Wow. Three years planning this trip and I can't believe it finally happened. I actually planned this trip in March 2020 and a global pandemic had to happen. Finally in 2023 I managed to visit Japan, and I have so much to say!
If there was one thing I wanted to do, it was to visit Japan during Sakura season (aka cherryblossom). It's one of the most beautiful time to visit Japan as it happens in spring. In Japan, Sakura starts late March and goes on until first week May. Please keep in mind that the cherry blossom is dependent on the weather, temperature and the part of Japan you happen to be in. I visited Tokyo, and cherry blossom was at its peak in the last week of March. However, when we ventured down to the countryside up north, sakura had not started yet. Another thing you have to know is that the once the Sakura has bloomed, it will last for a little more than two weeks before all the leaves pop up.
The first picture was taken in on March 22nd, the last picture taken on April 5th. This place was beside the Sumida river and here the cherry blossoms were white.
How to prepare your travel itinerary to Japan?
This is a question a lot of my friends and family had asked me. One thing I would say is to do extensive research. Watch travel vlogs, read blogs by other tourists, visit Japanese website or read books about Japan to narrow down on what you would like to do and where you would like to visit. After you have some places you know you really really don't want to miss, start working backwards. Start mapping how far these places are from where you have decided to stay. This will give you a better picture of how feasible these places are in terms of logistics and cost. For me, I had my best friends who was living in Japan for the past 7 years. I was lucky enough to have her share with me places I should definitely visit in Tokyo and that made my work a whole lot easier. I'm going to make your life a whole lot easier by sharing these places with you if you happen to be in Tokyo!
Mount Fuji
The major expense for me in Japan was my travel expense. That would have substantially reduced had I not lost my Japan Rail (JR) Pass.
This pass is valid for a certain period (you can fix it based on your travel duration- mine was for 2 weeks), and you can travel for free on most trains in Japan including the Shinkansen (bullet train). Although this one time purchase might seem quite expensive, it is absolutely worth it as you can travel pretty much everywhere for free! This pass is only issued exclusively to those with a tourist visa.
As I lost my JR Pass, I had to buy a Suica card. Suica card is like your metro card that you can top up when its on low balance. The advantage of this card is that you can also use at any convenience store in Japan to buy food, OTC medicines and other essentials wherever you are in Japan.
Please note that the JR pass is a small piece of paper. Placing it in a card holder would be better than keeping it in your pocket (which is how I ended up losing mine).
Also, please read the current Japan travel immigration requirements as they are quite dynamic. There might be other travel requirements based on your citizenship, so please keep yourself updated. You can visit you country's foreign affair website to know more about these travel protocols. When I left for Japan, the main requirements was a valid passport, and 2 covid vaccination certificates along with a booster certificate that needed to be produced in customs.
I had packed a mix of clothes for Japan including light summery clothes and some warm layers. When I had landed in Japan the weather was quite warm until it started raining the entire week. Temperature had dropped to 3 degrees at night. So I had to borrow my friend's winter clothes, as mine were not keeping me that warm.
I would recommend checking the weather and packing accordingly. During spring, it gets quite warm in the afternoon and the temperature drops quite a bit at night. A good cardigan or a coat would be great to take along. The weather in spring is not easily predictable, so it is always better to be prepared!
Placed I visited in Japan
This was one thing I learnt from my friend. Some of the most beautiful places in Japan are in the countryside, but it's difficult to navigate alone if you are a solo traveller who cannot speak Japanese. It is better to travel to cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto etc. as its is easier to navigate through the language barrier. There are a lot of attractive places to visit there as well. Most of the places I visited were in Tokyo, and the prefectures around Tokyo. As I was travelling on a budget, this made a lot of sense to me. So plan your travel based on your budget as well!
Art Aquarium Museum, Ginza
This was a one of a kind experience for me. This art aquarium only consists of ornamental goldfish; over 30,000 goldfishes and more than 70 varieties, it was simply spectacular. I went not knowing what it would be like as I wanted to surprise myself, and boy was it worth it! Aesthetically it looked really beautiful. Check out this short YouTube video about my experience in this Art Aquarium. Would definitely recommend taking children to this place as they will love this place!
Asakusa
Asakusa reminded me of a busy street market in a city. The first place we visited there was the Sensoji temple, one of the oldest monument in the place. I also learnt that almost every temple in Japan has fortune telling which was really cute. All of it happens to be in Japanese, so unless you have someone who can read and write Japanese, maybe not a good idea. We managed to try a lot of yummy sweets and savouries on the way to the temple, and they were all WORTH IT! Check out this YouTube video on my little adventure in Asakusa.
My friend's classmate happened to work in Asakusa as a hand cart staff member. She took us all around Asakusa and shared with the the history behind a lot of the places. So grateful that we met her. If you're travelling with elderly citizens or children, they will love this experience. Later in the evening, we went to the Tokyo Sky tree (walking distance from Asakusa), walked by the Sumida river and visited the old parts of Asakusa.
Opposite the Tokyo Skytree
Sensoji Temple
Walking around the old city in Asakusa. The streets reminded me of the movie 'Spirited Away'
Check out some of the beautiful street art that we were able to see in Asakusa! We were able to see a mix of contemporary and traditional art techniques with various cultural influences imbibed in the murals.
Tokyo Skytree
If you're looking to get an aerial view of Tokyo, this would be the best place to visit. My friend and I went to the Sky tree at night and it was absolutely beautiful. The entire city was lit and looked different at night. Although most would suggest to vist the sky tree during the day, I would suggest you visit this place at night than during the day! We managed to get to the 450th thanks to their supersonic lift. They have a cute cafe inside if you would like to grab a quick snack. Besides this, you can walk around the Sumida river which is right around the corner of the Skytree.
The view of Sumida river is pretty spectacular at night. Would be nice to have a cute picnic here!
A day trip to Yokohama
Depending on where we stayed, Yokohama was quite a travel from our place. We had to first map out the travel time, and then plan the places we could fit into the itinerary which be most optimal. There are a lot of places you can visited there, but we narrowed it down to 3 places. The Cup Noodles Museum, China town and Yokohama Ferris wheel. Check out this Youtube video to see everything we did that day!
The Cup Noodles museum was not recommended by my friend, but I insisted that I wanted to visit the place. If you're big time into history & food, you might really enjoy this place as it has a lot of archives on the origin of ramen in Japan and its commercialisation to the masses. As we were on a tight schedule, we couldn't really spend a lot of time reading, so we ran through them quickly. The museum had traditional ramen shops inside where you could savour different kinds of ramen, but it was too crowded. The musuem also had a lot of workshops like ramen making workshop, making your own ramen bowl etc. but these were quite expensive. The both of us were travelling on a budget, so we skipped trying them out. This is something you could consider if you had more time to spare. We decided to get some convenience store food and head to Chinatown.
Chinatown was so crowded, bustling with people and loads of street food. We walked around and tried everything that we could lay our eyes on. My friend had not tried bubble tea, so I had to buy her the classic milk tea with pearls. We also had some Xiao long bao and rice paper rolls, and at this point we were stuffed. It's quite hard to find anything vegetarian here. Meat options are mainly pork and beef, and apart from this everything has some kind of seafood infusion like shrimp paste, fish sauce, oyster sauce etc. So if you're vegetarian/vegan, better to pack some convenience store food with you! We enjoyed walking around, but we were also so exhausted. But we still hd one more place to go to!
The Yokohama Ferris Wheel is considered one of the iconic tourist pit-stop which is a must visit place. But the queue was so long, we waited for a good 40 minutes. The ferris wheel happens to be right below a huge arcade. So if you're planning on going with friends and family, I would suggest to come a bit earlier so you can spend more time playing some games in the arcade before heading to the Ferris wheel. The view right on the top of the ferris wheel was absolutely amazing. Although it had just started drizzling, we could still see the city very clearly. I would recommend visiting this place at night than during the day, as the city looked absolutely beautiful. We had to cross the Sumida river to reach the Ferris wheel. Both the banks of the river were surrounded by cherry blossoms, which made the walk to the ferris wheel extremely scenic. If you're travelling with your partner, you can take some cute pictures here!
Exploring Miyagi Prefecture
I really wanted to explore the countryside a bit more, so my friend and I planned a short weekend trip to Miyagi. Both of us had not been here, so we had to do some research to plan an itinerary that fit our budget. Again, I'm so grateful that my girl helped me plan this trip while working a full time job. She really made my whole trip worth it.
For this trip we had to buy Shinkansen tickets to Sendai. As the train ride was almost 3 hours, we got some sandwiches and tea from the convenience store. Food in the convenience store is fresh and way cheaper, and they have way many more options especially if you happen to be vegetarian/vegan. I would recommend to not by meals or snacks on the train as they are more expensive.
The egg sandwiches in Japan are to die for, just so soft and delicious. Please don't miss out on them if you ever hit a convenience store. If you are vegetarian/vegan, try buying fresh fruits. You will find a lot of strawberries during spring. There are so many different varieties, so do try some.
Your girl all comfy in the train ready for her nap!
Matsushima Bay
Once we reached Sendai, we had to take the local bus to our hotel. After getting refreshed, then we headed to the places we wanted to visit nearby. Sadly, when we reached Matsushima Bay, it had started raining and the temperature dropped immediately. The currents had picked up, making it even more colder. As we had arrived a bit late that afternoon, we missed the last boat ride which was scheduled at 3:30pm. Due to the rain that day, they closed the boat rides quite early. So we had nothing much to do besides roam the town and and try out the local seafood. We stopped in at a local restaurant to grab some ramen as we wanted something warm and soupy. This is one thing I learnt in Japan, the ramen bowl size is extremely huge. If you're a small eater, then it is better you share a bowl with someone, or get smaller items that you can share.
I would reommend visiting Matsushima Bay if the weather is good. Heading out on the boats will help you see the nearby islands better and a lot many more wildlife (sadly we couldn't that day). It is difficult to predict the weather even if you check the weather forecast, so just be open to dynamically changing your plan.
This was after completing 3/4th of the ramen bowl...
Experiencing a Japanese Hotel
There are a lot of things you should keep in mind when booking a hotel in Japan. The kind of room and the facilities, if the meals are included and the most important - the onsens! We stayed in Hotel Aria which is renowned for its French Fine Dining Menu. We were fortunate to have a five course fine dining dinner experience in there and the food was absolutely exquisite! Check out this Youtube video to see our fine dining experience.
Just a little sneak peak for you...
One experience that my friend and I wanted to have was the onsen (natural hotwater spring). In this hotel, they only had public onsens. You can find hotels with private onsens! It will be a one of kind experience but it will be quite expensive. If you're someone travelling on a budget, this might not be a feasible option for you. For anyone who has not been to an onsen before, here are 3 things you should know:
1) You will have to be completely naked before entering the onsen. You won't be able to wear any item of clothing as it might contaminate the water. If it is a public onsen, then there will be naked men or women there as well.
2) If you have any tattoos, you will not be allowed to enter the onsen. In Japan, tattoos are associated to rival gangs. There are special onsens only for those with tattoos, but you will have to find where they might be near your locality.
3) You are not allowed to take pictures/videos or bring any items inside the onsen except yourself.
With regards to hygiene, you will have to wash yourself before you enter the onsen. Please do not pee in the onsen. If the urge comes, get up and use the toilet.
I was very conscious to use the onsen when everyone was there. So my friend and I went around 1AM in the morning and thankfully it was just the 2 of us. It was very quiet and serene. The experience completely relaxes you and boy do you sleep so well.
Fox Village - Zao Mountain
The fox village was not on top of the mountain, but somewhere along the way. We did have to go up certain altitude. As winter was coming to an end, you can see that there was still snow. The place in general was colder because of this. But the journey was so beautiful and extremely scenic. My friend told me that if I had visited this place around August or September, everything woulf have looked red and orange because of autumn.
I had read quite a bit about the fox village and I wanted to visit it. My friend and I visited this place together for the first time. We had to take a cab ride up the mountain as the local buses were only available certain times of the day (we didn't want to spend a lot of time waiting).
Here, there were a lot of foxes roaming within a certain part of the village. All the foxes are trained before they are let to interact with humans. What surprised me was the number of foxes we saw. There were more than 50 of them within the perimeter, all sleeping (as it was quite cold up the mountain). Even within the small perimeter of the village, foxes had their own territories. Some of them would start fighting with other foxes if they entered the wrong territory.
The foxes actually looked like a mix of a dog and a wolf and the foxes that were black or white looked like a dog. Had I seen the same roaming in a road, I would have thought that it was a stray dog. In Japan, foxes are seen as Gods of the forest and are worshipped by the people. I've seen a lot of fox caricatures in shrines and temples in Japan. Check out this Youtube video on my visit to fox village!
After this wonderful trip, we headed back to Sendai. I wanted to have a nice meal, so we settled for some sushi. This meal set that was so good, it had pretty much everything. One thing I noticed about the Japanese cuisine is that, even after a big meal, I do not feel extremely full. Most of the items, a very light on the stomach, as a result you do not feel overly satiated after a meal.
Just when we were about to leave, we figured that my friend had lost her suica card. Given that she had topped up quite a bit of money, we decided to complain. The entire process took quite sometime, and we had to reschedule our shinkansen to Tokyo. But after all this, we were actually able to find her suica , and she got all her money back as well! I can never imagine something like this happening in India. Really commend the sincerity of Japanese people.
One very important thing I learnt when travelling in Japan, is not to fit too many things in the itinerary. Always give yourself a break if you feel exhausted. Just because you happen to visit a place for a certain time period, doesn't mean you have to see everything that you possibly can. Sometimes, you need to give your body some rest and plan your travel so that you feel rejuvenated to explore new places.
Check out part 2!
Comments