would highly recommend) and Lost Bar (Shibuya cocktail bar opened by youtuber Chris Abroad, catering to tourists but very nice). If you enjoy Japanese arcade games you’re probably well aware, but Mikado Game Center is as good as it gets for the 90’s/00’s arcade scene, really an incredible spot. There were a lot of little things on my list that we didn’t hit, but we took it easy and just wandered around enjoying ourselves rather than focusing on checking things off. I would highly recommend walking through Yanaka Ginza and over to Nezu Shrine, Nezu is a very pretty shrine that isn’t crowded at all.
Aizuwakamatsu 3 nights - Going a little more in depth here as this is (maybe) more interesting than the rest of it.
We wanted to get out of the major cities for a bit so we rented a car for the last 4 days of the trip, I chose to rent from Nippon Rent-a-car at Narita airport to simplify the return process and because I was scared to start driving in a major city right away, this worked out very well and if you’re intimidated by the process I would recommend doing the same thing (there may be better options, this just worked well for me). So, train from Ueno to Narita, rental paperwork at the airport, shuttle to the parking area and then we hit the highway in our beautiful Yaris. It was a fun + pleasant drive on the highway, we only pulled off at parking areas which worked well, getting snacks and some random food along the way without having to deal with city parking/navigating.
Our first two nights in Aizu were at a small hotel which is where we ran into language barriers for the first time on the trip. The hotel employee didn’t speak english at all, my limited Japanese confirmed we were parked okay but then the employee requested our car keys… I handed them over and he wrote down the license plate # (tagged on them), but then held onto them… I still don’t know if this is standard practice or what (if anyone can weigh in on this, I would appreciate insight). We went up to our room and I wasn’t comfortable without knowing what was going on as we were planning on sight seeing in the morning and would need keys. I went back to the front desk and did some Google-translating to ask if we’d be able to get our car keys from the desk in the morning; I don’t think the guy wanted to deal with me and just ended up giving me my keys back so I took this as a sign to just hold onto them for the rest of the trip.
Speaking of parking; driving in Japan is very easy and straightforward, but parking fucking sucks. There is zero street parking available regardless of where you are, there are free public lots occasionally but everywhere uses the same blue “P” sign to signify parking and when you’re driving and not competent at reading Japanese signs, you don’t know what’s a private lot or not. So we had to research parking lots near our destinations before hand, and if the plan fell apart, I’d drive to the nearest konbini, park and regroup (with the phone/google maps). This worked alright, but in a small city, you end up parking and leaving the car in one spot while you walk around a lot. It’s not like the states where you just drive from destination to destination and worry about parking once you arrive.
Smaller city stuff in general; it’s definitely a lot harder to find foreigner friendly restaurants. We could bludgeon our way through ordering at a lot of small spots, I can read hiragana + katakana which helps a lot with handwritten menus, but a big thing for me was if the spot doesn’t look like they want foreigners there, I don’t want to annoy them. We went to one small ramen spot in Kitakata staffed entirely by elderly women where we felt a bit out of place, and ended up with our only ordering-mistake of the entire trip. But we did find multiple good spots in Aizu with friendly owners who were excited to speak english. Knowing a little bit of Japanese definitely helped substantially here though, even if it was just to help bridge the small gaps or just make them more comfortable with their english level (a lot of the older guys would ask me “do you speak japanese?” and I would respond with some broken japanese variation of “no, VERY little” which would make them laugh every time).
As far as actual attractions here, we spent a long time in Ouchijuku, an old post town famous for it’s thatched-roof buildings. Other “big” items were Tsuruga castle, Sazae temple, Kitakata (ramen mecca of Japan). Also hit up a huge Hard-Off (thrift store) to hunt for videogames, much more fun than in the big cities. Lots of fun little things peppered throughout the city, driving around and sight seeing from the car. It was a lot of fun, not the buffet of entertainment options you have in the mega-cities but still plenty to do and see.
We had some very memorable interactions with people in Aizu, the area is popular with domestic tourists but there are very very few foreigners here. I’m not afraid to be a tourist and seeing other YTs doesn’t ruin my Japan experience in anyway, but going a day without seeing another white guy is kinda surreal and makes you a bit more of a novelty to both children (who will gawk, it’s very cute) and the occasional local who wants to flex their english. It was fun and makes me wish I knew more Japanese so I could experience more of this, it’s great to hear old guys talk about their trips to America 30 years ago and stuff.
The last day we did in a traditional ryokan right outside of town, went all out and got a suite with a private hot-spring bath as my wife and I both have tattoos and would rather soak together than with strangers. We stayed at Harataki and it was great; awesome staff, good food, and a very relaxing end to what felt like a perfect trip. If anyone has any questions about any of the above, please ask.