Japan Trip 2023

From Sunday, October 15th to Friday, November 3rd 2023, I went on an 18 day trip to Japan with my friends Sean, Connor, Mariah, Nick, and Justin. A wonderful, life-changing two and a half weeks that I’m sure I’ll be thinking about for the rest of my life!!! Thank you so much to Mariah for planning a ton of this and being our guide for a lot of it <333

Day 0

Woke up at 3am to catch our 6:30am flight out of Logan, running off of just 4 hours of sleep we got on our 1.5 hour flight to Toronto, where we had a 5 hour layover. Connor and Sean paid for the ~maple leaf lounge~ but I opted to not spend the extra money and just hung out at the gate for a few hours. Then began the true fun, the 12.5 hour flight from Toronto to Haneda.

We landed at around 3pm JST and immediately got on the train to Yokohama, where we would meet up with Mariah and Nick. Standing around Yokohama station it was already wild seeing just how many people were going through this station on a Monday, not even during rush hour. Then we got back onto a different train to go to our hotel, checked in and dropped our stuff off, and then went to get yakitori, which was everything I needed after barely eating any real food for the last 24 hours :’).

Day 1: Enoshima

Bright and early the next day, we all got breakfast at a kissaten near the hotel. Truly unbeatable being able to get food and coffee/tea for 6 people for ~35 dollars USD. Then, it was off to Kanagawa for our Enoshima day! Going mid-October I think I expected most of this trip to be a little chilly, but it was in the upper 70s and super sunny, I wore just shorts and a t-shirt way more than I expected lol. We took the train to the Enoden line and got off at Enoshima station.

It’s legit so wild how good the trains all were in Japan. Like I know that’s a thing people talk about all the time, but I didn’t fully Get It until I realized that, at least in Tokyo/Yokohama, every train we wanted to be on would be at the platform within 6 minutes. Usually only 2!! I think the longest I ever waited for a train (excluding the Yudanaka one) was maybe 10 minutes for the Enoden.

We walked from Enoshima station to Katase-Enoshima station, just to look at it (as featured in Bocchi the Rock!), because it looks so cool!!!! Where’s all the cool stations like this in the US smh.

Then it was off to Enoshima itself! As we were walking across the long bridge to get there, we realized that we could see Mt. Fuji just peeking above the clouds, something that Mariah had never seen before despite being to Enoshima before! Seeing Mt. Fuji felt like such a good omen to start the trip n_n

There were so many beautiful views and SO many sets of stairs. That first day set the record for walking for the entire trip, truly the best way to work off the jet lag.

While in Enoshima, Mariah introduced me to the concept of the goshuin-cho, a book used for getting stamps and hand-written caligraphy at various temples throughout Japan, as a record that you visited.

Later we did a little shopping back in Yokohama, and I really needed something to hold all of these coins I was getting (since tons of places in Japan are cash only, or prefer cash, and anything under 1000 yen is a coin). So obviously I picked up a Miffy coin purse 😤

Day 2: Kamakura & Hase

Another early start, we went to a couple other towns in Kanagawa, starting with Kamakura! We walked through Komachi street, a big shopping street with lots of local shops and craftspeople, first going to the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu temple at the end of the street. Honestly I REALLY wish I had gotten more stuff in this phase of the trip. This was all the kind of stuff I loved the most, but since I just had my backpack with me and we were going to be frontloading the travel I didn’t want to lug stuff around with me, but thinking back on it, it was really the stuff I wish I had bought the most.

Then it was off to Hase, where we went to Kotoku-in, a temple with a giant buddha that we went inside!

For dinner we went to 和心蕎花 鎌倉店, a pretty random pick that I just saw on google maps. We were the only ones there as it was pretty early (4pm dinner lol), but it was SO good. Highly recommend!

After getting back into Yokohama, we stopped into a Taito Station and Sean and I played beatmania IIDX 31: Epolis, which had just come out that day.

Day 3: Off to Osaka

Goodbye Yokohama, off to Osaka! Mariah, Nick, and I started our day by going to Toaster!, a really cute little cafe with a drink bar and some great toast.

We made our way to Shin-Yokohama station and got on the shinkansen to Osaka. We could see Mt. Fuji again, this time from the window!

Rather than waiting around to check into the Airbnb, Mariah, Nick, Sean, and I put our stuff in a coin locker and immediately headed to Osaka castle.

With time left in the day and our stuff still in a coin locker, we went from Osaka castle to the aquarium! It had some truly questionable enclosures, but also some of the liveliest animals I’ve ever seen in a zoo/aquarium.

Day 4: Sumiyoshi Taisha + Dotonbori

The next morning, Mariah, Nick, and I went to Sumiyomi Taisha, a temple in Osaka.

After, we got lunch at Gyukatsu, which was easily one of my favorite meals I had in Japan!

Then we went into Dotomburi and checked out some clothing stores, like Zabou and Vintage Dig Store Nats and it started suddenly raining u_u

Then we split up for dinner, Mariah, Nick, and I got okonomiyaki at Kashiminyaki Futahako. This was closer to hiroshima style than osaka style, which Mariah said is much better! It was bar-style seating, the two employees were so nice and funny!! They were teaching Nick and I various phrases in japanese, like how to say “one more please!” and the like. I loved the experience of like, hanging out with the staff, great time!

Day 5: Kyoto

Mariah, Nick, Justin, and I went to Kyoto! Since Sean and Connor went to the Final Fantasy Cafe the day before, they opted to stay in Osaka and do the shopping streets the rest of us did. Our first stop was the Fushimi Inari shrine (aka 1000 gates shrine) and it was SO crowded, to the point of not really wanting to stand around anywhere for very long. Definitely the most touristy place we’d been so far. The shrine itself was nice! But the crowds definitely lessened my experience of it. It keeps going up the mountain, so further up the less people there were and the nicer it got, but it’s also just kinda more of the same, so!!!!!!!! We left pretty soon after hitting the halfway point.

Once we got out of the shrine we just started exploring the city, we each had a few things we wanted to check out, like Traveler’s Factory, Beams, and Porter Classic. I got a camera wrist strap at Freitag which was a super cool store. Spending this day in Kyoto definitely made me want to go back, and I really wish we had stayed in Kyoto instead of Osaka, since I enjoyed my time here a lot more! The architecture was beautiful and the ~vibes~ were just real nice.

Day 6: Kanazawa

Heading out from Osaka, we checked out of our Airbnb and took the Thunderbird train to Kanazawa, probably the least touristy area we went for the whole trip.

This area, much like Kamakura, was one of my favorites that we visited. I love, love, love these old-style towns that have a big focus on local artisans and craftspeople. There was one shop we went into, Enishira, where everything was made by a local artist and everything had signs next to it with an artist bio and links to more of their work. Love that!!!!

Day 7: Shirakawa-go

Now, for the entire reason we came to Kanazawa, Shirakawa-go! A very early rise (I think our bus left at like 9am or something?), all of us except for Connor got on a highway bus that took around 55 minutes driving through the mountains to get to our destination.

Getting off the bus we were immediately surrounded by these huge, green mountains. It was pleasantly cool for the first time on the trip so far! We walked down the main street for a bit, checking out the shops, and then turned around to go walk up to the observation platform. After a short hike up a mountain, we reached the main platform, and the view we saw when we got to the top was breathtakingly beautiful.

This village is the same one as featured in the visual novel/anime Higurashi, so there was Higurashi merch everywhere. I picked up some Higurashi-themed candies for myself and Julie, and got a Higurashi-themed churro because how could I not???? So what if it was like 10 dollars lol

Afterwards, we headed down the mountain, got some lunch, and it was time to explore the area proper.

Shirakawa-go pudding my beloved…………. I need to go back and get more

At around 4pm we went over to the “open air museum” section, we didn’t really know what to expect, but it ended up being an incredibly cool area of the town that had a bunch of preserved houses of the era, and since it was at the end of the day we were the only ones there. Being there during sunset made it even more beautiful and peaceful, seeing the sun set over the mountains, reflected in the small ponds throughout the museum was amazing :’)

Then when 5pm came around, we headed out of the museum area (which they promptly closed behind us) and the whole town closed, despite our bus not taking us back until 7pm. We assumed we could just stay in the bus station, but nope that closed too!! So we just waited outside for two hours with the whole town going dark outside of some lights inside houses. Mariah and I walked back into the town after a while to use a bathroom and we fully understood why a horror anime was set there LOL

We got back to Kanazawa and had hot pot which was everything I needed after a long day ☺️

Day 8: Nagano Onsen time

The next morning I woke up and took a little walk through town to get breakfast. I went to Watanabeya! and got a raspberry and custard steamed bread (second breakfast place with a ! in the name???). Then we got on the shinkansen to Nagano! After getting into Nagano station, we transferred to a local train to Yudanaka that only ran once every 90 minutes and required a physical ticket to get on.

When we (all but Sean, who was visiting a friend in Nagano) got to Yudanaka station, it was another 15 minutes on a bus to get to the onsen ryokan we were staying in.

We settled in and the exhaustion really started hitting me and I just did not want to do anything anymore lol!!! I basically just sat around until our scheduled dinner, a 9-course meal where a lot of it was fish, but the dessert was the real highlight, to the point where we were all wondering who got to have Sean’s pudding, until we got a message from Sean that he was almost there and we decided to bring it to him instead.

I ended up going in the hot springs after dinner and it was so, so nice. My shoulders were killing me after hauling my stuff in a backpack so much, so that bath was everything I needed.

Day 9: Going to Tokyo

The next morning I went back in and was much more comfortable that time, and that water was just as nice the second time. If anything it was even better, since it had cooled off over night so the outdoor bath was super refreshing against the ~45 degree air.

When it was time to leave, Mariah, Nick, and I decided to just walk back to the station. None of us had luggage outside of a backpack so we had nothing to haul. We got to the station and the train was about to leave, so we hopped on assuming that the rest were already there, since before leaving we had checked the bus schedule and saw that one was supposed to arrive soon. After the train started going though, we realized that the rest hadn’t even gotten on a bus yet, so once we got back we just stayed in Nagano station, got some food, and bought shinkansen tickets.

We eventually all met up and got on the shinkansen to Tokyo! Connor, Sean, and I were getting off at a different station than the rest, so we split up and transferred to the Ginza line, got off at our station and checked in. Sean and I stayed in one room with Connor in his own, and at that point I was so exhausted that we just got McDonalds and watched anime in the hotel room LOL

Day 10: Shimokitazawa

Tokyo time!!!!!!!! Our first full day in Tokyo, I woke up early and met up with Mariah and Nick at Cawaii Bread & Coffee, which had this nice deck seating over the river with a view of the Sky Tree.

Then we were off to Shimo-Kitazawa! Aka the place where a bunch of Bocchi the Rock! takes place lol

The whole area was super nice, lots of cute second hand clothing/select shops, we stopped in Village Vanguard which is basically Newbury Comics in Japan, complete with american cartoon merch and pop punk playing over the speakers and skate clothing brands.

Afterwards we went down to Daikanyama for some clothes shopping, super cool area. Loved Drybones, Okura, and Nanamica. We all met back up in the Tsutaya Books and then took the train to Shinjuku to get pork katsu curry for dinner.

Day 11: Ghibli museum, Capy cafe

We had tickets to go to the Ghibli museum for noon, so I hopped on the train ahead of everyone else so I could check out the area. I got off at Kichijoji station and walked over to andoh coffee, a super tiny, very cute little cafe that’s essentially just a counter-serve window no wider than maybe 6 feet? From there I walked to the Parco to pick up some limited merch from a popup for the web manga “The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn’t a Guy At All”. Then I walked down to Inokashira Park and just meandered through, generally making my way over to the Ghibli museum but in no real rush as I was a full hour early.

While I was waiting around for everyone to get there, a guy approached me and asked me to fill out a tourism survey for the city of Tokyo and a got a free pen out of it lol

After everyone arrived we got in line and headed in! A few of us immediately went to the theater to watch the short film that was currently on display. The one running this time was Treasure Hunting, directed by Hayao Miyazaki and originally released in 2011. Super cute, no english subtitles, but I thankfully understood enough of the japanese where I got a general idea of the plot (and then Mariah clarified the rest afterwards). After the movie, we all just kinda wandered around, the museum is designed in a way that there’s no true golden path, so I just went into whatever rooms I was near at the time. Nothing was in english so it was admittedly a bit hard to appreciate some stuff, like the Future Boy Conan exhibit that had tons of really cool production materials, but I assume I would have gotten more out of it if I could have read the displays.

My favorite room by far was the general movie production works section. Truly incredible seeing sketches, character design sheets, keyframes, storyboards, etc all laid out in this sort-of organized chaos. I really would love to go back with more japanese knowledge at some point to really appreciate it more!

Then it was time for the Capy Neko Cafe!!!!! I looooved getting to pet a cat for the first time in ages, and getting to pet a capybara was a treat. She was so friendly!

After, we all went back to Ginza and went to a Tsutaya Books again!! Nothing better than going to a japanese book store and taking photos of all of the book covers I want to look up when I get home, only to find out that barely any of them have english translations.

Day 12: Miku collab cafe, Yarou Fes, art show, Gundam

Sean and I had plans to go to Yarou Fes back in Yokohama today, but he wasn’t planning on getting ready until later, so I headed out before him to visit the Mint Heim Hatsune Miku collab cafe, mainly because I love the artist that did the character designs/art for it.

Then since I still had more time, I walked over to an art gallery that had a small showing of original pieces from another artist I love, rururoru. Super cute little gallery!

Then I met up with Sean at the Yarou Fes venue and we went in. It was a good time! The art isn’t the kind of thing I had any motivation to buy, but it was super cool being able to go to a comics fest while in japan. Love to vicariously get that feeling of “oh i know that artist!!!” through Sean when he recognized a couple different artists he follows on the internet.

Since it was still pretty early in the day and we were in the area, we went over to the big Gundam. I have to admit, it’s pretty cool!! We managed to catch the “full program”, where the gundam moves around and has a little audio drama happening. Most of what was said was some standard “shounen anime dialogue” so I understood a solid 1/3 of it lol.

We took the train back to Tokyo, getting off in Shibuya, which was a MISTAKE. We didn’t fully realize that it was the Saturday before Halloween, so the streets were absurdly crowded and it was impossible to get anywhere. I just wanted to get OUT of there as soon as possible. Later Sean and I went over to Akiba for the first time to check out some of the arcades. Taito HEY and Gigo Akiba 1 quickly became almost-daily staples for us at the end of each day, the game selections at each were incredible, with games like Typing of the Dead, beatmania III, and tons of stgs and fighting games.

Day 13: Shopping @ Kashiyama, Park Harajuku, Arcades

The next morning I got breakfast (including this ginger soda that was just crushed ginger and soda) and stopped into Kashiyama Ginza to pick up a t-shirt from a collab with an artist I love, tamimoon.

From there I met up with Connor and we went to Park Harajuku, one of my fav stores :’) and after shopping there for a solid hour, we popped into this art show we saw was happening, only for me to realize once I was in there that I followed the artist on tumblr! Endlessly so cool getting to meet artists I like in real life.

We got back to Ginza and got dinner with Sean, and all three of us went to Akiba to go back to the arcades!

Day 14: Melonbooks Akiba, meeting up with sean’s friend

The next morning Connor and I went to Akiba to go to some book stores and we met up with Sean who was visiting a friend in Ikebukuro. We visited Sunshine City which is like, the closest thing to an american mall that we saw there. We stopped in the massive gachapon hall and I got a cute keychain!

Day 15: Met back up with Mariah & co in Ueno, more arcade lol

egg baby!!!!!!!!!! I met up with Mariah, Nick, and Justin for the first time in a few days and got lunch at this super cute cafe in Ueno. It was the last day that the three of them would be in Japan, so they were getting last-minute souvenirs for people.

Then we met up with Sean and Connor and we all got Yakitori again 😭 we went back, once again, to the arcades in Akiba just to show Mariah/Nick/Justin, and after that we said our goodbyes 😭😭😭 Well, not before Justin went with Connor to a beer pong bar, then Connor gave us the wrong address lmao

Day 16: Record shopping with Sean, Miyashita park, Tower records Shibuya, Ramen festival after

The last few day became kinda like wrap-up days, just clearing some stuff off our lists that were easy enough to do. So Sean and I went to Shibuya not during Halloween so we could check out Tower Records in earnest, and then walked over to Face Records in Miyashita Park.

Then I was off to Setagaya to meet up with my cousin who lives in the area! We were meeting up for a ramen festival in Komazawa Olympic Park, and it really felt like I was in the suburbs out there. I was pretty early, so I just sat for a while in the park watching a college? high school? soccer game being played. It’s funny hearing all those sports chants in real life after only hearing them in anime LOL. Once he said he was almost there, I walked over and we got some ramen, though I can’t imagine how I would have had more than just the one bowl, since they were all serving full portions! When everyone was done eating, we went back to their house which was absolutely gorgeous. Also the first time getting in a car the entire trip, it was very surreal sitting in the front left seat and not being the one driving.

Day 17: Meteor and Sky tree

I did nottttttt feel good this day. Not sure if it was something I had eaten, or not eaten, but I was feeling Bad so it was a very low-key morning. I walked over to a cafe and got some bread to try to settle my stomach, which didn’t do much. Then Sean and I got on the train to check out Meteor, known for the My Famicase art show every year. Sadly the actual famicases weren’t there when we went, but it was cool to finally see! Then we went back and met up with Connor and headed over to the Sky Tree. The sun had fully set by the time we got up there, so the view was of the city lights, and it was such a good way to end our final night there n_n

Day 18: Mebachi art show, flying home :salute:

The final morning! After a whole nightmare with our flight getting delayed and Connor needing to call to get it sorted, with our flight getting delayed and transferred to a different airline, it was now time to do the last thing that I insisted we do, go to the mebachi art show opening! Another one of my favorite artists, I knew I had to go to this, especially when she would be there doing signings. The art show was wonderful, showcasing her line of Comic Yurihime covers done over the course of 2023. I bought a bunch of the merch from the show, and she signed the book for me!

Then from there, we were off to Haneda to fly home. Until next time!