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The original was posted on /r/japantravel by /u/RainClouds753 on 2024-02-12 23:16:08.
Wow! This has been a long time in the making. My boyfriend and I went to Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka) back on April 25th - May 11th. This is going to be a long post, but I’ll try to bullet when I can. We went LAX - Haneda via All Nippon Airway, total $896 pp. Sorry for the formatting, I wrote this out on docs but the bullets didn't translate over!
Day 1 April 25th
Arrived in Haneda airport around 5 am - Personally I liked getting there so early, it gave us time to figure out the Wifi situation, get our Suica card, and it wasn’t busy as we went to our hotel. Thankfully, they let you leave your luggage there until the room is ready! Very useful.
Our first hotel was Roynet Hotel Ginza - very nice, I enjoy this brand of hotels.Ginza itself isn’t too fun imo, it’s more business-y and quiet, but it was a nice hotel and has tasty cafes around.
Our first food included Lawson: Amazing sandwich trio potato salad, egg salad, salmon dill. McDonalds: bacon potato fried pocket, fun. Cafe: Iced milk tea, iced coffee, apricot jam- SO tasty!Meandered around that massive 12 story Uniqlo, convenience stores, and then met up with our friends at Tower Records - It’s huge! I noticed a lot of places in Japan like playing Vinyl still? It’s fun!
Harajuku
- Weird seeing all those exotic animal places- otters, foxes, etc. I’ve done minimal research and it doesn’t seem too ethical?
- Totti Candy - Got the giant multi-colored cotton candy! I loved it.
- Kyushu Jangara for lunch - Got a window view of the street which made it fun to people watch, and the ramen was INCREDIBLE
- Walked around all the shops- Adidas, Galaxy Store, etc. and met up on and off with friends
Day 2 April 26th
This day we has a planned Tsukiji Fish Market Tour planned! I mistakenly thought it was more food-forward, but it was moreso about the history of certain shops/areas. However, we had a fun time and did get samples along the way - Wasabi peas (my favorite), dried squid, many beans, tomago. We were in a group with 3 other people, so we had a lot of time to chat and get to know each other.
After, we met up with 2 other US friends and one of the tour people hung out with us for the day! We tried eel, eel liver (I didn’t like), soda ice cream, wagyu skewer, whiskey, shochu, fried chicken, and CREMIA! If you’ve NEVER had Cremia and go to the tsukiji market, this was the best one I had. It was down a sketchy looking alley inside a building. It's 500 yen and is dispensed from a machine. I would literally kill to have this available in the states!!! I think about it all the time. It’s rich and fatty and perfect.
Overall, I loved the Tsukiji Market and would recommend checking it out! But I would 1. Go early or 2. Go on a day it rains. It was raining when we went (I did get soaked even with an umbrella), BUT it was a lot emptier compared to a beautiful sunny day I passed by and it was packed.
- Craft Beer Bar IBrew Ginza - Lunch after the market with some friends, got a beer flight and a bunch of table snacks. I’m not much of a beer person, so the quality was probably lost on me, but my friends enjoyed it.
- Imperial Palace Area - Walked around, took pictures, vending machine snacks, it was still raining on/off.
- Little Smith Bar - A friend’s dad recommend this place to him, so we went to check it out. I had a DELICIOUS tomato based drink and those little snacks that come with sitting at the bar, but overall we were kind’ve underdressed for how nice this place is - Definitely more of a sexy/date vibe here, not something to casually go to. Whoops.
- Went on a hunt to find somewhere to do my nails- everything was booked for days - Next time I plan to be prepared in advance and not wait last minute!
- Late night Konbini - Sandwiches, cold noodles, something we didn’t like, drinks, matcha latte before bed
Day 3 April 27th
Went back to the Tsukiji Fish Market for breakfast and got the same tuna nigiri we had the day before, along with some eel sushi. Went to the 3rd floor cafeteria and got an egg omelet. Delicious. We did get scolded by someone who said we couldn’t eat outside food in X area and made us move to Y area- But we were confused since we had both brought in food & ordered an omelet there. She also yelled at us in Japanese so I actually don’t know if that’s what she was saying.
Walked from there to the TeamLabs exhibit to meet 2 US friends and 1 friend who is from/lives in Tokyo. The walk there was BEAUTIFUL, we crossed over this bridge and it was peaceful to get some sunlight.
Okay, I feel like TeamLabs is a conversation I’ve seen on here a few times. This is specifically about the TeamLabs in Toyosu. Overall, I would highly recommend it, we ended up staying for about 3 hours. It definitely is both a social media picture place, but I feel like its very easy to do that for like 2 minutes, and then get engaged in the different exhibits at the same time.
Avoid the next list if you’d rather be surprised at what each area is like:
- Start by taking a trek up an inclined stream to clean your feet
- Crawl across inflated bean-bag like material, so fun to see kids running and older people crawling across
- The LED hanging white lights with mirrors everywhere, ethereal
- Cloudy water up to our knees, with projections of koi fish and cherry blossoms that would change as we interacted with them
- Inflated colorful balls everywhere, colors changed frequently
- Dome room that you could/were encouraged to lay down in to view floral blooming projections on the ceiling, my favorite room, visually relaxing
- Outside area with chrome eggs everywhere
- Infinity mirrors with living orchids around that would move higher and lower, stunning and smelled so nice. You go in groups so it isn't super crowded.
At the time we went, there was this extra exhibit area you could see if you ordered a specific ramen + drink combo, we all did and I have to say, the Vegan Ramen was FANTASTIC. I’m not vegan/vegetarian, but I do enjoy a lot of those foods. This was the best. It was so savory and flavorful and filling.
Akihabara:
- Intense anime stores that were like 8 stories high, not really my taste. I love anime but not like that.
- Beer Pong Bar Grove - Got some booze and snacks and went to play beer pong. As an American, you will not like this beer pong lmao it’s on a machine and you have to press a button to change turns and also there’s a timer and a worker who was off but just came to hang out was “showing us” how to play- !! I mean, I’m not going to say it’s wrong haha but it was certainly…different. But we liked hanging out with the staff and they did guest shots for us.
- Tried to go to a sake bar nearby where you pay by the hour and can sample X sakes, they told us they were booked.
- Met friends at Nabezo in Shibuya - Delicious hotpot, seemed fancier than the ones I've gone to in the US, sooo many food and drink options- AYCE. One of the broths we got I didn't care for, I believe it was the Sukiyaki. A little bland for me.
- Karaoke - I’ve only ever done karaoke where it’s public and in front of the whole bar, so this was a new experience for me! Fun with a big group.
- Ended the night at Tokyo Aburagumi Sohonten Shibuya - Late night noodles w/ chili oil. Small place, wouldn't really be for 'hanging out', but a great way to get some carbs and ending the night.
Day 4 April 28th
Changed hotels from Ginza to Shinjuku - Premier Hotel Cabin Shinjuku. It was a lot different from the very clean, quiet area of Ginza but it is SO FUN and I would want to stay in this area more, but I’m a very late night/drinking person. It was an INCREDIBLY small room though. And from the window view we saw a place called Gangbang. It’s different lol
- Ate lunch at kushiya monogatari - an AYCE deep frying place. They have meat, veggies, etc. and you get panko and batter. It was heavy but very fun.
- Checked out Muji, which we do have in LA but my bf has never been and I hate driving to LA and this was close. Got a thing of coffee, tea, and a soup.
- Kabukicho Tower - People watched, an Evangelion performance was taking place on a big stage with a DJ. We went to explore upstairs but soon realized there was nothing but the escalators kept going up?
- Met up with 2 friends from the states who also happened to be there and got food at Shogun Burger - honestly, it slapped, would eat here again. It also had the best high ball in a can I had the whole trip.
- Golden Gai area - 1st bar was nice and fun until some weird tourists came and totally killed the vibe by being really aggressive towards us/other patrons. 2nd bar owner did NOT want us there it seemed. 3rd bar was up on the second story and fantastic, I think it was called Cambiare was great- we ended up chatting with the bartender and other patrons the rest of the night.
Stumbled back to our hotel. One of the most fun drinking nights we had- would highly recommend staying nearby Golden Gai so you can drink and just walk back to your place.
Day 5 April 29th
- Sushiro for lunch - 6F of a building, and when you get inside you check in on one side of the lobby and get a ticket, then head to the other side and wait for that ticket number to be displayed and it tell you where to sit. Then you have a tablet to order and the food slides its way to you on this conveyer-type system. Basically 0 human interaction. We ordered like 30 plates and it only cost about $32 total I believe. It’s crazy. I know it’s...
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