This is the first leg of my grad trip!
May 9
I took a flight from Calgary to Tokyo Narita with a layover in Vancouver, where I met up with Andrew, who is also on the same grad trip. The flight itself was pretty uneventful asides from helping out an elderly Filipino couple sitting next to me on the flight to Tokyo with immigration forms.
A common theme in this grad trip is randomly meeting a lot of friends from different parts of my life along the trip. On this flight, I randomly ran into Amy, a longtime high school friend. When we landed in Tokyo, Amy, Andrew, Amy’s friend and I got our luggage and headed over to Asakusabashi, where Andrew and I were staying. This was our first time interacting with Japanese transit (specifically the Keisei Line into Tokyo), which took us a bit of time to understand, but otherwise smooth sailing. On our way into Tokyo, we caught a beautiful sunset!
Once we got into Asakusabashi, we headed over to an izakaya (Japanese style bar) with some other people in our grad trip group (Laura, Oli, Yash, Jack) and got some grub. I was pretty dead after all the flights so I promptly crashed when I got back to the hotel.
May 10
Given our jet lag, we decided to hit the Toyosu Fish Market auction at 4:30am. Was this good idea? NOPE! Regardless, it was still pretty interesting to see how the whole tuna auction process works. Tuna from all around the world are brought to Tokyo and intermediary wholesalers will auction on specific tuna based off their quality and size using an intricate finger-auctioning system. The tuna that is sold will then be cut and sold again to stores and restaurant owners.
After witnessing the auction, we headed over to 7/11, which is possibly my favourite part of Japan. The 7/11 here has everything you would possibly need, including breakfast food, hot water if you want to make ramen, etc. 7/11 breakfasts became a staple on my Japan trip.
Since we were in the area, we also decided to check out Tsukiji market, which is an open-air market selling a variety of items. I had a tamago skewer, wagyu skewers and dashi. The wagyu was mouthwateringly good; it just melted in my mouth!
We then made our way to teamLabs Planets, an interactive art museum. This is where a lot of Instagram posts are made, as it is an incredibly pretty exhibit. There are a lot of light and water displays, along with random rock gardens. It’s pretty hard to explain given the esoteric nature of the art; it is best explained by experiencing it in person.
After gettting gyoza for lunch, we checked out Tokyo Tower, which has a pretty nice park. We chilled there for a bit before making our way to the Imperial Palace. The Imperial Palace is an immaculate piece of Edo architecture nestled into the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. The garden grounds around the palace were extremely well groomed. We tried to get into the actual imperial gardens but it was closed due to some special ceremony happening that day.
We then made our way to Hara Shobo, a print shop near the palace. The shop specializes in ukiyo-e prints, which are a special type of woodblock prints. I specifically wanted to get some prints to spruce up my apartment decor in New York City as well as a print to give to my family as a gift. I was looking for Hiroshi Yoshida prints, as he has made some excellent art from his travels all around the world, but they were all gone and too expensive for me. Regardless, I acquired some prints and made my way back home.
In the evening, we checked out the Yodobashi department store in Akhihabara, which is where I was introduced to the insanity of Japanese department stores. These stores have EVERYTHING in there, with items extremely cheap. Furthermore, Japan does not charge tax on items bought by foreigners after a certain spending limit, making things even cheaper. Lastly, the yen was extremely weak compared to most foreign currencies, so shopping in Japan made a lot of sense. Although I didn’t buy anything this day, I did check out some Seiko watches I was eyeing for some time.
The last act of the day was getting dinner at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. I have never gone to one before, so I was pretty fascinated by the mechanics of the restaurant. I had a lot of fun but was also incredibly tired by the end of the day. I speedily made my way home and crashed.
May 11
I got up a little early so I went to go on an early morning walk with my 7/11 breakfast to a nearby park. I then tried to go on a walk to the sumo museum nearby but everything was closed since it was so early. After rejoining my friends, we went over to Shibuya district, which is where the famous Shibuya crosswalk is. Honestly, it is not that interesting. I felt that it was the exact same as Time Square: you see it once and you are kind of over it.
After checking out the crossing, we walked over to Meiji Jingu, a massive shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji and his consort. Emperor Meiji has a huge importance in Japanese culture as he ushered in one of the most massive industrial revilitizations of a country in history. The shrine and surrounding gardens are in an incredible condition! I would highly recommend checking out this shrine if you have time.
Since we were in Harajuku, we decided to stop by a ramen shop called Oreryushio Ramen. THIS. WAS. FIRE. RAMEN. It had the perfect combination of spice and had an incredibly generous serving of meat, eggs, veggies and broth. I didn’t really understand the disparity between the quality of ramen in North America and Japan, but this ramen made me understand how deprived I was for the last 22 years of my life.
Afterwards, we spent some time shopping in Shibuya. This is where I came across another spectacular player in the Japanese discount store market: Don Quijote. This store has literally everything you would ever want. I spent at least an hour in here exploring all the floors and buying gifts for family and friends back home.
The last act was getting Udatsu Sushi, a Michelin-starred omakase. Omakase is a particular style where the sushi chef prepares several small meals and prepares it in front of you. It was pretty interesting seeing how the chef prepares all the dishes and you can definitely taste the quality of the ingredients. Perhaps my palate is not refined enough, but I didn’t find omakase particularly worth the price. I was also quite tired from all the roaming around this day, so that may have contributed to my less-than-impressive view of this particular omakase. It was still a really interesting experience; I would recommend visitors to check out omakase while they are in Tokyo.
May 12
Today was a shopping day in Ginza. Ginza is the luxury district of Tokyo. My 2 friends and I wanted matching grad gifts, so we spent a lot of time in department stores and luxury watch stores negotiating and getting a good deal on our watch. We decided to get a Citizen Silver Leaf Lacquer NB1060 (picture below) and managed to get the price down by more than 50% after persistent negotiation and with sales offers at BIC Camera (a big department store). Shopping in Japan is quite worth it because it is tax-free and the yen is quite weak. I would recommend looking for luxury goods in Japan if that is your thing. I also spent some time in the MUJI hotel in Tokyo checking out clothes and accessories. I particularly like MUJI clothes compared to Uniqlo or GU in Japan as they are a little bit more sleek and refined.
May 13
We woke up to overcast conditions and rain, which put a damper on some of our plans. Regardless, we headed to Senso-ji, a shrine in the Asakusa neighborhood of Tokyo. Asakusa used to have a lot of important Buddhist and Shinto shrines, which contributed to the development of Edo. Given the rain, there weren’t too many tourists around, so we could explore the temple grounds unencumbered. My favorite part of the shrine was actually the gardens around it. One thing I have noticed about Japanese gardens is the excellent methodology in garden design; it is not too well-kept and it manages to blend wildness and structure that you see in nature, with rocks and flowers being classic foils to each other.
After exploring the shrine, we walked over to Tokyo Skytree. The weather didn’t make this visit very memorable, but it was still interesting to see Tokyo from a birds-eye view. After grabbing a bite at Kara, a conveyor sushi place, the group all split from each other to do separate things. I was a little tired from the rain and walking so I took a break back at the hotel.
For dinner, we met up with a friend who was also travelling in Japan for Japanese curry and then headed to Shinjuku to try out a dessert cafe. Shinjuku at night and in the rain made for some excellent photos, so if you have any photography friends visiting Tokyo, tell them to check out that area!
May 14
Today was our travel day to Kyoto. We woke up relaxed and made our way to the main Tokyo station to catch a Shinkansen express train to Kyoto. Riding the Shinkansen has been on my bucket list for a while since I have heard great things about Japanese bullet trains for a while and it did not disappoint. With a bento lunchbox, I spent around 2 hours just absorbing the Japanese countryside. My favorite part of the train ride was seeing Mount Fuji without cloud cover. The scale of the dormant volcano actually shocked me.
After checking into our hotel in Kyoto, we made our way to Fushimi Inari-taisha, a very famous Shinto shrine. I’m sure whoever is reading this has seen pictures of all the torii gates from this shrine. We timed the visit to see sunset and went about 75% up the shrine before calling it quits. We then headed to a hole-in-a-wall Japanese restaurant. It was incredibly strange because it looked like someone’s house, but they were serving some fantastic katsu. After a tiring day of travel, we all crashed.
May 15
We headed out early this morning to Kiyomizu-dera shrine and briefly stopping by Hokan-ji shrine on the way. Kiyomizu-dera shrine was one of my favorite shrines. It sits atop a hill overlooking Kyoto and lush with greenery all around. After checking out the shrine, we headed down to Kyoto to meet up with friends of one of our group members to check out Ao Matsuri, one of the three most important festivals in Kyoto. It was a procession of volunteers who dressed up in Heian period clothes performing rituals for the propserity of Kyoto. I personally found it a little boring as it was only a procession, but the history behind it was interesting.
We were all a little tired after our walk so we got ramen at a nearby shop near Doshisha university and headed back to the hotel to rest. For dinner, one of our group member’s friends got us into an all-you-can-eat Japanese grill where he works part-time. The food was wonderful!
May 16
We headed over to Arashiyama Bamboo Forest in the morning to beat out the tourists (failed). The bamboo forest was nice but honestly it was small and congested. We then headed over to some nearby temples and had lunch in the town nearby. We then went over to the Arashiyama monkey park. The macque monkeys are incredibly small and are somewhat friendly with humans. It wasn’t really my type of visit but some of the group members had a lot of fun feeding the monkeys. Afterwards, we went to Daitoku-ji temple and went into the Ohbai-in shrine. This was one of the most serene shrines I have ever entered. It was surrounded by impeccable Zen Japanese gardens, cultivating an impressive reflective atmosphere. We also got the opportunity to participate in a tea ceremony where we were served with traditional matcha tea. I really enjoyed this shrine, but the Ohbai-in part of the temple is only open for select days in the year. If you want to check it out, make sure you plan around those dates.
Afterwards, we went to Kinkaku-ji, which is a golden temple in Kyoto. It was pretty cool to look at, but by this point in ths trip, I was getting a little tired visiting shrines over and over again. We then took the bus back to Kyoto, met up with another one of our group member’s exchange friends at an izakaya, had a few drinks on the banks of the Kamo river, and crashed.
May 17
We woke up late today and went to visit a nearby Studio Ghibli shop in Kyoto to get some gifts for friends back at home. I was a little disappointed by the selection in the shop but it nonetheless had some interesting knick-knacks that I know some friends would enjoy. We also stopped by a pig cafe where we petted some pigs, walked around Kyoto’s main shopping district and also checked out the imperial palace. The palace was closed so we only walked around the palace grounds, which was a little boring.
After lunch, we headed over to Osaka and checked in. Osaka is a lot more energetic than Kyoto yet more friendly and outgoing than Tokyo. Since we were in the main tourist district of Osaka, we noticed that Osaka was little more dirty and smelly than the other Japanese cities we had visited so far. We spent the night exploring street food in Osaka, getting okonomiyaki (fried octopus, an Osaka specialty) and beef skewers. The beef skewers were excellent and okonomiyaki was a pretty interesting dish. I am not the biggest fan of seafood but I still found it to be a great snack.
May 18
Today was our Nara trip. After an hour-long train ride from Osaka, we arrived in Nara and headed straight for the Isuien Garden. It was the best garden I have seen in Japan. It was masterfully sculpted and blended in exceptionally well with the green, rolling hills behind Nara. We spent about 2 hours just walking through the garden. There was also an opportunity to eat a simple and light lunch right inside the garden, so we did that. Eating cold soba while gazing at the beautiful gardens is a new core memory unlocked for me.
We then proceeded to explore Nara deer park. For those of you who don’t know, Nara is filled with “friendly” deer that interact with people. They especially like food, so if they even get an inkling that you have food, they will nudge you, bite you, lick you and do whatever it takes to get the food. I even saw a poor lady’s brochure get ripped out of her hands as the deer thought it was food. I personally am not a huge fan of interacting with wild animals, so I watched while my friends got munched on by the deer.
Afterwards, we went to Todai-ji shrine. I have been quite shrined-out so I decided to skip the shrine and explore the surrounding Nara park. It was incredibly peaceful and serene, so I took a small nap next to a lake. My friends went to Todai-ji told me that it is one of the most important shrines of Japan, so maybe it wasn’t the best idea to skip it.
Given the May heat, some of us were tired and decided to head back to Osaka for early dinner and sleep.
May 19
We took an early morning train to Hiroshima and promptly explored Hiroshima castle. The castle had lots of interesting history and the museum inside had great explanations on construction techniques used to build the castle on a massive sand bar, the intricate moat defense system and how Hiroshima changed from Japan’s feudal era to the modern day.
We then headed over to the Hiroshima Peace Park and the Atomic Dome. The Atomic Dome is a structure that was almost directly underneath the initial explosion of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, so the walls didn’t blow away. The peace park was dedicated to the countless victims of the atomic bomb and had many different exhibitions. One of the most interesting exhibitions was about the common Japanese person’s opinions during the war. It was clear that the Japanese military government had mistreated their own civilians and that the US Allied forces were not all blameless (even discarding the atomic bombings). The horrific scale of destruction was rightfully emphasized in this beautiful park.
After lunch of Hiroshima style oysters, we made our way to Itsukushima, an island right next to Hiroshima. We made our way into the island on low tide so that we go up to the famous torii gate that rests in the water. As the tide made its way in, we explored the rest of the island.
After a tiring day trip, we made our way back to Hiroshima. A friend and I have been wanting to try Ichiran in Japan. After having their classic tonkatsu ramen, I think it’s quite fair to say that Japan’s Ichiran blows New York’s Ichiran out of the water.
May 20
We did another day trip today to Himeji. Himeji is home to the White Heron Castle, which is the most beautiful castle I have seen to date. We spent many hours oohing and aahing at the architecture, construction intricacy and the history behind the construction of the castle. One of my favorite parts was the West Bailey exhibit, where they explained why Himeji was chosen as a site of construction (it is a chokehold point in the Kansai region) and the various Game of Thrones-esque political games that were played in this region.
We got udon at Menme (which was banging) and then explored Koko-en gardens. The gardens were not as nice as Isuien gardens but it had lot more variety. The garden was split into different sections, each with a different theme (eg. flower garden, bamboo garden, landscaped garden). I had a good time exploring the garden and then headed out for Kobe.
2 of my friends and I have been wanting to try a proper Kobe steak. Although there is often a connotation that Kobe beef is premium beef, it is just wagyu steak; there isn’t anything special about the fact that the beef is from Kobe. Nonetheless, we went to a teppanyaki restaurant (Kobe Entrecot) and had wagyu sirloin and fillet steaks for only 70 USD. This was a mindblowing experience. I had never tasted such premium steak before and it truly blew my mind. The most fascinating part of the experience was that I was dousing the steak in wasabi but the fatty contents of the wagyu almost soaked up all the wasabi taste, making it a very pleasant bite.
May 21
A few of us wanted to go to Universal Studios this day. After getting up early and beating the lines, we ran towards Super Nintendo World, which was the part of the amusement park we were all excited for. The design of Super Nintendo World absolutely blew my mind. It felt like the park designers hit copy and paste of Super Mario Bros in real life. We tried out a few rides, like the Mario Kart ride but I quickly realized that it wasn’t actually that fun. It felt very childish and easy. While most of my group stayed to continue exploring, I left Super Nintendo World and did other rides in the Harry Potter section and the Demon Slayer section of Universal studios. Since I was a single rider, I speed ran both of these in record time and was done by lunch.
Since Universal Studios wasn’t that much fun, I decided to head back to Osaka. I found this hole-in-the-wall place near Namba Station called Oretachino. This no-nonsense restaurant gave me a heaping portion of the best curry katsu that I had in my life. I have come to realize that hole-in-the-wall places in Asia are usually gems; going to restaurants just based off the Michelin Bib Gourmand is probably not the right move here.
After lunch, I went exploring and got some gifts for friends. I also stumbled upon the Nose Shop, a fragrance store selling niche fragrances. I picked one up (Nishane Hacivat) that I could use to remember this grad trip. After exploring, I rejoined my friends and we went to an excellent jazz bar which had some awesome drinks. They had only opened a week ago and the owner was incredibly friendly and had special recommendations for all of us. I really hope that this jazz bar (Proust) can be successful in Osaka.
Tips
- Dealing with jet lag: the best non-drug way of overcoming jet lag is to stay up with the sun and get as much sunlight exposure as possible in the first few days. It will be exhausting but this is the tried-and-true method that has worked for me across all my travels
- Convenience stores like Family Mart, 7/11 and Lawson should be your best friend. My breakfasts were all from these combini and were usually quite cheap!
- Get a Suica card as soon as you land into Japan. Preferably, you can get one on Apple Wallet before you even enter the country, but some of my friends had issues with this. Loading up physical Suica cards can be a real hassle
- The Japanese people are extremely polite, almost to a fault. Assume formality unless otherwise indicated. For example, don’t talk loudly in the subway with your friends; it is looked down upon by the Japanese
- Universal Studios is not worth it
- For people with food restrictions (especially vegetarians): Japan is really tough. They are not very accomodating for this, so be prepared with a separate list of restaurants. One person in my group could only eat chicken and had to separate from our group many times. It is the sad reality of this country
- Do as much shopping in Japan as you can. The weak yen plus great deals plus tax-free purchasing makes this a consumerist’s dream
- Be sure to plan your trip after or before Golden Week. Golden Week is a major Japanese holiday period, so all attractions will be extra busy. We heard some unfortunate stories from people who decided to travel during that week
- There are a few attractions here that I listed, specifically teamLabs and Universal Studios, that requires you to get tickets months in advance
- Japan (and many other Asian countries) still use cash for most transactions. You can get cash at any local convenience store.