#12 tokyo
I first visited Japan in 2019 and, like basically everyone else who goes there, loved it and couldn’t wait to go back.
With my time off work, I wanted to spend a bit longer really soaking in the culture and atmosphere so unlike our first trip we didn’t have a well-defined itinerary (except for the time skiing in Nagano). We spent most of our days wandering the cities, trying to explore the quieter neighborhoods and backstreets and take things slowly.
That said, there are definitely a few highlights over both trips and a few things I’d recommend to anyone heading to Tokyo!
But first, coffee: one of my favorite things about Japan and Tokyo especially is the quality of coffee. I love my coffee and there are so many amazing specialty spots we were able to try being there for so long. A few favorites:
Camelback
Coffee Supreme
Fuglen (also does great cocktails in the evening)
Higima (has amazing freshly made doughnuts too)
Switch Coffee
Onibus Coffee
Beasty Coffee
About Life Coffee Brewers
Plus the ol’ reliable chains: %Arabica, Cafe Kitsune, and Blue Bottle
No trip to Japan would be complete without talking about the food. It’s just on another level! There is opportunity to be as adventurous (or not) as you like and with the highest number of Michelin starred restaurants in the world it’s safe to say we ate well at every meal. Even casual places and convenience stores are great (my love for 7/11 runs deep, I lost track of how many Onigiri we ate).
This time we went back to a few old favorites and explored a few new spots as well. I like to use the Michelin guide but filter by price to find places which are great value, as well as get local recommendations from our accommodation.
On our previous trip we ‘ticked off’ a lot of recommended tourist activities, and there are a few I’d recommend to anyone heading to Tokyo for the first time:
Nezu Museum
Walk around Yoyogi Park and stop by Meiji Jingu shrine
Asakusa and Senso-Ji temple
Shibuya Scramble
Imperial Palace
Shinjuku & Golden Gai
Harajuku
Tokyo Tower
If you’re interested in Edo history and can’t make it to the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum, the Fukagawa Edo Museum includes example buildings, artworks, and letters/journal entries depicting life during this time. The staff were super friendly and happy to chat about Japanese culture and history
This time we were able to do a few things we didn’t get round to doing last time:
Vintage & secondhand camera shopping in Akihabara (great deals on film cameras). Kitamura Camera is also awesome, although it’s in Shinjuku not Akihabara
Take a boat from Ryogoku to Odaiba - sightseeing on the way, and takes you via the Rainbow Bridge
Working on film photography. I used National Photo for development while we were there and I was so impressed with the quality. By far the best film development and scanning I’ve experienced, and some of the cheapest too!
Ghibli museum, it’s small but interesting, although be warned the signage is all in Japanese and when we were there did not have English translations, so I suspect we missed out on a lot
Vintage clothes shopping
Shopping at Beams Japan (I think the Shinjuku one is the largest)
Mostly we spent our time wandering, hitting 40,000 steps per day, and just appreciating being in the city. We particularly liked Kamiyama St, just off Yoyogi Park, which had several great coffee shops, restaurants, and wine bars on it and was great for people watching.
