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The original was posted on /r/japantravel by /u/GoldRoger3D2Y on 2025-01-14 06:53:32+00:00.
This post can get very long if I’m not careful, so I’ll do my best to keep this brief!
We arrived at Haneda airport on December 29th and are flying back to the US on February 5th. My wife and I have never done a trip this long, but we’ve planned it for years as a sort of quarter-life milestone. After reading so many posts on this sub, I want to give back and provide some of our takeaways for other first time Japan travelers. I’ll also give some notes on specific locations as is pertinent, but honestly 60% of our trip has been along the well beaten paths so I won’t ask you to read about our hike up Mt. Inari for the 1000x time…nor do I want to write it. It’s a lot of steps. There, report done!
First unique note, we broke a Japan travel cardinal sin and came at New Years! For others who are worried about coming to Japan at the wrong time, just throw that thought in the trash. No matter what, you’ll walk away with pros and cons so just pull the trigger and get here because it’s amazing. New Years is pretty quiet, but we were in Tokyo until January 2nd, so we figured the biggest city in the world wouldn’t shut down completely, right? The answer: yes and no. Plenty of restaurants do stay open, but it’s just the major chains and massive shopping districts. We used this opportunity to visit areas like the Tokyo Skytree, so we stayed plenty busy despite all the fears of “Japan closing down”. Coming in the winter means being too late for fall foliage and too early for anything in bloom, but it also means smaller crowds! A trade we were happy to make.
Second (not so) unique note, get off the beaten path! Such a cliche, but damnit I’m including it anyway. Our best experiences have come from the kindness of the Japanese people, but that only happens if we take the first step. For example, on New Year’s Eve, my wife and I visited the Buddhist temple and shrine nearest our hotel in Tokyo to ring in the New Year. Thing is, our Japanese is pretty bad. However, we did study for a few months before coming here to at least have some basic phrases and vocabulary. This emboldened my wife to ask some elderly Japanese men what they were standing in line for. We had translated the sign above, and knew it said “Prayer”, which is what they told us…but that could mean many things.
These men took it on themselves to shepherd us through the line, where we paid for our prayer to be read by the monk. Once we did this, we began to walk away thinking this would be done in private. That’s when the men grabbed each of our arms and walked us into the temple along with the crowd, where we were given some traditional New Year’s snacks and tea and we chatted with these men with a combination of their choppy english and our abhorrent Japanese. We learned one of the men’s fathers was a professional Japanese trumpet player, and played alongside Louis Armstrong (he proudly showed us many photos, including himself as a baby). Our names were eventually called, and we were called into the Hatsumode (as we now know), and sat through a truly surreal experience at 12:30 in the morning. Certainly the coolest way I’ve ever started a year!
Third unique note, try your Japanese language skills no matter how bad they are! This piggy backs off my last point, but I want to be sure to encourage you that it’s OK if you don’t speak Japanese. We’ve have gotten an insane amount of mileage out of using the most basic phrases. Locals open up, they start to ask us more questions, and in some cases they’ll even invite you to dinner! I certainly wouldn’t expect this, but twice on our trip have we been invited to dinner with locals after some basic conversation. The first time we were in Matsumoto (highly recommend!) and visited a small izakaya. It was one of those tiny, 8-seat izakayas where the owner’s personality becomes the entire experience. We were the only non-Japanese in there, but the owner’s english was quite good and he translated our speech to everyone in the restaurant. We became the center of attention, and everyone tried practicing their english skills (though only the owner’s was conversational). We got to know the owner so well he invited us to dinner at another izakaya the next night. He was incredibly kind, and even brought us a small gift when we met up the next day! Like damn…my wife doesn’t treat me that well. /s
Fourth (and final) unique note, the soul of Japan runs through the izakayas! It’s crazy to me that in American we hear more about sushi and ramen than any other Japanese cuisine. I love both of those foods, but Japan’s real magic lives in the izakaya. It’s a uniquely Japanese experience that I can’t say I can compare to anything in the USA. They’re typically smaller restaurants, often just a single bar with 6-8 seats, though they can sometimes have a dining room with few more tables. At first, we thought of the izakaya kind of like the local bar, where locals meet but the food is just typical bar food. I’d now call this description dumb as rocks. The cuisine at izakayas is more comparable to American gastropubs focusing on Japanese cuisine, but the vibe is totally different. They’re so intimate, yet relaxed. Charming, disarming, and good for the soul. It’s here that I’ve eaten the best sushi of my life, as well as impeccable smoked duck, delicious oden, braised mushrooms and more all in the izakayas. It’s like stepping into an episode of Japanese Cheers.
If possible, get a reservation at your izakaya of choice. We got lucky in Nara where we thought we’d beat the crowd by showing up when they opened at 5am, but they were totally booked up. However!!! This was the 2nd time we we were asked to dinner, as the two men in the 80s standing behind us invited us to their private room in the back. They spoke NO english, so we used Google translate all night and had a wonderful time. At some point, one of the men ordered warm sake steeped with pufferfish fins, and it was…pungent, though I didn’t hate it? Great night, all from being in the right spot and practicing our horrid Japanese.
TL:DR; Come to Japan regardless of the time of year, be willing to break away from your itinerary, always be willing to speak in Japanese even if that’s only “arigato”, and go to izakayas very often. You do this, you’ll have a great trip.