& Christina Lee After returning from our ten-day trip through Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka in October 2013, we reminisced about the things we ate, did, learned, and enjoyed. We also thought that what we learned could be useful as you plan your own trip there.
We booked 7-day passes for less than $300 each; different durations are offered. These enable you to take any JR train for free. Instead of entering through the turnstiles normally, you'll have to present your pass to a clerk at the last turnstile. These are a deal: shinkansen tickets between Tokyo and Kyoto run over $150 per person each way, so effectively it made the rest of our JR usage free.
Museum dedicated to the work of Hayao Miyazaki. It's extremely popular, but they set aside some tickets for foreigners every day to be reserved in advance.
(We booked both our Japan Rail Pass and Ghibli Museum reservation through the JTB travel agency – like the 20th century, but it worked).
Our friends Rob and Aly recommended this organization for an in-home cooking lesson, and we’re really happy we took their advice. Not only do you get to learn some new skills and ingredients and enjoy a delicious meal, you also get a structured conversation with a local who can guide you during your stay.
Book a Suntory Whisky Distillery tour reservation (we bought some Skype credit and called).
Book any high-end restaurant reservations.
Register to use free Wi-Fi at Starbucks.
Indispensable. Buy it and carry it. Google Maps on your smartphone (though a wonderful feat of software engineering) will not cut it: its user interface and zoom-based detail rendering are insufficient to handle Tokyo.
Well-organized phrasebook and pronunciation guide. We didn't commit too much of it to memory (we didn't have to), but it does come in handy.
Helpful guide for identifying specific foods and restaurants we wanted to try.
Shopping-oriented guide. We tend to use these to navigate through any city we visit.
Japan-oriented blog that is a great read because of all the interesting projects they feature. Often they'll feature exhibits taking place around the time of your visit.
Go for an amazing panorama of Tokyo at night, a well-mixed drink, and to satisfy your curiosity about a key setting in Lost in Translation. Expensive but worth it. (evening, up to 2 hours)
Phenomenal nose-to-tail yakitori restaurant in the basement of an office building in Ginza. We lucked out here with an English-speaking waiter and no reservations. We shared one tasting menu, but could've easily gone for two (though it's pricey). Best yakitori we've had (make sure you get the mushrooms too), with a surprisingly powerful range hood in the room (to eliminate the charcoal odor that usually follows a yakitori meal).
Bird Land is located next to Jiro's restaurant, and though the two restaurants are not comparable, Bird Land does offer a fantastic tasting menu for a fraction of the cost.
(evening, several hours)
We're sure the fish auctions are entertaining, but we like to sleep in. Visiting at a later morning hour, we enjoyed sweet shrimp sushi, ridiculous uni bowls, cured kobujime, oysters steamed on the grill. (morning, several hours)
Several department stores have a food hall, but if you have to choose one, Isetan is the one we’d choose. Grab a matcha croissant from Sadaharu Aoki. Browse the endless array of Japanese wagashi. Choose from rows of colorful sushi rolls at We Love Sushi and have them packed with a mini ice pack to keep your rolls cold. (afternoon, up to 2 hours)
We met up with our good friend Eri for dinner at Gonpachi in Roppongi (the restaurant where they filmed Kill Bill) and sought out this bar for after-dinner drinks. Dark and intimate, the upper level boasts rows of bookshelves, comfy sofas, and even a hidden room that you access by sliding a bookshelf over. The cocktail menu is a bowl of fruit: select a fruit and a style and they mix a drink around it (I chose a persimmon and had it paired with dark rum).
Note: this is on a really narrow block between two streets and we were foiled by Google Maps. We thought the entrance and bar was on one street when really it was on the other. (evening, up to 2 hours)
Go for rice crackers, paper and craft boutiques. During the day, the temple is crowded with tourists. We had fun trying all the treats being sold along the thoroughfare, but be sure to check out the streets that run parallel - some of the crafts there are cheaper, and it's easier to walk too.
At night, the little shops are all boarded up and you’ll see a few locals visiting to pay respects at the temple. While we were there, we saw a man ride up to the temple with three dachshunds. (morning/afternoon)
(afternoon/evening, up to 2 hours)
Founded in 1948, Cafe de L’Ambre is the oldest kissaten in Ginza. With an old wooden counter and stained glass light fixtures, the place has great ambiance. The shop only serves coffee drinks. We were mesmerized by the amount of care the barista put into making each cup of coffee. (morning/afternoon, up to 2 hours)
Solid espresso-based coffees in between Shibuya and Shinjuku. The distance between the two neighborhoods is a bit of a walk, but this coffee shop bridges the gap nicely if you're visiting both in the same day. (morning/afternoon, up to 2 hours)
Go for a traditional tea service in a modern setting in the heart of Ginza. (morning/afternoon, up to 2 hours)
This Shibuya bar has 40 craft beers on draught. Curious about the Japanese craft beer scene? This is a great place to start.
(evening, up to 2 hours)
Grab some ramen from any one of the shops along this street under the Yaesu Underground Exit at Tokyo Station before you catch your train. Most ramen shops require you to place your order outside the shop via a ticket machine.
Very few of these ticket machines had pictures to indicate what you were ordering. Since we don’t read any Japanese, all our ramen was “Surprise Ramen,” but very delicious. We were asked a question we could not comprehend and it took a couple waitstaff before we had enough of a language bridge - they basically want to know how 'done' you want your noodles. (afternoon/evening, up to 2 hours)
Golden Gai is crowded with lots of charming-looking bars with cover charges that we didn't enter. We found ourselves here for decent sardine ramen.
Claska has several design shop branches around Tokyo. We went to the one on the ground floor of the Parco Department store which is home to a few other design shops. Super adorable home goods. (afternoon, up to 2 hours)
Known as “Kitchen Town,” Kappabashi-dori is a street close to Asakusa Temple. The street is populated by restaurant supply shops. Shop for kitchen utensils, ceramics, or even the plastic display food that shows up outside many Japanese restaurants. A lot of the ceramics we bought on the trip were purchased here, several at a corner shop at the southern end of Kappabashi-dori near the Asakusa subway station. (morning/afternoon, half a day)
The second floor has a decent liquor section. Check out the stereo section. Coming up the escalator, we seriously thought there was a live jazz quartet playing at the top.
Block about an hour for the actual forest, which sort of sneaks up on you and gets epic in a hurry. Best at sunrise or sunset. Get your hero shot for social media.
Block out another hour for the neighborhood around it, which is super easy to get lost in, but very charming and suburban. Also features this lake:
(afternoon/evening, up to 2 hours, outside city center)
This is the temple with the orange gates.
Block a whole day for this one - the hike to the top will take you at least a few hours (we spent at least 2 hours ascending, including photography breaks, and were scarcely a quarter to the top). (morning/afternoon, several hours, outside city center)
This lively market is packed with over a hundred little shops and restaurants. We loved trying all the little snacks along this five-block shopping street including fried tofu donuts, takoyaki, and dried sweet tomatoes. Roasted chestnuts were also in season.
A shop called Sawawa had the best green tea soft serve we have ever had. You can’t miss it. There is stone mill that grinds matcha at the front of the store and the aroma is heady and grassy. You can also buy packages of buttery, green tea cake. We wish we had bought more.
For coffee nearby, there is also Rokuyosha kissaten east of the market on Kawaramachi-dori and a coffee kiosk west called Bean Stop (look for a green canopy) on Takakura-dori. (morning/afternoon, up to 2 hours)
This is about 45 minutes out of the city and involves a lovely train ride through the countryside. The tour is led by a Japanese tour guide, but they have audio guides for non-Japanese speakers to follow along with. The room with the giant stills smells of plum pie. At the end of the tour, the staff prepares some complementary whisky and sodas to sip with little squares of chocolate. There's a nice patio there where you can enjoy really, really good (and unbelievably cheap) whisky while their playlist for whisky spins on ridiculous audiophile equipment.
(morning/afternoon, several hours, outside city center)
This cafe with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, a hand-illustrated menu, and an amazing sound system is a good place to wind down the night if you're staying near the city center. We flipped through books about tranquil Japanese gardens and the Apollo space mission while enjoying some plum cake for dessert. (afternoon/evening)
Osaka is just a 20-minute train ride from Kyoto. We only spent a day in Osaka, taking a shinkansen from Kyoto back and forth. Armed with a Japan Rail Pass, you could conceivably do this multiple days with very little fuss. However, if you are quite intent on exploring the Osaka city center, you could relocate for a day or two.
(morning/afternoon, several hours)
Order two buns to take out from this Chinese Chain. The buns come nestled in a red box and are filled with a meatball that is juicy and flavorful with little flecks of caramelized onion. This snack pairs wonderfully with the little packs of spicy mustard they give you.
Namba Parks is a shopping mall with a little garden on the roof that provides a perfect respite from the city below to enjoy your Horai 555 pork buns (as recommended by the New York Times). Inside the mall, visit Andon for cool housewares and a selection of local jazz music. (afternoon/evening, up to 2 hours)
A visit to Dontonburi, a large pedestrian street in the heart of Osaka (like Times Square), will provide numerous opportunities to eat Okonomiyaki, a Japanese savory pancake and a real speciality of Osaka. In a nation that is food obsessed, Osakans are known for being intense foodies. Sadly, since we were only there for a day, we didn’t get to explore the restaurants and street food culture as much as we would have liked. (evening)
Divide prices by 100 to get an approximate American price. Or think 1 yen = 1 cent (essentially true - there are no decimal points in Japanese prices).
You can use most ATMs to access American bank accounts (rest assured they also offer English interfaces), and you should be prepared to carry cash.
Convenience stores are abundant in city centers; vending machines are abundant (defying logic) everywhere. Water and other soft drinks will be very easy to get, provided you're carrying coins.
Public restrooms in subway stations, train stations, etc. are generally clean and well-maintained. It doesn't hurt to carry a small bottle of hand sanitizer.
In Tokyo and Kyoto (unlike American cities), there are multiple public transportation providers, and though some may transfer at common stations, not all ticket protocols are the same. For instance, in Kyoto, we largely used the Kyoto Municipal Subway to navigate the city but used the Hankyu line to get to the Yamazaki Distillery and JR to get to Osaka (more information about how many systems there are).
Japanese addresses are composed of 3 numbers, separated by dashes. An example is “2-1-10 Asakusa.” While major streets have names, most small streets don’t. Instead, this address identifies:
Here's a sample street sign on a corner (2-1 Asakusa):
One exception to this rule of eating on the go is eating while on the bullet train. Visit the food hall at the train stations for a selection of cute bento boxes or other packaged meals, and pick up a mini beer for the the voyage.
This is written by moderately well-to-do New Yorkers who have high standards for food and a lot of access to shopping. We don’t speak or understand Japanese and therefore are less comfortable seeking out “unspoiled” places. These should be taken into consideration as you read these recommendations: if you are from some place that is not New York and have some fluency in Japanese, you might feel differently about some of what’s available in Tokyo.
Our itinerary included 6 days in Tokyo, 2 days in Kyoto, and 1 day in Osaka.
Asakusa, K’s House Tokyo Oasis
A hostel recommended by friends. Includes a communal pot of coffee in the morning and laundry facilities. We did our own dishes and booked one of the few private rooms with an en suite bathroom. You will have to leave your shoes at the front door.
A hotel recommended by our travel agent. Comfortable, moderate-sized room on par with a Hilton in New York City. Conveniently located near Nishiki Market, a solid boulangerie, and a kissaten. I availed myself of the happy hour specials at the bar to enjoy a fastidiously mixed sidecar.
Text and images by Matthew Marcó and Christina Lee.
Thanks to Rob, Aly, Julie, and Eri for their guidance.