Japan
Cannot recommend enough. Should be on everyone's bucket list
Tokyo
First impressions of Tokyo: it’s HUGE, it’s super clean (despite no public trash cans anywhere), and everyone dresses so nicely. Going up to the observation deck of the Skytree at 1,480 feet, all you see for days is the massive sprawl of the city. We saw a fraction of the city and each neighborhood was so much fun to walk around in. Always felt incredibly safe. Such a special city.
Driving on the wrong side of the road
The day after we landed, we immediately started driving on the wrong side of the road to go skiing in Hakuba Valley. Took me a long time getting used to wide-right turns. I hope the road signs weren’t that important!
Skiing at Happo One in Hakuba Valley
We only had one full day to actually ski, so after driving up the day before (with stops for Fuji photos and a wander around Matsumoto Castle along the way), we picked up rental skis at Woody and headed straight for Happo One. Naturally, the mountain decided to dump about a foot of fresh snow on us that morning, which made for some incredible skiing and also some of the worst visibility. The village, and even more so on the mountain, felt more like North America then Japan, with the lifties blasting Eminem and Rihanna’s Love the Way You Lie on repeat. Really tall mountain, coupled with the thigh-deep powder made for some real leg burners by the end. One thing you won’t see in Japan: skiing off piste or in the woods. But thankfully there was plenty of great terrain to enjoy nonetheless. Worth every bit of the long drive up and back in the same 24 hours.
Finally seeing Shohei at the Tokyo Dome
I’ve always wanted to go to Japan, but the reason we went in March of 2025 was beacause of the MLB season starting in Tokyo with Shohei and the Dodgers. I was super lucky to refresh my browser at just the right time to snag a few tickets at face value (only $75 each!) a couple months before the trip, preventing me from having to ponder buying overinflated tickets on stub hub. Seeing Shohei and several other Japanese players (both starting pitchers and a few others) playing in their home country was really special. The crowd noise every time he stepped up to the plate was unreal, easily the loudest ovation of the night regardless of what actually happened once the ball was in play.
I noticed a few interesting differences between baseball in America and Japan. First, during batting practice, they have officials with whistles point whenever a ball (fair or foul) was headed towards a section of the stands to warn people of it. Second, right before the pitcher threw, it felt like a tennis match. Everyone was watching super closely (like I mean everyone, no one was just at the ballpark for any other reason), so when the pitcher started their windup, it got deathly quiet. We were in the nosebleeds and could clearly hear the ball hitting the catcher’s mitt, and other sounds from the field you would only hear in America at field level. Another fun difference, and one we absolutely partook in, were the beer girls wandering the stands with kegs strapped to their backs, a Japanese baseball tradition we wish more American stadiums would adopt.
Kyoto
From Tokyo we hopped on the Shinkansen (grabbing JR rail passes before boarding) and headed to Kyoto, which ended up being our home base for the rest of the trip. Kyoto is everything Tokyo isn’t - quiet, historic, and full of temples and shrines instead of skyscrapers and neon. We used it as a jumping-off point for day trips to Hiroshima and Osaka, on top of wandering Kyoto’s own bamboo groves, canals, and shrines.
One night in a Ryokan
After a couple nights in a normal hotel, we splurged on one night at a traditional ryokan tucked along a canal outside the city. Dinner was shabu-shabu, with paper-thin slices of wagyu we cooked ourselves tableside in a simmering pot, somehow both incredibly fancy and incredibly hands-on at the same time. We opted for the Western-style bed over futons on the tatami floor, but otherwise embraced the entire experience, including a tea ceremony and relaxing in the private onsen (hot tub) outside. The next morning were greeted with an absurdly elaborate breakfast spread of a dozen tiny dishes, more than half of which we couldn’t identify but ate anyway.
Hiroshima Day Trip
Hiroshima was a day trip from Kyoto, about an hour and a half each way on the Shinkansen and easily doable there and back in a day. We started at Hiroshima Castle before making our way to the Peace Memorial Park, walking past the Atomic Bomb Dome (one of the only structures left standing near the blast’s hypocenter, preserved exactly as it was) and spending a somber hour or two in the Peace Memorial Museum. It’s a heavy, humbling way to spend a morning, and one of those museums everyone should experience at least once. On a lighter note, March in Japan is peak pollen season, and my allergies were not having it, so we made an emergency stop for Japanese allergy meds before we could keep exploring. Glad the folks over at Claritin use the same exact box art!
Osaka
Osaka was our other source for several day and night trips from Kyoto, another quick JR train ride away. Where Kyoto is temples and quiet, Osaka is neon signs, street food, and chaos in the best possible way - it’s known as Japan’s kitchen for a reason, and we made it our mission to eat as much of it as possible.
Food
No trip to Japan is complete without a stop (or five) at a convenience store. Between interesting fares like corn and mayo bread, an entire aisle dedicated to matcha items like Kit Kats and Pocky, and bottled milk tea from a vending machine that came out hot yet the perfect temperature, we quickly understood why conbini snacks have such a cult following.
For actual meals, we grilled our own wagyu yakiniku-style at dinner one night, and grabbed fresh takoyaki from a street stall while wandering through Shinsekai. Crispy on the outside, molten octopus in the middle - dangerous to eat and impossible to stop eating.
Amakaratei
Osaka is basically the birthplace of okonomiyaki, so we made a point of eating it at Amakaratei, a tiny counter-seat spot where you watch your food get built and cooked right in front of you on the teppan. We were fortunate enough to be the last diners of the night, holding a multi-lingual sign to scare off others. The elderly couple taking orders and making our food were amazing. No English was spoken, though we both had positive things to say about Shohei. And boy was the food delicious.
Conveyor Belt Sushi
We also hit up a modern kaiten-zushi spot - with a tablet at every seat where you order whatever you want and it shows up a minute later. Equal parts efficient and a little bit like magic, and dangerously easy to lose track of how many plates you’ve gone through. Haley especially enjoyed seeing other non-sushi eaters have their chicken finger orders whizz by.
Vending Machines
Japan’s vending machine game is on another level - hot and cold drinks side by side, entire meals, and flavors we’d never think to put in a can. If you can buy it, there’s probably a vending machine for it. No place was too skinny or too natural to escape it. We couldn’t help but photograph basically every one we passed, so here’s a small sampling of the highlights.
Trains
With a JR rail pass in hand, the Shinkansen became our default way to get between cities - impossibly smooth, always on time, and somehow still exciting every single time one pulled into the station. The local lines were a nice reminder of great investing in infrastructure can be. Aside from getting to Hakuba, we never needed a car, and whether bullet, local, or metro, all the trains were clean, on-time, and easy to use.
