Japan Travels (2024)

2024-01-10 – 2024-04-04

While planning my exchange to Switzerland I found that there would be a month break between the Waterloo Fall 2023 term and the start of my exchange. With the massive pull I felt from anime and related content throughout most of my life, Japan has always been one of my top travel destinations.

It was probably my Dad’s encouragement that got the planning for this trip into motion. This was mostly convincing me that it would be ok to spend such a major chunk of my savings because such money comes and goes but the time to do these things will only become more scarce.

Although the idea for doing such a trip was created, I had almost none of the fine details until basically two months before. This was probably due to a combination of the length of the trip and the dates for certain events being announced only a couple of months in advance.

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The Arrival (Jan 10 - 11)

This trip started at 2 am as I took a bus to YYZ to catch a 22 hour long flight itinerary.

I got almost no sleep before this, so I spent almost the entire time attempting to sleep but kept getting interrupted by cabin service handing out drinks or meals.

Finally arriving in Tokyo at 5 pm I almost immediately withdrew some cash to book a Shinkansen ticket to Hiroshima to get to my first hotel.

Leaving the airport I felt fine even though I was jetlagged 12 hours ahead and got extremely drowsy riding the Shinkansen to Hiroshima.

Hiroshima (Jan 11 - 14)

Hiroshima was probably the most relaxing city I visited in Japan, the city itself was not overly busy and my hotel’s location was incredibly around a 10 minute walk to the Atomic Dome.

For the days I spent here I didn’t need to take the train at all to reach places where I wanted to visit.

One downside was that the food was merely ok here, but that might have been me visiting the wrong places.

Hotel Kuretakeso Hiroshima Otemachi ($55 per night)

Averaging about $55 CAD per night this hotel was quite compact, though it did include everything I needed and was quite comfortable and clean.

Within the hotel, there was a small onsen, and being the first time I ever used one it was quite awkward but luckily it was empty when I entered. I did find that the temperature was almost uncomfortably hot (being significantly hotter than the onsens I would try later) but the feeling afterward of the heat having seeped into my body was brilliant.

Atomic Bomb Dome and Peace Park

Hiroshima is known for being the target of the first nuclear weapon to be used in warfare. Here are some facts I stole from Wikipedia:

While I’m not a big fan of history museums in general, I felt that with how much WWII and the resulting Cold War have shaped modern geopolitics it was an interesting place to visit. While there were incredibly dangerous chemical weapons before, there is something about the extreme range, speed, and power of modern nuclear arms that just makes such a weapon almost too dangerous to use.

When talking to my brother that I would be visiting Hiroshima he was surprised that the site was not quarantined like Chernobyl. From what I have seen online the most dangerous radiative products from an atomic bomb are generally more short-lived and the fallout is more spread out due to the hot air rising and pulling them away.

Time has moved on and modern bombs are multiple orders of magnitude more powerful, along with the introduction of MIRVs and the nuclear triad makes me shocked at the enormous powers that the world’s superpowers have stocked away. Visiting here has made me reflect on the ability of humans to build such destructive devices but also to rebuild and move on.

Osaka (Jan 14 - 18)

Just from the train station Osaka was significantly busier than Hiroshima. On the day I arrived, I wanted to see the Glico Running Man sign and ended up walking like 45 minutes down a shopping street. It was pretty fun to be walking down a bustling street of people hanging out, shopping, and eating but most of the stores here were for beauty products or cheap tat. The BOOKOFF was pretty cool though.

The food was much better here and my system of walking around until I found an open restaurant (with decent Google reviews) worked much better than in Hiroshima. However, not all was great as I was quite let down by the conveyor belt sushi experience as the quality of the sushi was not great and I had to manually order anyway because the main conveyor belt was almost barren.

Tokyu Stay Osaka Honmachi ($80 per night)

This hotel was significantly bigger than the one in Hiroshima one still a little small.

I don’t have much to say about this hotel because I was out and about for almost the entire time.

TeamLab Botanical Garden

I’m not sure where my quite high expectations for this exhibit came from but I felt pretty let down when seeing the exhibit. Being set at night many of the exhibits used lighting or projectors but none of them stood out.

But don’t get me wrong, I would say it is worth visiting as it was still quite fun. I think it was just my overinflated expectations of wanting this place to be amazing but it only delivered a good experience.

Haruhi Suzumiya (Hyogo)

Big thanks to this guide

Haruhi Suzumiya does stand out to me as a novel concept and interesting show but with somewhat flawed execution (endless eight and confusing non-chronological airing). Regardless, it was quite a treat to visit a place that I had previously categorized as only existing in fiction as it was only pretty recently that I found out that many locations in some anime are almost one-to-one copies of places in Japan.

The first location I had to go to was Cafe Dream which had moved location a while ago and no longer has the same layout. It has been an incredibly long time since I saw the show so I kind of just thought of it as a Haruhi themed cafe.

I did manage to visit Nishinomiya Kita High School. From the news, it appears that due to depopulation it is to be merged with another school starting in 2025.

While it was pretty cool to visit the school, its location on top of quite a large hill was just as interesting. While it doesn’t appear to be a super convenient place to live there is something about the architecture and view overlooking the city that are just irresistible to me.

Kyoto (Jan 18)

My original plan was to visit Kyoto as a kind of day trip while residing in Osaka, however, I got too caught up in Osaka stuff and decided to just make the trip on the day I was supposed to be traveling to Tokyo.

While train stations in Japan (are supposed to) have suitcase lockers, I found that my suitcase was a little too large to fit in one. Luckily as Kyoto station was a major station they had a luggage storage service where I could just pay a little more and get some person to take care of it.

The day I arrived was rainy and I didn’t have much time so the only place I got to see was the Thousand Torii Gates. The umbrellas also somehow really added to the atmosphere and I only wish I had more time to walk further up into the mountain.

Shibuya (Jan 18 - 20)

I don’t drink and even if I did I wouldn’t be comfortable drinking without someone I could trust so I was pretty unsure of what to even do in Shibuya. The only thing I had heard of was the Shibuya crossing which was a little more fun than I had expected for just being a busy intersection. It was also quite fun to take some timelapses and watch back the busy people and train station come and go.

From what I have heard Shibuya is also known for shopping but most of the shops were for fashion and I only visited two shops.

BookTeaBed Shibuya ($60 per night)

When I booked this place I wanted to make sure I was within walking distance of interesting places as my plan for stumbling across interesting places is to just randomly walk around. The only issue is that Shibuya is pretty expensive so I decided this would be the right place to try out a capsule hotel.

The place was clean and more roomy than I had expected. The only issue was that the luggage area was communal and I was unwilling to rely on some reputation of safety for my entire luggage bag. Luckily, due to its sheer size, the staff offered to keep it in the staff room (hotels also have free luggage storage on the day of departure or arrival).

Akihabara (Jan 20 - 25)

With how Akihabara is portrayed in popular culture I was somewhat let down by its smaller size and being less unique than I had been expecting. I would say it is more of a concentration of the arcades and shops I had seen and visited before into a smaller area with some unique places sprinkled in. Just due to its density (and certain events), it is worth visiting but if you’ve been in Japan for a bit you will likely have naturally already come across most of the stores here.

I do have some stores I would recommend visiting:

I would also recommend checking out any limited time events or just whatever catches the eye. I did find that many of the bigger stores (MelonBooks, Animate, Gamers, etc) simply had the same stuff as their other stores but it was still fun to look around.

One thing that surprised me was that most of the large stores close at 8 pm so afterward Akihabara sort of feels like a ghost city with only crane games, arcades, and maid cafes still operating.

Even though some of the following events I either attended outside the timeframe of this section or are located outside Akihabara I’m just going to put them in this section.

Keikyu EX Inn Akihabara ($80 per night)

Pretty standard clean hotel located within walking of the heart of Akihabara. One annoyance is that they perform room service quite early in the morning so I needed to put up the do not disturb the night before.

I don’t have any interesting pictures (just search up) so here is one of Akihabara station.

Shimeji Simulation

As an avid fan of the manga Girls' Last Tour, I picked up Shimeji Simulation because it was written by the same author. I did find the story to be a little hard to parse but there were kernels of brilliance in the story.

On Dec. 19, 2023, they announced there would be an event from Jan. 19 to Feb. 4, 2024 (one month notice) so I was very lucky my planning allowed me to attend the first day.

The first impression was somewhat disappointing but I had some decent fun and got some merch that was sold out by the second day. I also got a staff member to take a picture of me in front of the cardboard (which I will not be sharing).

TeamLab Planets

After the sorta letdown from TeamLab Botanical Garden, I came here with much lower expectations and was pleasantly surprised. Due to being indoors the exhibits could be much more immersive and it matched much better with what I had expected out of such an exhibition.

I did take some videos but they look pretty crap. I’ll probably upload them to YouTube sometime and update this article later.

I arrived half an hour late to my reservation of 9 am (Monday, Jan. 22, 2024) but they let me in anyway after around a 10 minute line. By the time I exited at 10:30 am, the lineup had grown quite long so I would recommend getting the first timeslot and going early.

After waiting around a bit I got to be first in line to buy a vegan ramen and some vegan ice cream. They were quite pricy but the food was not bad so I would say it was worth a try. Do note that this was probably one of the few places in Japan that ONLY accepts credit cards.

Studio Ghibli Museum

Getting a Ticket for this Museum was kind of a pain as reservations needed to be made at 10 am Japan time on the 10th of the month before your visit and are sold out quite quickly.

The only Studio Ghibli movie I had ever seen was Spirited Away on the plane coming into Japan but I still had a great time. If you have any interest in animation the museum was great and had a bunch of interesting zoetropes and featured tons of animation sketches.

The museum does not allow taking pictures, but I had to take one to remember the visit (done near closing with the people and guards thinning out).

In the theater, we got to view a short film Boro the Caterpillar which I felt was quite experimental. Its animation was gorgeous but the soundtrack of mouth noises was quite distracting for me. (movie trailer/preview? and the sound effects are similar to those from xkcd’s what if?)

I wish that I had gotten an earlier ticket as my entry was at 4 pm (they close at 6 pm) so I didn’t get to see everything or even visit any of the cafes.

Tokyo Tower

It was cool to visit Tokyo Tower at night just from the way it glows bright orange. Visiting the Eiffel Tower later on my trip was quite disappointing and its brown color just made it look like a worse Tokyo Tower. I know the Tokyo Tower was inspired by the Eiffel Tower but I’m just saying that the Tokyo Tower did a way better job.

The only issue was that it was quite difficult to photograph due to its height and contrast with the night sky. So I’ll update this article later once I get around to editing the RAW photos to get an acceptable photo.

Gundam Factory

The main purpose for my visit to Yokohama was actually to pick up a package from Japan Rabbit (proxy for Japanese goods) which I found out operated almost entirely out of some warehouse.

It was kind of weird walking into the warehouse and just standing around waiting for someone to ask what you were doing there but I got my stuff so it was pretty worth it.

Afterwards, since I was already there I thought that the Gundam Factory might be worth a visit.

They had a whole show with the robot moving around but it was all in Japanese so I didn’t understand anything.

From what I am seeing on the news the last day to visit was Mar. 31, 2024.

Taito City (Jan 25 - 27)

Around a 20 minute walk away was my next hotel located in Taito City which I had chosen due to its proximity to some interesting museums and parks.

Ueno Urban Hotel ($85 per night)

This hotel was supposed to be one of the more expensive ones as I had paid a little extra to get a room on the top floor with a view overlooking the Tokyo Skytree.

I didn’t stay in this hotel very much so I don’t have any good pictures.

Odaiba

Although my hotel was located in Taito City I spent most of my time here because I had booked tickets to see The Pillows and heard it was an interesting place to visit. I found an interesting indoor shopping district and spent a lot of my time in the afternoon shopping and playing around.

There was also an animal cafe (strangely named Animeal) where I got to interact with a hedgehog, ferret, and owl (along with a bunch of cats and dogs). I’ve got to say that these animals were not super friendly but were always glad to take the treats you were given.

The Pillows

I had originally discovered The Pillows from their album Please Mr. Lostman and have been enjoying their music since. Hearing they would be on tour while I would be in Japan I was able to get a ticket to their LOSTMAN GO TO CITY 2023-24 stop at Zepp Diver City.

I’ve never been to a concert before so was not entirely sure what to expect, but I think that the Japanese concert experience was pretty good though I have heard it is a little unorthodox.

I accidentally entered the merch line instead of the concert line so was a little late to the start of the performance. It was after they were done did I found out there were railings installed in the venue to prevent too much movement of the crowd (probably to avoid crowd crushes).

Overall the concert was quite a novel experience but I do feel like I missed out on a decent chunk since everything was in Japanese.

Shinjuku (Jan 27 - 30)

Nishishinjuku (above) was quite a nice town while Shinjuku (below) itself was probably the sketchy place I’ve seen this entire trip.

APA Hotel & Resort Nishishinjuku ($110 per night)

Quite pricy for a hotel but in exchange I got a full queen sized bed and access to a large indoor and outdoor onsen. I was a little disappointed at the onsen for not being hot enough but I was quite cool to be bathing outdoors and somewhat awkward to be bathing with strangers.

On Jan 28 there was a magnitude 4.8 earthquake at around 9 am. I was asleep when it occurred and only half-awoke to my bed being rocked in circle-like patterns for 10-15 seconds. The rocking was pretty rhythmic and nonviolent so in my drowsy state, I thought it was some kind of built-in alarm and it wasn’t until after lunch did I realize it could have been an earthquake.

Book & Bed Tokyo Shinjuku ($70 per night)

I was looking forward to this hotel as although most of it is for capsules they had some special rooms with 180 degree windows overlooking the city. I was able to relax while watching the train station and sunset then head out and explore Shinjuku at night.

Bocchi the Rock (Shimokitazawa)

Big thanks to this guide

For easy navigation open this waypoint set in the Google Maps app

It was quite fun to just walk around randomly before checking the map if I was near anything of interest.

I did think about going to a concert at SHELTER but was unable to get a ticket for the only show on that day. From the news it appears that a lot of construction is going on so I hope that when I do some back things won’t have changed too much.

Bocchi the Rock stood out for just being an incredible show and got me to start learning guitar (I still suck tho). With how the show blended the characters with its environment it was quite easy to pick out locations that were used in the show.

Departure (Jan 30 - 31)

I feel that through my trip I steadily moved towards more and more dense and sketchy places with Hiroshima being one of the nicest places and Shinjuku being one of the most seedy. My last hotel being on the fringes of Kawasaki felt like a real reset as it was kind of in the middle of nowhere.

Kawasaki King Skyfront Tokyu Rei Hotel ($70 per night)

While the hotel itself was great with a large bed and a pretty nice onsen (with a moderate temperature this time) its location was quite poor with really not much to eat or do. I did expect this as I had booked the hotel just to relax before flying out.

Tetrapods and Goodbye

I’m not sure why but for my last day I wanted to photograph some tetrapods (yes, the wave-dissipating concrete blocks), after using the Google Maps satellite view I found a place that should have had them.

When I arrived after an hour’s bus ride I found they were not accessible without crossing into private property. So I took a two hour bus to the next place but somehow got on the wrong bus (same number but different name) that ended up dropping me about 3-4 km to the harbor. With extremely sparse bus service as I was in the industrial district I could only walk/run to the harbor.

This was somewhat scary as the sidewalks were not that well maintained and the only traffic was massive trucks but I eventually made it before total sunset.

Getting back to the hotel was also a pain as there was only a single bus every hour and the one that arrived was almost packed full but I was able to squeeze on.

Goodbye Japan! I’ll be back in a while.

Food

I have no idea how to review food so here is just a random (non-exhaustive) selection of foods I liked. Looking back I feel pretty lucky that there was no wait for almost all the restaurants I visited (probably because off season and solo).

Osaka

Arriving at my hotel in Osaka it was already time for dinner, but I wanted to check out the Dotonbori area first. After wandering around the area I stumbled across this shop and after checking it had great reviews on Google maps I had ordered some tonkatsu (fried pork cutlets) at Niigata Katsudon Tarekatsu Shinsaibashiten for a late dinner. This place is a solid option for a great meal at a good price.

The price is around 1,000 to 1,500 Yen per person and is definitely worth it.

Akihabara

There are not a lot of food options in Akihabara and the few I did visit were not great (unless you are looking for the unique experience of a maid cafe). However, the one place I can (sort of) recommend is the Spice Factory food court located inside Akihabara station. I got a curry cutlet with cheese as a (really late) lunch which tasted great.

The price for the meal is around 1,000 Yen per person. Note the drink came from some random vending machine outside the food court.

Taito City

After visiting the Sensō-ji temple I had some yakiniku (grilled meat) for lunch at Yakiniku Like. I was originally interested in this place because I hadn’t had wagyu beef yet and ended up ordering a wagyu & beef tongue & skirt steak set (2,200 Yen). The wagyu was good (at least compared to another more expensive place I visited later) but didn’t feel that special. However, the overall meal was great if I ignored the price increase from the wagyu.

I paid about 2,500 Yen, but I think you could get a good meal for 1,500 Yen here.

Shimokitazawa

From wandering around the area shown in Bocchi the Rock I stumbled across Katsuyoshi around the time I was getting hungry for dinner. It looked like an interesting place to eat even though it was a little bit pricey. I was starving so ordered a 2 tiger prawns & port cutlet meal (2,900 Yen) and found the taste to be really nice and traditional. While writing this I found that (as of 2024) this place had a Bib Gourmand (a not-quite michelin star) which explains quite a lot about the price and quality.

On the pricier side at around 2,500 to 3,000 Yen per person, but quite worth it. Note I brought the drink in from outside and I think they were confused when I asked about it but ultimately let me drink it during my meal.

Shinjuku

I saw a really long line for the Ichiran Ramen near my hotel, so I wanted to try it out due to curiosity. I had heard multiple times (from the Trash Taste podcast) that it was overrated but having never seen any of the supposed overwhelming praise. Of course, I was not going to wait in such a long line so decided to check out their other locations within Shinjuku and found a Irchiran Ramen that had no wait at all (it was weekday + bit early for lunch) a 10 minute walk away.

I ordered the recommend Ichiran Select 5 (Tonkotsu Raman with soft-boiled egg and extra beef for 1,600 Yen) and a half-noodle refill. The broth and meat were great and after finishing my initial 1.5 portions I ordered a full-noodle refill for total of 2.5 noodle portions eaten. I didn’t have many other opportunities to have ramen, so I can only place Ichiran at the top of my quite limited ramen in Japan experience. The weird not interacting with people with the ordering machine, partitioned seats, and procedures to request extras is whatever, as the food is seriously good.

I ended up spending about 2,000 Yen, but you can get just Tonkotsu Ramen for about 1,000 Yen.

Tips

Shinkansen

The Shinkansen is quite a marvel of infrastructure traveling at 300 km/h that took me from HND to Hiroshima in just 4 hours. I had heard it was possible to purchase tickets in advance (at a discount), however, I was having issues with my account being deactivated right after being created. As a result, I had to purchase the tickets from the kiosk which while a little intimidating was not that hard to do thanks to the English instructions, but just some things of note:

The biggest problem I had was the price, it costed a little over 20,000 Yen to get from Tokyo to Hiroshima and around 25,000 Yen total to get from Hiroshima to Osaka and Kyoto to Tokyo. After the price increase of JR Pass for 7 days to 50,000 Yen it was still cheaper to buy these tickets individually. If you are not carrying a massive suitcase like me it might even be cheaper to just fly from Tokyo to Hiroshima.

It was a little less comfortable than I expected with the changes in air pressure upon entering and exiting tunnels making me somewhat nauseous. However, it is still much better than riding a car or bus with their constant stopping and shaking.

Trains

Trains are pretty straightforward, just buy and load up a Pasma or Suica card and tap at the gates when entering and exiting.

Random stuff:

Buses

In most cases the trains will take you everywhere you want to go but there will be some locations where bus is the only option due to lack of train lines. I can say that the buses are alright but suffer from the same issues as buses in any other country.

Onsen

A couple of basic tips for using the onsen:

More in depth information can be found here, here, and here.

At last hotel, basically right before I left for the airport, I found a 8 step guide to use the onsen more effectively:

  1. Before you get into the onsen: pour 10 bucketfuls of warm water over your body
    • start by pouring warm water on the farthest part of your body from your heart
    • begin with your right food then your left foot, and then move up to your knees, hips, belly, back, and then your shoulders
  2. Your first soak: soak briefly for about 5 minutes
    • start bathing at the farthest area from where the hot spring water flows into the onsen
    • the water in this area has a lower temperature and its mineral effect is milder
  3. Let your body adjust gradually
    • even though most of the elements in the thermal water are good for your skin and body, they could be overstimulating
    • starting with your feet, gradually immerse yourself into the onsen allowing your body to adjust to the thermal water
  4. The massaging effects of water pressure
    • as you gradually settle into the onsen, you can feel the massaging effect form the thermal water pressure
    • once you start sweating, it is time to get out of the onsen and rest
  5. Your first break
    • take a break to allow your body to cool down form the onsen
    • thermal water has cleansing effects, so if you decide to wash your body, do so gently with your hands
  6. Your second soak: let your body warm up to the core (about 8 minutes)
    • take your time with your second soak
    • listen to the sounds of nature and let your mind drift
    • once your forehead starts to sweat, it is time to get out and take a break
  7. Your second break
    • remember to stay hydrated
    • relax and enjoy the view from the onsen
  8. Your last soak (about 3 minutes)
    • don’t soak too long
    • soak in the onsen at your pace taking breaks
    • by using this method of bathing multiple times, your body will be warmed up to its core and the effects of the hot springs last longer

While I enjoyed just soaking like a dead fish, if you are looking to add a bit more structure to your onsen routine you can try the above steps.

Misc