Japan Trip 1
June 11, 2026
This post is an account of my first trip to Japan in the summer of 2024 with my family. A tad late to write about a trip two years ago, but I’ll try my best to recall what went on. Hover over underlined text to see photos from my trip!
Day 1: Arrival
We arrived in Narita Airport in the afternoon. Like many other first-time tourists, I was immediately lost in the railway system. I planned on taking the Skyliner service on 京成本線(Keisei Main Line) for a faster ride to Ueno station. Unfortunately, I took the rapid service instead, which was much slower, and I consequently checked in at my hotel much later than anticipated.
Day 2: Senso-ji & Odaiba
Because of jetlag, we woke up real early and went to Senso-ji
before 8, which is before most vendor and tourists arrive. I highly recommend going early, as the place is extremely crowded if you go later. I was also quite lucky with my fortune draw there, getting a 吉
!
In the evening, I went to Odaiba, taking the Yurikamome line, which has pretty incredible views
when crossing the Rainbow Bridge. For me, Odaiba has two main attractions: the Gundam statue
and the scenes from 虹ヶ咲学園スクールアイドル同好会. There’s also a pretty funny Statue of Liberty replica (sized down).
Day 3: Harujuku & Shibuya & Fireworks
A rough overview of the day is Meiji Jingu → Harajuku → Shibuya → fireworks. I’m not a super big shopping person, so I kind of compressed the two big shopping areas, Harajuku and Shibuya, into one day.
The highlight of the day is lunch. I went to 鮨 いっ誠 (Sushi Issei) and honestly got some of the best sushi
for the price (I promise there’s more sushi than what’s in the photo, I just forgot to take pictures), would highly recommend if you end up wandering the Harajuku area.
As a big fan on J-pop and J-rock, I went to the big Tower Records in Shibuya and got plenty of CDs there. Since CD remains prevalent in Japanese music charts and popular consumption, I’d say it’s a physical music shopping experience unlike anywhere else in the world. There’s also plenty of old CDs, which were a pleasure to see.
In the evening, we went to the Itabashi Hanabi fireworks show. To be completely honest, the heat and crowdedness were a bit too overwhelming. Nonetheless, it is a classic part of the tourist experience; eating onigiris and watching fireworks also wasn’t the worst experience I’ve had either.
Day 4: Shibuya (again) & Akihabara
We quickly visited Shibuya again in the morning to do some additional shopping and get lunch at センタービーフ, a steak rice bowl for a fair price. The line was quite long, some 30-40 minutes outside until I could get in, but worth the wait in my opinion. Long lines seem to be a recurring theme for these restaurants in Japan.
In the afternoon and evening, I met up with a friend and walked around Akihabara. Since we both play Monster Hunter, we went to HUNTERS BAR, which was a Monster Hunter themed restaurant. The interior design, props, and vibe were super cool, though I must say the food was disappointing especially for the price. I guess this is somewhat expected for a themed restaurant.
Photodump:
Day 5: Nikko
An unskippable step in a trip to Japan has to be staying at an onsen hotel. For this, we decided to go to Nikko, a city north of Tokyo, where the summer heat was not as intense. My family decided to rent a car and drive. Not a good idea. There are existing and convenient train lines to/from tokyo, and buses within the city. Don’t make the same mistake like us.
For lunch I had an all tofu meal
at さんフィールド, which was surprisingly delicious. There was also a ravine that I decided to go down and explore, and unexpectedly found some gorgeous views after a very rainy morning.
Dinner was provided by the hotel. The menu included an assortment of appetizers, sashimi, grilled meat, skewers, and an ochazuke. It was quite tasty, and I was also plesantly surprised by the variety. We relaxed in the hotel, enjoyed the onsen, and chilled out for the night.
Day 6: Nikko & Onwards to Kyoto
We found out in the morning that our car won’t start. Fortunately, another guest at the hotel had a jumper and we were able to actually get on the road (albeit later than we would’ve liked).
Nikko, like other tourist towns in Japan, has its tourist attractions primarily developed by a rail company. In this case, that’d be Tobu Railway. I personally liked the town and its tourist-oriented design. It was also nice to take a break from busier traveling in the city.
A recommendation for other tourists planning visits to places like Nikko, Hakone, and Karuizawa is to take advantage of the transportation network constructed by the very rail companies that popularized these towns. Since the rail companies are usually in charge of picking and choosing tourist destinations, they’ll have good transportation infrastructure for the specific locations you’d want to visit.
We returned to Tokyo and hopped on the Shinkansen to Kyoto in the evening. Due to poor planning, we arrived at our hotel after midnight. Fortunately they were still open to check us in.
Day 7: Kyoto
Mostly uninteresting day. Super hot, visited some temples/shrines, and basically hid from the heat in the afternoon. Summer is truly not a great time to visit Japan…
I must mention that I’m a super big fan of Kyoto station. I find this to be an example of where aesthetics and practicalness are both well executed. Kyoto station looks good while supporting Porta and Isetan, two large malls connected to it under and above, respectively, as well as being a massive transport hub itself.
Another highlight of the day is Sukiyaki at モリタ屋. As expensive as it was, the taste definitely lived up to the cost (it’s also a lot cheaper if you think in USD instead of JPY). Definitely a great place to try this iconic dish.
Day 8: Uji & Nara
Uji is a city famous for its history and matcha. But I’m here for one more thing: 響け! ユーフォニアム was set in this city!
Uji also ended up being a very relaxing city to visit. There’s not too many attractions, not too many tourists, and it’s rather enjoyable to walk around. I also ended up buying some tea from 伊藤久右衛門. As a big tea enjoyer myself, I have a particular preference for Barley tea, so I had to get some Japanese variants that I haven’t tried before. I also really enjoyed Japanese Sencha during the trip, so I grabbed some of those as well (BTW, I was not aware of the alarming fact that I have way too much tea already when making these purchases).
I also got some specialty matcha from 中村藤吉. Lots of interesting matcha desserts and drinks
, but also definitely overpriced and targeted towards tourists. This is the type of place to visit only once.
Nara, on the other hand, might be one of my least favorite cities in this entire trip. If you’re attracted by the deer to come here, be warned that 1. deer make the city stink and 2. deer are aggressive. I might also be slightly biased here because that afternoon was particularly scorching, and I wasn’t in the greatest mood. Nonetheless, there were a lot of tourists, and the attractions also seemed repetitive at best compared to some more influential ones around the Kyoto area.
Day 9: Kyoto (again)
An uneventful day, visited Kiyomizu-dera and Fushimi Inari Taisha before it got too hot to walk outside. Then the Kyoto Railway Museum. The train museum had plenty of interesting things on display though. There’s also an observation deck on top of the museum directly facing Kyoto station, pretty good views especially if you like trains.
I also got some delicious pork katsu
near the train station for dinner.
Day 10: Kyoto (and again)
This is a day specifically left rather untouched when making the trip plan so we get a chance to recharge from a busy itinerary in scorching hot weather. I chose to visit a Kyo-Ani pop-up store that happened to be around. The goods in the store were very unimpressive, but there was props and original artwork on display, and man are those nice. Perfect time for another photo dump isn’t it:
Day 11: Kobe & Osaka
Kobe wasn’t originally a part of the trip plan, but we really wanted to try the famous Kobe beef. We chose Mouriya, and oh boy was it expensive. I think if we’re talking price per gram of meat, this is definitely the priciest beef I’ve had. But the meat and the whole experience was definitely worth the price; it’s a very different texture of beef than what I’ve had before. Very good for what’s probably my only experience with Kobe beef.
The actual attractions in Kobe are boring at best, though we came across what seems to be a music festival without much popularity near the piers.
We departed Kobe in the evening for Osaka. I went to a collaboration cafe with Heaven Burns Red, a game I’ve been playing a lot at the time. Magically, I somehow managed to have a conversation with two Japanese people sitting next to me with the help of Google translate. They were quite surprised the game had an audience outside of Japan, and we talked for a while before leaving the cafe.
Day 12: Osaka & Train to Yokohama
Speaking from a purely tourist perspective, I’m not a big fan of Osaka. I find Osaka to be outclassed of sorts by Tokyo in the large, urban city department. I’m sure there’s much more to Osaka that I haven’t experienced that could change my mind, especially if I’m not viewing it with a completely tourist perspective, but that’s just my personal take. There was a really cool figure show right next to Osaka castle though.
My parents had some stores they were interested in, and we mostly just shopped and walked around the city for most of the day before hopping on the Shinkansen to Yokohama.
Day 13: Kanagawa & Yokohama
In the final full day we have in Japan, my family decided to split up and do whatever for the day. I really wanted to visit the Cup Noodle Museum at Yokohama, but it was the one day in the week that they’re closed, so that was not possible. Instead, I split my time between Kawasaki and some final gift shopping.
Kawasaki is by no means a great tourist city. It’s essentially the suburban area for Tokyo. However, this is a great place to take a walk around a more local, but still busy, town. I also took a short walk on the banks of Tama River and watched trains cross the Rokugogawa Bridge.
As an added bonus, Kawasaki is where this took place.
The day ended with strolling around the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse; a pretty neat shopping area with small crafts and snacks.
Day 14: Departure
Woke up and immediately started scrambling for Narita Airport all the way from Yokohama. We safely made it to the airport with plenty of time to spend our excess cash at the duty free stores in the airport. Good thing to keep in mind is that the airport duty free’s allow you to use your IC card balance and cash in combination with a credit card so you can leave the country without excess cash/IC card balance. Pretty neat design!
And that concludes the 14 day Japan trip. An overall great experience, if ignoring some planning mishaps and the cruel heat.
Restaurant Recommendations
I also decided to compile a list of restaurants I’ve been at during this trip that I would recommend! I linked the google maps to each of these location, but some of them have multiple locations.
| Restaurant | City | Category | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 鮨 いっ誠 | Tokyo (Harajuku) | Sushi | 9.5/10 | Great value for the lunch set menu! |
| センタービーフ | Tokyo (Shibuya) | Steak bowl | 8/10 | Long wait, solid steak bowl, and good ambience |
| さんフィールド | Nikko | Tofu meal | 9/10 | Creative and delicious all tofu meal |
| モリタ屋 | Kyoto | Sukiyaki | 9/10 | Expensive but worth the experience |
| だし茶漬け えん | Kyoto | Tea rice | 9.5/10 | Very good tea rice at a convenient location |
| 喜重郎 | Kyoto | Steak | 8/10 | High quality steak set meals near attractions |
| 吟醸らーめん久保田 | Kyoto | Ramen | 10/10 | Busy store; exceptional ramen |
| 中村藤吉 | Uji | Desserts/drinks | 7/10 | Expensive but creative menu |
| Mouriya | Kobe | Steak | 9/10 | Expensive but high quality Kobe wagyu with great presentation |