Japan Highlights

Japan Overview

Traveling to Japan has been my husbands’ dream trip since the day I met him and we have attempted to go many times, but every year we looked into it, ticket prices from Chicago were crazy (at one point it was over $2k for economy class, no thank you). This year ticket prices dramatically dropped and we decided to jump on it. Dream trip here we come! We travelled to Japan for 10 days, spending most of the time in Tokyo and 2 days in Kyoto. But, if I am being honest, Japan was not on my travel list. With tickets booked, and not knowing much about Japan besides basic history and my love for sushi, I did what any reasonable person would do, I hopped on YouTube to research travel videos. I watched videos on everything from what to buy, where to eat and what to see and boy was I hooked! 

Ah Japan, the country of temples, vending machines, all things green tea, Japanese toilets (life changing!), convenience stores, beauty products, and the list goes on and on. Much like the lines in Japan (kind of kidding but keep reading below). Armed with YouTube knowledge, I was ready for our big trip. Not exactly.

I felt like I did a pretty good job of organizing and planning for Tokyo, but I really overestimated how big Tokyo really is! And not only is it big, it is crowded. There are people literally everywhere and if you hate crowds like I do, it does take some getting used to. But even with the crowds, it is the safest city I have travelled to. You could leave your cellphone out in a restaurant while going to the bathroom and it would still be there. Seriously. We saw the Japanese constantly doing this. Crowds also means there are lines for any place that is worthwhile. I kind of joked that the Japanese love lines, but I still find it to be partially accurate. Not all places take reservations, and for the Japanese any place that is good, food or shopping wise, is worth waiting in line for. At one point I seriously thought the lines were for free giveaways. This even applied to restaurants and duty free at the airport. I had never seen so many lines in a foreign airport! Initially,  I was frustrated and felt like I was losing precious vacation time, but really at the end of the day it was not that big of a hindrance. The lines move quickly, and you do eventually get used to them and the volume of people.

As for the Japanese, they are seriously the kindest people I have met, even with the language barrier. If they couldn’t communicate in English, they tried their hardest to communicate with you. A little google translate, a little pointing, and we managed to somehow understand each other. I will say that any country I travel to, I try to learn a couple of basic words like hello and thank you, and it goes a long way, especially in Japan. The Japanese get super excited when you show an appreciation for their culture, language, and food. This applies even to your flight experience. On our flight home we flew ANA (really awesome Japanese airline) and told the flight attendent how it was our first trip to Japan and how we loved it. She was so excited, that 2 min later she came back to us with a handwritten postcard from ANA and 2 little bags, one with Japanese candy and the other with green tea. How awesome is that!

The Japanese are also very much into details. They are obsessed with packaging on anything from sweets, ramen packets, to face masks. In cookie boxes/packages, every cookie is individual wrapped with its own slot. It’s really so hard to explain, but I will try to post some pictures when I do my Japan goodies posts. Funny story with that. On our last day I had to pick up macaroons from Lauderee. Lauderee is from Paris and known for its macaroons and of course is my favorite, so when I found out it was a 5 min walk from the hotel, I had to stop in. We had about 15 min till we had to be back at the hotel to catch our taxi for the train to the airport. Plenty of time since there was no line, right? Wrong!  I picked out my box of macaroons and the store attended asked if I would like it wrapped, sure why not. Well that might not have been the the best idea. She started tying a ribbon on the box, making sure it’s perfectly placed, then twirling it, then carefully placing it in the bag only top it off with a dry ice pack. Oh but wait, she also had to top it off with extra bags in case it got wet, only to be approached by her manager and told its not done correctly. Her manager than started redoing the packaging and training her on the proper appearance! I swear this whole process took a good 10 min and I was literally pacing back and forth thinking, shoot we still need to walk back, get our luggage, and get a taxi! It felt like I was in that one scene from Love Actually. You know the one at the department store where the guy tries to buy a bracelet for his mistress? Just like that. In the end we made our train and the macarons were packaged beautifully. Ah got to love the Japanese for the pride they take in their packaging and attention to detail! Come to think of it, I think its just pride in overall customer service. 

So, taking all of these things into consideration, for us, 10 days wasn’t nearly enough to cover everything we wanted to see and do and on our return trip we could easily spend at a minimum a solid 10 days to two weeks in Tokyo alone! Yes, Tokyo was so great that it warrants a return trip! Not to take away from Kyoto which is beautiful and filled with temples. Kyoto just had a very different feel and felt a bit rushed. But I will explain all that in my Kyoto post.

Is Japan Affordable?

I have always heard from multiple sources that Japan and specifically Tokyo, is very expensive (even from Japanese!). I actually found this to be the complete opposite. Yes, Tokyo like any major metropolitan city can be pricey and from our experience the most expensive places were on par with downtown Chicago prices. At the time of our trip the exchange rate was 108 Yen  to the dollar which is really good. I will admit we did splurge a couple of times like going to afternoon tea at the Bulgari store and spending $10 on 3D coffee, but these are things I felt I couldn’t experience anywhere but Japan, and it was priceless to me. Otherwise we found Japan can be super affordable if you know where to go and are flexible in expectations. Hotels can be on the pricier side if you expect Western standards and with flights it varies on what time of the year you travel. So, if you can score a good flight price and are flexible on hotel standards, Tokyo can be done on a budget.

We did start looking into tickets about 3-4 months in advance of our trip and at one point found direct flights for a little over $600 direct to Tokyo from Chicago. We did sit on buying them for a couple of weeks, but ended up getting direct flights for $800, still cheaper than flying to other parts of the U.S. from Chicago. For it to be affordable, be flexible in the timing of your trip and book in advance. When we were thinking of vacations for this year, Japan wasn’t necessarily our first thought since we had attempted it in the past, but in the end it worked out for us.

Food wise, Japan is huge into convenience stores, yes convenience stores! The main convenience stores are Lawson, Family Mart and 7-11. Nope that is not a typo.  These are nothing like what we are accustomed to in the U.S.  Japanese convenience stores actually have really high quality packaged and prepared hot and cold food. Our favorite of the three stores is 7-11, as we felt it had the best quality and variety of food. We had to stop at one every day.  Everything was super budget friendly and you could find them everywhere (Tokyo and Kyoto).  My favorite items aside from the fresh sushi, salads and awesome packaged miso soup, were freshly made egg salad sandwiches. I actually read recently that Anthony Bourdain thought the 7-11 egg sandwiches were the best in Japan. You literally could eat at convenience stores for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! In fact, this was our breakfast almost every single day, and on occasion lunch.They also have very yummy desserts and coffee. We seriously saved a lot of money by either picking up food here to go or picking up items to keep in our hotel fridge. Prices ranged from 90 cents to at most $10 for pre-made meals. 

Another unique item to Japan is vending machines. They are literally everywhere and one of the items I miss the most. The vending machines come stocked with warm and cold drinks and with anything from green tea,  water, beer, to canned espresso, canned cappuccinos and iced coffee. And surprisingly, the coffee is really good. The drinks on average came out to $1.11 to $1.29, even in the most expensive neighborhoods. This was slightly more pricey than if you picked them up from a convenience store, but really not that bad if you are on the go.

Another budget friendly way to eat in Japan is street food, ramen, and yakitori (BBQ skewers). Like many cities all over the world, to find the best food and prices, you must stick to the side streets and neighborhoods were the locals go. Almost all neighborhoods had places you could go to for these cheap eats. Yakitori on average per skewer cost would range $1.50 to $4 at nicer restaurants and a bowl of ramen could range from $7-$14. Again, not bad at all.

As for shopping, there are several stores you could go to that offered discounted pricing on goodies to bring back home from green tea, ramen, chopsticks, to the famous Kit-Kats. We also found that the best prices were in the less touristy neighborhoods and side streets off of the main areas. I will cover this over my next couple of posts.

For hotels, I started my search on hotels.com and travelocity.com. While I was searching I also stumbled on agoda.com and ended up booking through this site. They offered us a long stay discount and you could cancel free of charge till I want to say a week before check-in. When searching, I would find affordable hotels in Tokyo, but all of them were so tiny. I am talking 140 square feet with twin beds! I get that the way of life in Japan is different, but I had just worked some long hours and wanted a little more comfort. So, I expanded my search to some of the further neighborhoods and yes, I found some bigger rooms, but they were either far or too pricey ($300 a night and up). That was not going to work either. Something told me to just check out the Ginza neighbor and I stumbled on a great hotel-Tokyu Stay Ginza. Tokyu Stay is a chain of budget hotels throughout Japan and they have bigger rooms with prices starting at $112 for the smaller rooms to $260 for the bigger ones. Of course, it depends on time of year as well. I was surprised that these were considered budget hotels as our room was nicer than some of the non-budget hotels I stayed at in other parts of the world or even the States. We did end up upgrading our room to an executive room that had a king size bed and that was about 350 square feet. We did spend more money than I had wanted to, but it was well worth it.  We had saved so much money on flights that I was ok spending a little bit more on the hotel. Our room included such amenities as bathrobes, washing machine, coffee maker, tea maker, complementary water, tea, coffee, microwave, mini-fridge, and two different kinds of slippers (shower and room). I know some of the other rooms they offer also come with kitchens. The fridge came in handy as we were able to pick up items like drinks, milk for my coffee, and food to keep as snacks from the convenience stores.  Big money saver. The highlight was the lobby amenities area where everyday you could pick up a bath sponge, face masks, bath salts, hair styling products, mouth wash, curling iron and more tea and coffee (there was much more that I am sure I am missing). So well worth it!

About those toilets

Finally, you might be wondering why Japanese toilets are life changing. Well for starters the one in our hotel room was automatic. The toilet seat would lift on its own when we walked into the bathroom, had a heated seat, flushed on its own, would clean you, and dry you after. Amazing! Toilets like these were everywhere even trains and some even had white noise for when you do your business. I got so used to the heated seats that the regular cold seat on the plane ride back was a shock to my booty. I know so fancy of me. Stay tuned for more Japan posts and check out some more pictures below!

Helpful Links

Tokyu Stay Ginza on Agoda

Only in Japan is a great resource on neighborhood guides and budget eats on youtube

Kim Dao has great videos on Japan in general, beauty products and what to buy in Japan, on youtube