Thoughts on Japan in 2025

Those who know me, know that I really don’t pay attention to social media. Which means I went to Italy when everyone was going there without knowing everyone was going there (until my wife informed me of the bad news), and I went to Japan this summer — also when everyone was going there. Though, this time, I knew everyone was going and had been going. Japan had been our plan for quite some time.

My grandmother was Japanese, and thus I am a quarter Japanese, and until I was an adult I never realized how much influence that had on our family growing up — how we did things and behaved.

I love Japan. I’ve been a few times before, studied the language many years ago, and have family there. We had been waiting for our kids to be the right age to be able to handle the walking, the differences, and to remember the country. Many years ago, we targeted 2025 for this trip, so it was happening.

We spent 16 days in Japan, in five different cities, with one of my closest friends, his wife and kids. It was spectacular, and I am already itching to go back. But, it had also been a full 18 years since my last visit, and this time as an adult — not as a 20-something playing an adult.

Here’s my thoughts on the cities we visited, and on Japan overall — as someone who deeply loves the country and could not care one lick about Anime. I will note that I found that I am still reasonably conversational in Japanese, which (as I’ll talk about more) helped quite a bit.

Tokyo

Our first stop was Tokyo, a city I’ve been to before, but always felt like I barely spent any time exploring. My memory of the city itself is always so much smaller than the city. This is one of those cities which is unimaginably large (population and area). But after spending time there, I have a new found love for Tokyo — a love I never had before. This is certainly a large city I would happily live in (and the only large city I have visited which I can say that about).

Some thoughts on Tokyo:

• 18 years ago, you could get buy without much Japanese but you’d feel lost a lot of the time — the train stations would be terrifying (this is like the first iPhone era I am talking about). Today, you’ll have no issues. Train stations announce mostly in Japanese, English, and Chinese. There’s language options on most of the kiosks for tickets. Most restaurants have an English menu. Google/Apple translate work instantly on images. Google Maps (not so much Apple Maps) is outstanding on telling you where/how/which train to take to get to your destination. It’s impossibly easy thanks to both technology and Tokyo embracing outsiders.
• Tokyo is massive, and because of that, even with very high tourism the city itself absorbs those tourists really well. It’s not that you don’t notice the tourists — you do notice them at tourist locations, but outside of those areas it is not as plainly evident that the city is swarming with tourists. There are still plenty of places to eat and drink where you’ll be the only tourists in there.
• We took a side trip from here to the Ghibli Museum, it was like fine but certainly something I would not have regretted missing (it was very small and quite far). An older lady, and Japanese grandmother, told me on the train ride back that the Ghibli park is a lot better, and we should have gone there and not this ‘not good’ one. Funny stuff, she managed to stand in the middle of that damned train and not hold on to anything, I couldn’t even do that. She was great (an area where speaking Japanese helped).
• The Uber setup in the city was exceptionally good. You could call three classes of vehicle: Taxi, Premium, and Premium Van. Though I’ll note that most of the ‘vans’ were max 5-6 passenger, without luggage. When I took an Uber in Tokyo, I called standard premium (except on luggage move day) and every single time we got the “Van” option. These vans were dope as hell. Super clean, very luxurious, and the drivers were all exceptional. Tokyo has the best Uber service I have ever seen. Average Uber rides were about $20-30 USD which I’ve seen people complain about, but you get places pretty quick this way.
• What’s astounding about Tokyo is that given the sheer size, you can get to most spots in the city in around 20 minutes flat if you take the subway/rail systems or an Uber. Rail is very cost effective too, at well under $7 for most trips. As I mentioned, Google Maps was a beast, but I won’t pretend I was the subway navigator. My buddy was — he watched a long YouTube video on how to do it, and he was a pro at it. Google will tell you the entry/exit area numbers, the track, timing, and even the car you should get on. It will tell you how crowded it is likely to be as well. With our Suica cards in hand, we moved all eight of us around the city and transferred trains without any major issues whatsoever.
• The shopping in Tokyo is next level but nothing is near each other for the most part. I could have spent all four days in Tokyo trying to go to every shop I wanted to. They are spread all over, and some of the Japanese brands have it setup that their stock is spread all over. So if you want to see a particular line, it’s at a particular store. This is a little frustrating, but simply leaves for good reason to go back soon.
• The TeamLabs Planets thing was pretty cool, but what you see in images online is what it is like there. I liked about 40% of it, and was bored by the rest. This was the one place in all of Tokyo that had been enshitified by tourists, as I watched a British asshat in his 50s yell at a worker because the line was not moving fast enough. Rather jarring in one of the most civilized countries — especially when it comes to queueing. What was he waiting for you wonder, maybe he was hungry or needed to pee? He was waiting to get his crayon coloring to show up on the big screen, while an 8 year old ahead of him was struggling to understand how to get theirs up there. Neat guy.

My favorite memory from this trip in Tokyo was our morning coffee/breakfast stop. We found a small coffee shop with great seating a couple blocks from our hotel. (Turns out it is a chain, funny.) I found out they had Pizza Toast and ordered it to the awe of the rest of my group. We went there each morning we were in Tokyo. But the third morning was when I found out that (for reasons not known to me) the Pizza Toast was on the menu but not something I should have been able to order at that time of day I guess. But the woman working the counter was more than happy to make it for me — maybe because I only spoke to her in Japanese and asked if it was available each time I ordered? Anyways, I found this out because she was not taking my order that day, and the man behind the counter told me they didn’t have it, but she was next to him, overheard this, interrupted him, and from what I can tell — she told him to give to me. Thanks to her.

But the best part of this coffee shop was a local man who showed up each morning. Seating in these places is small, and we were in the second floor area each day (never assume there isn’t a hidden second floor area in Japan, there usually is) and a lean, tall, and well dressed Japanese man in his late fifties arrived. He was carrying a bright red Zero Haliburton briefcase. He took a table for four just for himself (anomaly in Japan to do this). One chair was just for that briefcase of his. He would spread out papers and write with his pen until his breakfast came. Some others might stop and say hi to him in passing.

But it was that briefcase. As someone who carried one of those to my office as a joke, I can tell you: those things are heavy and shitty to carry. And his looked perfect. If you told me that this guy either only carries it to this coffee shop and then home, or that each night he went and bought a new one to use — I’d believe either scenario. What I refuse to believe is that he took it anywhere else — it looked new. My kind of people right there.

Fujikawaguchiko

When we picked this city, I was pretty sure I had never been here. But then a few weeks after picking it, my wife texted me to tell me that she was pretty sure we had been here. I didn’t realize it because my Japanese family had taken us here, and never told me the name. So it was neat to go back here. This is a small city situated on a lake, with great views of Mt. Fuji. Most people who come to this area seem to be wanting to hike or relax. It’s a slow paced area where cash is king, and nothing opens before 11am, and maybe it’s not even going to open today — even if the hours say it will.

Some thoughts:

• This is probably a two day city, we added a third as some plans changed and it wasn’t awful, but it was a touch long for what is in the city, that is unless;
• You want a rental car. There’s really only taxi service here, and depending on the train/bus arrival schedule it might take you 30 minutes to get a taxi. So you want a car, we didn’t have one, but if you have a car you can venture out and see a lot more without being beholden to a bus tour.
• This area was accepting of non-Japanese speakers, but they were not going out of their way to accommodate. Here’s a city where you might not always find an English translated menu, and most staff don’t seem to really understand a lot of English.
• There’s a good amount of tourism here, but it’s very chill tourism. It’s not overcrowded as it’s much too small.
• We did get fully turned away from a restaurant for what I assume is only because we were tourists (despite the fact I asked if there was an available table in Japanese) this was easily the rudest encounter of the trip. It was weird as hell. Especially since the theme of the restaurant was “western food”, aka an American Food restaurant. Too fucking funny you guys. My giant ass walking in was like a scene in a movie where the music stops playing, everyone stairs and then some dude spits in a spittoon. Except it was an old Japanese lady who damn near shooed me the fuck out of her restaurant. I’d do it again, 5 stars.

If I ever come back here, I would do so driving out there in a rental. We took a budget bus out there, which was totally fine, and was $140 for all eight of us. We took a bus and train out of the area to Kyoto. But generally a car would have made this city a lot better experience for us, and I tried to rent one once we got there, but there were no 8 passenger vehicles to be had.

The highlight was a small coffee shop my friend found. Just us adults went there mid-afternoon for some coffee. The man running it took his coffee absurdly serious. Full individual menus for every bean. Hand pour over for everything. Then he showed up after we all had cups of coffee, with a globe and a puppet. Asked us where we were from, started to play the national anthem from the globe, while he made the puppet sing it. It was hilarious for the first 10 seconds, but he did the entire song. Was funny again by the end. Would go out of my way to go back there.

Kyoto

This one is rife with emotion for me. I’ve written before about how Kyoto is one of my favorite cities on the planet. David Coggins also loves this city, but has been writing these words over the last year plus: “Kyoto you’re breaking my heart”. That statement is the most apt summary of Kyoto today. It’s hard not to love Kyoto, but in the 18 years since I was last there, it’s fully given in to tourism and for those of us who had seen it before then, it’s impossibly sad to see this.

Unlike Tokyo, Kyoto cannot absorb the level of tourism it is getting — it makes Rome feel like there’s fewer tourists and that Rome is handling things well. There’s an abundance of Ubers, all with fluent English speaking drivers. Even the taxi drivers, fluent English. Everywhere you went, they could easily speak to you in English. It was easier to not know Japanese in Kyoto than in any other city or area we visited. That’s astounding given that the last time I was there, most people were not speaking English.

Every single fucking place you wanted to go, was a literal sea of tourists. Not even just Americans, as there was a large contingent of Europeans and a massive contingent of Chinese. It’s not possible to over state that. When you see a vehicle road leading to a temple so filled with people that a taxi trying to drive down it is slower than walking — that’s insane.

When you see a street which was once filled with local stores and small shops, have not only fancy Japanese stores like Porter Stand, but also a fucking Starbucks — it’s not the same as it once was.

Kyoto you are fucking breaking my heart here.

As with everything, there were highlights.

The first was a small coffee shop we stumbled upon as it was the only place we found open early and near where we happened to be while we waited for some temples to open. It was a throwback to the early 1960s inside, and had the best vibes of any coffee shop I had ever been in. The coffee was amazing, mostly all roasted by them. The pizza toast was perfection. They didn’t speak a lick of English, but were overjoyed I could talk with them, while I assured them that we would all get something if they made room for us. They were fast, really good, and cheap. I love that place, and I know what the name is, but enough places in Kyoto have been ruined, these guys don’t need the internet knowing about them. That’s for me to know.

The second place was a whiskey and cigar bar my friend found out about. Again, not sharing the name, but you can likely find it on Reddit. To get in, the door was barely labeled on a tiny street. The door was locked. You had to buzz, they let us up. Sat us in four leather chairs and handed me an English “house rules sheet” and asked us to read and agree to that before anything else. Two great rules stood out:

1. Do not be so loud as to make it less enjoyable for others.
2. Do not touch the whiskey bottles without asking first.

The second one seemed really odd, until I saw that they put the bottle of whatever you ordered on your table for you to see up close while you sipped. What an excellent place, completely run by just two women who crushed everything they did. I’ll always go back there. And, whenever I get around to wanting to waste lots of money, my bar will certainly have a house rules sheet you need to read and agree to. What a great touch.

Kanazawa

This was my first time visiting Kanazawa, and we selected it to try and get away from the throngs of tourists everywhere else. That was mostly a success, as there were still tourists, but not nearly as many, and certainly manageable. I didn’t know much about this city, other than reading it is where 99% of the gold leaf is produced in the country. Wild.

There were quite some surprising things:

• It was insanely hot, and everyone there said that’s just how the city is all the time.
• It’s on the west side of the island, so the earthquake which triggered tsunami warnings along the eastern side did not impact us, whew.
• Every Japanese person we mentioned this city to as a stop of ours, was excited and told us how much they liked it.
• This had the OG Japan feeling I remember from 18 years ago. Not a lot of infrastructure for tourists, not a lot of English anywhere. Most people there did not speak English well (or at all) but were very welcoming and accepting of tourists. They were there doing their own thing, as they should be.
• There is every luxury brand boutique in one row you could want. I had no idea, that was wild for what seems like such a small city.
• The things to do are very few in this city.

As with everything, I had a favorite moment here. Well did a Kintsugi class with a woman who taught the art of repairing items with urushi and gold. She broke it all down, talked about how the craft is dying (common theme in Japan these days), and explained it all to us. She walked us through the many steps and we left with repaired sake cups. It was really an awesome process to see, and sad to hear about the decline in the art. She was absolutely fantastic as an instructor and person — what an artist.

Kanazawa was a great little city, and I’m glad to have stopped there. Not sure I need to keep it on the list for multiple return trips, but I’d stop by if time allowed.

Narita

Many people fly in and out of Narita to get to the rest of Japan. But, the city itself is often overlooked as a great place to do so sight seeing. This was my second go around spending time here. The main gate area is a true gem. And while tourism has increased here, it’s not increased that much. We freely walked around the largest temple, with very few others on the grounds. This is one of the best things about Narita, and it’s well worth spending a half to full day there on your way out — certainly makes the trip into the airport very short and easy.

My favorite moment here was at dinner. We picked what was clearly a local-only place to get some tonkatsu. They were cash only, and as far as I could tell did not speak any English. I was ordering for everyone, and someone wanted sparkling water. It wasn’t on the menu so I had to ask — not really a thing I know how to ask correctly, but the waitress got the gist and told me they did not have it. I said ok, but then she rushed back and said they have something else.

I literally had no clue what she was talking about as it was/is a Japanese brand of sparkling water, but I had never heard of it before and thus to me it sounded like a Japanese word I didn’t know. I got the gist that she had something, and said that would be fine assuming worst case we had a fun drink to try. Then she wanted to clarify something, but I literally could not understand what she was saying and I had no clue what she was trying to clarify. I, for the first time on the trip, on the last night, had to bust out the translate app for her to speak into.

Turns out, I didn’t know the word for “unflavored”. She was simply trying to make sure I knew the water they had was not flavored. Funny the things that come up. She was a good sport though, and the food was excellent. We ate next to a Japanese man who sounded like James Earl Jones, weird stuff.

Japan Overall

It was a great trip and I feel lucky to have made it happen. I am grateful for all that everyone traveling with me put up with when I made a wrong turn, or a not so great booking. That’s the best part of travel.

Some final thoughts on Japan as a whole, which I noticed this time around:

• Japan seems to have a fear or hatred of sleeping in the dark. There’s not a blackout shade in the country, I am sure of it. Instead you just get to wake up at like 4am when the sun starts to rise. Except nothing is open, so you need to just wait there, bub. This is made worse by the fact that Airbnb’s appear to be required to have bright exit signs as well, which just adds to the lack of dark sleeping.
• This was my first time going in the summer, and damn was it hot. I’d say pretty equivalent to Houston weather. Which is to say: nearly uninhabitable. Except the Japanese don’t crank the AC like Texans do, so the relief is not nearly as sweet when you duck inside. A three shower a day time of year. Many say don’t do it, which I think is silly — sometimes the summer months are the only time you can travel, and while it would not be what I would do again, it would not stop me from going if I wanted to.
• The bag game in Japan is on point, and amazing. I’ll write more about that for members later.
• There were simply too many people, and by that I mean tourists. Myself included. Can’t wait for the fad to pass. And the tourists there were really embarrassing, in the sense that they didn’t seem to care to respect the culture generally.
• The Japanese really love to wear real watches. I thought this was an abberation, but I don’t recall seeing a single Japanese person with a smart watch. Turns out this is backed up by facts. Japan has one of the lowest penetration rates for smart watches, and is among the leaders is mechanical/real watch buying. Apparently a lot of this has to do with dress codes at work. I had Claude do a deep dive for you on smartwatches in Japan here, and watch wearing in Japan generally, here. Interesting.
• We stayed in three Airbnb’s and they were all equally great. Smooth, easy, but they are funny with how they count bathrooms so be aware and study the images and layouts.
• There’s little baskets in most places where you can store your bag while you eat. I mean, come on, that’s perfect.
• Learn some Japanese already. My one regret from my Italy trip was not learning more Italian. But it’s amazing how in Japan most people seem to not try, and just think they can say ‘hi’ and ‘sorry/excuse me’ in Japanese and get by. That’s lazy. You can do it, but it’s not hard to learn a little more.
• Also learn a little more about the customs. The Japanese take lining up orderly seriously, so you cutting ahead to jump on a train, bad form bitch.
• Japan seems to be a society of late to start the morning, but power on into the late night people. The Cigar/Whiskey bar was dead at 9pm when we got there, but popping at 11pm when we were leaving. It was a weekday.

If you can go, you should, but I’d wait for things to die down a bit, and look for not summer to travel there if possible. I have been in January, and I can tell you that was damned cold — so be aware of the other swing.