9 Days in Japan - Tokyo, Hakone, and Kyoto

We recently went on a 9 day trip to Japan. It was awesome.

Japan has been at the top of my bucket list since ~2020 but with Covid, getting married, and having a kid we just never found the right time to go. This year a friend was having a wedding and the baby was just old enough to be okay without us - under the care of her grandparents - so the stars aligned and we went.

For photos from our trip, you can see some on Instagram @hamy.see.

Choosing to travel without the baby

Our baby is 10 months old and has seen her grandparents a couple times a week since she was born. So we felt pretty confident that:

• The grandparents could be trusted to take care of her for 9 days alone
• She was accustomed to grandparents enough to be okay with them for extended periods
• She was young enough to not remember this (aka not a traumatizing childhood experience)

We had taken a short 2.5 hour flight with her before which was fine if a bit tedious with extra bags and holding her all flight. So we could've made this happen but there were a few reasons we felt it wouldn't be worth it:

• She won't remember any of this
• It's hard enough to figure out our way around Japan alone, much less lugging a child along
• We won't be back to Japan for awhile so wanted to pack our days, much harder with a child's schedule

So ultimately we decided it made sense to just leave her at home, facetime each day, and enjoy the trip ourselves.

Looking back I think that was definitely the right move.

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Tokyo

We started out our trip in Tokyo.

Tokyo is an incredible city. It dwarfs NYC in size and population and yet still remains orderly, on time, and clean.

Tokyo:

• Population: 14 million (max density 15k per km^2)
• Size: 844 sq miles

NYC:

• Population: 8 million (max density 28k per km^2)
• Size: 304 sq miles

A lot of this might be the sheer size of the city compared to density. NYC is much denser at its densest point (Manhattan) but Tokyo is much more spread out, maintaining its density far into the distance. This mid-density may be why each area of Tokyo seems to be more calm than any one part of Manhattan and may have been a driving factor for so much public transportation - people are more evenly distributed vs focused on one small land mass.

Regardless the city seems to provide habitable places everywhere we looked:

• Small streets (1-2 lanes)
• Walkable side walks
• Public transport everywhere
• Well stocked convenience stores, tiny restaurants, and small shops on every corner
• Very clean - no trash almost anywhere, partially due to no trash cans and a cleaner culture (eating w chopsticks often necessitates less napkins). In fact we got in the habit of carrying trash around to the next trash can (typically at a restaurant or train station) and would actually point out trash when we saw it somewhere as it was so rare.

And it felt very safe. NYC also felt this way - at least in Manhattan and close Brooklyn. In these parts you could walk around anywhere at any time and be totally fine. Not something I can say for a lot of cities in the US or around the world.

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A lot of things just felt like they were decades ahead of the US.

• Easy payments with QR codes - ordering, paying, everything - from stores to restaurants to wash/dry
• Enclosed smoking areas both inside buildings and outside. People would literally be lined up outside a cubicle outside to smoke.
• Excellent signage - basically anything you could be confused by, they had a sign for that. In japanese, with nice icons, and frequently in english. Google translate was very helpful throughout the trip.
• Bidets everywhere. In hotels, in restaurants, in public bathrooms. And all of these were very clean! I would very likely not trust the cleanliness of a bidet in public in the US or even the bathroom itself but the bathrooms throughout were incredible.
• Buses and trains are typically VERY on time. They apologize a lot if they're even a few minutes off. Also we rode the shinkhansen (bullet train) and that was sick. US should get some but we prob need to focus on lighter transport first.

Lots and lots of culture. The trend seemed to be 2000s street wear, cars, vintage clothing, and collectibles. A lot like Brooklyn tbh but the quality of the vintage pieces was way higher.

Another interesting thing was the amount of nature and temples. These seem to be much more sacred than we typically hold them in the US while also being a lot more open. People are free to come in and hang out, picnic on the lawn, take pictures. But no trash or disrespecting things. In the US, open lawns are often pretty infrequent or dirty or closed off so that was pretty cool to see. I thought there was a lot of temples in Japan but I think if you think of them like churches it's about the same in the US, just these temples are more public and approachable.

There's definitely a sense of respecting the past:

• Shrines and temples are right up next to new builds
• Zoning allows a wide array of builds to go up wherever there's room, so you have a dense array of builds from different decades all up next to each other
• There's lots of infra like roads and railings that seem like they were put down in the 90s but have been kept up well enough to still function today. Same with lots of cars, taxis, and buses on the road.

Overall it seems like a very efficient system. If it's not broken, don't throw it out. But do fix and maintain it so it remains in good working order for decades to come. That's smth we fail to do in the US - we build these giant structures, don't sustain them, then have to tear it down and do it again in 10-20 years. Not very effective imo.

Some areas we did:

• Ginza - Kinda like Buckhead in Atlanta or Soho in NYC - lots of high end shopping malls and brand flagships
• Harajuku - Kinda like Brooklyn in NYC or Little 5 in Atlanta - Lots of vintage / street wear
• Akhihabara - Lots of collectibles like manga, video games, figurines
• Shibuya - Lots of bars / restaurants / big chain shops - Kinda like Times Square in NYC
• Shinjuku - I don't really remember lul

We did a lot of shopping, sight seeing, eating, exploring, and walking.

Hakone

We then went to Hakone to visit an Onsen or hot springs. We stayed at a Ryokan which is a traditional hotspring in.

It was cool:

• 2 Onsens, 1 male and 1 female that switches each day
• 1 private onsen (more like a hot tub) in our room
• Our room had 4 rooms (bedroom, eating area, sitting room, side room) and we ate in the eating area sitting on floor
• Each meal was served across multiple courses and was p traditional - so v pretty, but we ate maybe 60% of the food

Also saw some art museums, did a lake cruise, and saw Mt Fuji.

Kyoto

Kyoto is a big city but feels much smaller than Tokyo. It's quite calm, even in the busy areas.

We saw a bunch of cherry blossoms and they had a bunch of tiny streets with izakayas that were cool to look at.

Next

Fun trip and we'll be back. Just might be a few years and likely with kids.