• Travelling to Japan for holidays is so different from travelling there for work. There are no expectations to blend in at all. I’m a gaijin (foreigner) and I’m not afraid to show it! 😛
• Everything in Japan seems so different, yet familiar in many places.
• If you’re planning a holiday to Japan, I highly recommend you rent a pocket wifi device prior to travelling. I got mine from Rentafone, which cost 6900yen for 7 days with high Internet speeds and unlimited data usage.
• Lack of free WIFI is notorious in Japan and it’s expensive to pay for WIFI at hotels. The pocket WIFI will help you plan your trip, find your way (Google Maps was a lifesaver, especially in Kyoto where we got lost a number of times) and communicate with Japanese folks who can’t speak English (although body language works just as well most of the time).
• The Japan Rail Pass was quite a good bargain for us as we also had Kyoto in our itinerary. It allowed us unlimited use of the local JR trains and shinkansen (excluding subways) for 7 days. However, if you’re only planning to check out Tokyo, then I would not recommend the JRP as it’s cheaper to just buy regular tickets.

• We stayed at the Chisun Hotel at Ueno and Unizo Hotel at Kyoto. Tiny tiny rooms, but it was to be expected. The rooms even came with pajamas! (damn, shouldn’t have packed any)
• Matsumoto Kiyoshi was beauty heaven for me. It’s like Australia’s Priceline but with Japanese cosmetics. The big cosmetics brands like Shiseido, Kanebo and Kose have cheap to slightly more expensive ranges that suit all budgets. I have lost count on how many Matsumoto Kiyoshis I went to this trip.
• I may or may not have also bought way too many things on the holiday. You’ll know what I mean when I show you what I brought back with me in my next post 😉
• Best times to go to Asakusa to check out the Sensoji Temple is about 8-9am, when the shops aren’t opened yet. There’s a lot less people and you finally get to take a picture under the big lantern without random people standing next to you trying to get their pictures taken 😛
• We went to check out the new Tokyo Skytree but hot damn, the queues to the ticket office was massive. In the end, we just took a lot of pictures of the tower and say we’ve been there.

• I walked a lot in Japan. By a lot I mean if I wore a pedometer with me, I probably covered well over 30000 steps (if you know me well, you’ll know that I’m indeed a lazy bugger who dislikes a lot of walking).
• Caught a glimpse of the magnificent Mt Fuji on our way to Kyoto.
• Kyoto was where I walked the most. We took a bus to somewhere north of Kyoto in the morning at about 9am and walked all the way south (only stopping for lunch) and then back to the hotel. That’s about 10 hours of walking alone. By the end of the 2 days, I could barely feel my feet.
• Having said that, I have to say that Kyoto was absolutely gorgeous. Stunning views especially the autumn colours of trees. You can see a mixture of red, orange and yellow leaves everywhere.
• You know when they say if you’ve seen one castle/shrine/temple, you’ve seen them all? Not true with Kyoto. Every shrine is different even though they do have similar characteristics on the whole.

• There are plenty of zen gardens in Kyoto. You know those small sand boxes on your desk that you use a tiny rake on? Imagine something similar but life-sized. Oh, and you don’t get to use a rake on the sand (you aren’t even allowed to go near the sand to muck the design up) 😛
• We walked on the Path of Philosophy for about 90 minutes. You don’t have to because there aren’t any big shrines or attractions along the way. I do recommend it though because it’s good exercise and you get to see the small houses and tiny shops all the way down.
• Gion was okay by day but pretty by night when all the lights are turned on. It’s a very touristy area and no, we didn’t bump into any geishas. Oh well.
• We did manage to spot a couple of maikos walking down the street who were, unfortunately for tourists like us, camera-shy. Every time Tim tried to take a picture of them, they turned their face away. We stalked them down to the end of the street before they took a turn to an unknown lane.
• To be honest, I’m not even sure if they are genuine maikos. When I was researching for our 2-day trip to Kyoto, I found out that a lot of these “maikos” are actually just tourists playing dress-up. Oh well, I hope the ones I saw were genuine maikos, or else we would have stalked tourists just like us for photos 😛

• There was a lot of walking in Tokyo too, but thanks to the Yamanote line, we covered more areas like Shibuya, Shinjuku, Akihabara, Harajuku, Ebisu and Yokohama by getting there on trains.
• Trains in Japan are famous for their high efficiency. It makes train systems in other parts of the world pale in comparison (sadly, Metro trains in Melbourne can’t even measure up, not even 50%). Tim was very impressed at how frequent and punctual trains were in Tokyo.
• Spotted a wedding going on at the Meiji Shrine at Harajuku.
• Received a number of Maid Cafe brochures at Akihabara handed out by lolita girls. Ended up not going to any. Drats.
• On the other hand, we did go to a Hooters bar at Ginza 😛

• Odaiba was as beautiful as I remembered it to be. It’s famous for its modern designed buildings, museums and plenty of shopping.
• Tim and I had a go at the driving safety simulation at the Toyota Mega Web (a big showroom of Toyota’s latest cars). It was too bad Tim didn’t have his international drivers license with him; he really wanted to also test-drive one of the new Lexus 😛
• If you’re at Odaiba, I highly recommend the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (aka the Miraikan). Lots of cool exhibits to play with. This was my third visit and I’m still not bored with it.
• Caught up with my brother in Tokyo. He’s currently in Japan for work, at least for the next 2 months. I haven’t seen him in almost 2 years! I didn’t realise how much I missed him until we spent only a measly 1.5 days together.
• The weather was absolutely wretched on the day I met up with Boy (that’s what the whole family calls my brother). It rained very heavily all day and up to a point, had to take shelter at a watch store.

• It turned out to be really interesting because one of the brands was Swatch, which had a see-through elevator filled with 2000 limited edition watches!
• I was going to get Boy a watch but whaddyaknow, he got me one instead. Big love 😀
• We went to the famous massive traffic intersection at Shibuya. Tim was highly impressed at the crazy amount of people who crossed the intersection effortlessly.
• Shinjuku Station was just as chaotic and large as I remembered it to be. It’s the least favourite station of mine because you can easily get lost in there. A average of 2 million people go in and out Shinjuku Station DAILY. That’s a scary number!
• Still, shopping in Shinjuku was good. Plenty of departmental stores and places to eat.
• Speaking of food, it’s food heaven in Japan. Doesn’t matter if you’re not into Japanese food. They’ve got everything!
• I don’t normally like ramen, but managed to taste the best ramen I’ve ever had at a ramen chain called Ippudo. It was so good, I had to go twice. I can still taste the soup. Mmm…
• Food in comparison to Australia is cheap. We had a fantastic all-you-can-eat sushi dinner at a restaurant that is comparable to Shira Nui’s (Glen Waverley) omakase and we only paid the same amount in total that we would pay per person in Australia. You can also get really good food for under 1000yen.

• It was so good to revisit my favourite cheapie food places like Tenya (tempura only) and Matsuya (vending machine food shop)
• I love vending machine food shops. Healthy fast food and delicious too. Mmm …
• Speaking of vending machines, do you know that there are 10 vending machines to 1 Japanese? There are at least 2-3 vending machines on every corner.
• I’ve lost count of the number of green tea I’ve purchased from vending machines. And Coke Zero for Tim.
• Desserts are aplenty in Japan. Cake shops, even small ones, have a myriad of yummy cakes that makes you want to try everything.
• The Japanese sure know how to pack desserts to go. One tiny cake requires pristine white gloves for handling, a small box, an ice pack for keeping the cake freshly cool and a pretty carrier bag for the box. All for just one small cake that does not cost a lot of money. Service to the max, people!
• Speaking of service, it was absolutely top-notch in Japan. It doesn’t matter where you go. Food, shopping, etc, you wouldn’t expect anything less than excellent service.
• We wanted to check out the Harajuku/cosplay girls at Harajuku on Sunday. Unfortunately, we only saw three, which was rather disappointing.
• There was a guy giving out free hugs. It attracted none of the Japanese (most adopt the see-but-don’t-touch attitude) but got a lot of foreigners instead. My brother and Tim couldn’t resist. Come on, it’s free hugs! 😛

• The final day of our holiday was dedicated to shopping. We headed to Yokohama (one of my favourite places to visit) to check out the sights. Boy, it was cold that day.
• Tim spotted the Cup Noodles Museum and really wanted to check it out. Unfortunately, there were way too many people and the spots for the factory visit were already filled up. In the end, we had to leave.
• Omiyage (souvenir) shopping was done at Ameyoko Market at Ueno. It was a lot of fun hearing vendors shouting “1000 yen!” on pretty much everything. You can get a gorgeous and big slice of fresh tuna for only 1000yen. Here, it’s $40/kg. Ish.

Even though it was quite a short trip of only a week in Japan, it was a fantastic holiday for Tim and I. It was a really good break for the two of us, and we simply cannot wait to be back. We hope to visit Hokkaido next. Let’s hope it doesn’t take another 4 years for that to happen 🙂

Next (and final) post on Japan, my shopping haul. Oh you’re going to love this one 😉

PS: I tried formatting the post with numbers to show 50 highlights but it wouldn’t let me continue the numbers after breaking the text up with photos. It didn’t look good with the numbers manually inserted either. So bullets it is!