My Japan Trip 2024
THE LEGENDARY VOYAGE
Overview
**28th - 31 July Tokyo** Mistui Garden Hotel
**1-5 Aug Sapporo/Otaru** Tokyu Hotel
**5-7 Asahikawa** Hotel Amanek
**7-9 Noboribetsu** Kashoutei Hanaya Ryokan
**9-11 Hakodate** Gran Palette
**11-14 Osaka** Fairfield
**Activities**
28 **Fly from Madrid to Paris, then fly to Tokyo.** **Air France business
class.** Arrive at 9am. Can’t check into hotel until 3pm.
Akihabara. Don Quixote. Taito Station. Starbucks. Dinner.
29 Morning/afternoon: First visit to the konbini. Asakusa. Evening: Shibuya.
30 Afternoon: Immersive Fort Tokyo. Visit Jack the Ripper horror maze,
Hansel and Gretel (witch side) see the spontaneous Oshi no Ko and Cabaret
shows, pay extra for The Sherlock. See the confusing ending show about
spies of some kind. Evening: Teamlab Planets.
31 Morning/afternoon: Harajuku. Miipig Cafe. Yoyogi Park and Shrine.
Evening: Shinjuku .
1 **Fly to Hokkaido. Peach airlines.** Evening: Tanukikoji shopping street.
Taito Station again.
2 Morning:Sapporo beer museum. Afternoon: AOAO Sapporo aquarium. Early
night.
3 Afternoon: Jingiskhan in Sapporo tv tower. Maidreamin maidcafe. Sapporo
university museum. Evening: Sapporo beer garden in Odori park.
4 Day trip to Otaru. Canal cruise. Street festival.
5 **Train to Asahikawa.** Sake museum.
6 Joyful Noroko train to Biei and furano. Tomita lavender farm. Evening:
Asahikawa beer garden.
7 **Train back to Sapporo and then on to Noboribetsu.** Jigokudani valley,
Noboribetsu onsen. Lord Enma statue, oni hunting.
8 Date Jidaimura village (Edo theme park.) Onislo bus to natural footbath.
9 Train to Hakodate. Afternoon: Bar Gai craft beer. brick warehouses.
Evening: Blue Moon bay cruise.
10 Morning: Hakodate morning market, Mash Maru ship museum, revisit brick
warehouses. Starbucks again.
11 **Fly to Osaka. ASA.** Evening: Dotonbori.
12 Afternoon: Kuromon market, Amerika-mura. big step mall. Evening:
Dotonbori again plus surrounding areas, checking out host/hostess bar
district.
13 Universal studios Japan (twilight pass). Visit My HeroAcademia 4-D
theatre, live action One Piece Summer Premier show in evening. Everything
else is a two hour wait time or requires extra money.
14 **Fly the hell home via Air France.** Many delays. Exhausting. Get in after
midnight.
**Food**
28 Pork shepherds pie and cheese. Light breakfast on plane. More cheese
(it’s Air France.)Sushi in Kaneda
29 Curry bread from the konbini. Deserted tonkatsu restaurant in Asakusa run
by lovely ancient old man. Gyoza restaurant in Shibuya. We had 30 gyoza
and a mapo tofu!
30 Morning konbini snack: Kara age on stick, corn dog. Lunch: Immersive
fort melon bread sandwich. Dinner: Random izakaya near Kaneda. We have
omlette, skewers, mushroom tempura,
31 Lunch:Green Brothers salad bowl. Dinner: Sakeria Banco, a lovely
european influenced izakaya/hotel bar.
1 Lunch: Outstanding bowl of udon from Narita airport.. Dinner: Burger and
fries from Bearfoot, an american style diner/beer place in Tankuikoji.
2 Lunch: Totoriton sushi, konbini dinner (pork soba, mapotofu bread, butter
chicken naan) ice cream after aquarium
3 Lunch: Jingiskhan, konbini dinner (pork raisukaree, pork onigiri, curry bread)
4 Lunch: KFC. Afternoon snack from festival: Zangi, hokkaido ice cream,
hokkaido long fries, Dinner: more konbini food (hamburger sandwich, pork
bento, noodle dog, frankfurter pizza roll)
5 Lunch: Matsuya beef bowl. Dinner: Unknown izakaya - potato donut, shrimp,
skewers, broiled squid, toasted rice ball.
6 Lunch: soy sauce ramen in biei, lavender and melon ice cream at torita
fame. Dinner: Asahikawa beer garden- fried burdock, soba noodles, tandoori
chicken, gyoza, duck skewers
7 Kaiseiki breakfast and dinner.
8 Same again.
9. Lunch: Falafel and venison tacos, dinner: Hakodate’s famous lucky pierrot
(egg burger, snow burger, chinese chicken.)
10 Morning market fresh seafood bowl. Dinner: Tonkatsu that takes a long
time to arrive, we are told we can’t order a lot of the food and only after trying
for 20 minutes she gives us an English menu. It was a quiet little place and
took forever for the food to appear but my lord it was good!
11 Hakodate airport tonkatsu curry and butter corn ramen,. Dinner: dotonbori
takoyaki followed by kuhikatsu skewers and a strawberry cake/ daifuku to
finish.
12 Lunch: Sushi at kuromon market. Dinner: Okonomiyaki and teppanyaki
near dotonbori.
13 Lunch: Mc Donalds, (soy sauce burger, potato cheese pie, potato and beef
burger, shrimp burger) Dinner: The final konbini feast (UFO ramen,
sandwiches, buttery snack, barbecue waffles, chili rice cracker, chicken donut,
pudding parfait, donut stuff, lemon bread)
14 Cutlet sandwich left over from last night, Air France food - roast beef,
creamy pumpkin pasta, more cheese, prawn cocktail and delicious vanilla
cream puff on flight from Paris to Madrid.
**Movies watched on plane**
Journey to: John Wick 4, The Nun 2, Jungle Cruise, Godzilla vs Kong: The
New Empire
Journey back: Asterix at the Olympic Games, Asterix and Obelix: Mission
Cleoptra, It Chapter 2, Scoob!, The Lego Batman Movie
**Travel Gaming**
Project Zero: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, Eastward, Super Mario Bros. 2, Abzu
(Switch), Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, Castlevania : Portrait of Ruin
(DS)
**Analysis**
* All the food was amazing. I’m not sure it’s actually possible to eat badly. But
I’ll mention when it was REALLY good.
* The locals are beyond polite, especially if they’re paid to be -otherwise they
kind of stay out of your way. Occasionally they look terrified if you ask them
for help.
* As an anime fan it was lovely to see anime as part of the culture, but also
somewhat sad to see how commercial it is compared to how edgy and cool
one felt in 1996 watching it for the first time. Also as mentioned most things
are all now related to mobile games and mainstream anime which I find quite
boring.
* The heat. it is savage but survivable. We had chili water bottles that would
usually last the day plus another drink of indeterminate nature at some point.
Popping into Starbucks or a mall occasionally was useful. Sunscreen, obvs,
but the secret weapon is the umbrella/parasol. This allows you to survive
heme parks but I wouldn't reccommend outdoor afternoon activities without
one. Things calm down substantially at sundown, around 6:45 when we went,
so we tended to sleep later and get moving around 11, then attempt to do an
inside activity when the sun's at it's zenith at 12-2. We also bought sweat
cloths, a very useful tool and I redeodoranted about twice a day. However I
didn't find the mini electric fan that useful overall, but used it occasionally
because it was cool (just not in the way you want)
**In depth analysis***
28 First thing we see on the airport train is a young man unconscious on the
floor. I heard this happens to businessmen sometimes, but nobody checks
he;s OK so I assume this is standard stuff. Happened enough times to a mate
of mine, let’s just hope he survived. ~Don Quixote~ truly blew my mind upon
first seeing it. So much silly stuff seemingly randomly placed. Bob Sapp CBD
drinks. Bizarre alcohol. Utterly inappropriate anime figures. Even my little
ADHD brain was a little overwhelmed. However we were utterly exhausted
and didn’t buy anything. ~Taito station~ was disappointing given how little
actual games there were (very few), but there were at least some machines,
keeping my hope that arcades still live in some capacity. We didn’t have the
cash with us, so we didn’t play anything. ~Overall Akihabara is a must see,~
but I was immediately struck with the feeling that at the age of 45 I didn’t want
any of this stuff. I love anime but I don’t have space or the need for a million
not that great collectibles. Most stuff is all the latest series (MHA, one piece,
Genshin impact, honkai star rail) and nothing for classic animes or any of my
obscure favourites, not even much Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure stuff. The gatcha
machines and cranes are fun but I don’t know why the Japanese need floors
and floors of it. I did want to go to the miad cafe, but there are so many it’s
impossible to decide, so I left it till Sapporo where I heard the maids speak
some English. Don Potato for me was a disappointment. If you’re a real retro
collector, you might find some gems, but they’re all in Japanese and for me, I
have a Retroid so don’t need any physical retro products. They’re not that
cheap either.
29 Wake up late and check out the markets and shrine at ~Asakusa.~ The
heat is beyond ridiculous. Overall its is lovely. We wish for something at a
shrine but my wife won’t tell me what it is. Luckily, it;s a “good fortune.” We
find an empty tonkatsu restaurant run by a little old man and the experience is
amazing. In the evening we check out Shibuya,I tick off the statue of Hachiko
and scramble crossing after having seen thekm in so many animes and video
games - guess what, they are rather underwhelming IRL but Shibuya is
certainly impressive - then we wander around looking for some food before
finding an outstanding gyoza place on the second floor. I didn’t know that you
would get something this good in the middle of the tourist district. Only young
locals were in there. Seeing a nice young lady dressed up like a cross
between Joan Jett and Alice in Wonderland devouring gyoza while playing
Switch all by herself was all I ever needed from this trip.
30 ~Immersive Fort~ for me was excellent, the kind of thing you will only see
in Japan. That said, I have been to other “immersive theater” events before
(Phantom Peak in London) and the concept is similar - others have said the
park feels a bit empty and it does. I was extremely impressed by the main
event, The Sherlock - it took some getting used to, but what you do is follow
actors around an IMMENSE area where so much effort has been put in, and
you’re free to go where you like and discover the mystery out of order. Our
audi guides worked well for the most part and we managed to follow most of
the mystery - it plays out like one of the lesser Phoenix Wright cases, and
being Japan, it of course had to have a little bit at the end that made the whole
thing make no sense. I emailed them later for clarification, but they said that
they wouldn’t tell! You would get more out of this park if you can speak
Japanese, but would heavily recommend. ~Teamlab Planets~ was truly
astounding. You can see what it’s like from the online imagery but you cannot
comprehend the experience. I think nobody alive would not enjoy this. My wife
had already been to the other one which I hear is “better” but it seems they’re
different enough to justify either.
31 ~Harajuku~ is essentially a mess. High end shopping streets (which are
very nice if you like that) and then a load of touristy stuff stuffed up a single
street. It sure has character though. The animal cafes will certainly be divisive.
We went to the miipig cafe and the girls just basically bury you in pigs. It’s at
this point we notice that the Japanese staff will basically not interact with you
outside of basic business and they seem constantly uncomfortable being
asked anything, which makes sense but we could have done with a bit of
guidance than just having pigs thrown at us. ~Yoyogi Park~ I found truly
impressive. Just the sheer size of it, it’s like being in another world. I’m
tempted to wander off the path but my wife reminds me the forests are full of
ghosts in Japan so I think better of it. We walk to ~Shinjuku~ in the blazing
heat, looking for the bar Deathmatch in Hell, but we are simply too tired to
continue past the station. Then the rain comes down and we didn’t bring the
umbrella. We call it quits and go back to the hotel and then fall asleep almost
immediately - at least my wife does because I spend every evening for the
rest of the trip quickly turning over from the dull Olympics and enjoying bursts
of random nonsense of Japanese TV together with a 9% whiskey highball or
lemon sour.
1 The airport food is delicious and the flights super efficient with no hassle.
Everything in Japan runs on time to the second. We arrive in ~Sapporo~ and
it has a friendly vibe around it. Tanukikoji is great. Again, just a great vibe and
a lot of tourists from Asia, but not too crowded. We have another go in the
arcades and enjoy a game of House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn and a few
rounds of the drumming game. We even have a go of Sonic Blast Heroes
because we’ve been doing some self defence classes in the gym but my wife
hates it. She’s right, it was always lame. Everywhere is quite busy for food so
we try the Bearfoot diner, all the staff are non-Japanese and speak English.
You can see some fellow travellers are up for a chat, too- I’m not sure how
great the food was compared to the rest of the top level stuff we’ve been
having but there was something soothing about it.
2 The ~Sapporo beer museum~ seems like it’s in the wrong part of town and
it’s hellishly hot on the way there. Although it’s in a nice place, it’s tiny and
contains almost nothing, and then is just a place to drink beers. We leave
quickly and spend an hour wait for the sushi place by poking around a recycle
store - the highlight is seeing a guy picking through the secondhand lolicon
figures inspecting every one. The toriton sushi, strangely enough, does not
actually have sushi on conveyor belts, just being a screen ordering place as
usual but it’s absolutely outstanding. Totally exhausted and we check out
~AOAO (Sapporo aquarium)~ which is also in a great mall and I sample my
first Hokkaido ice cream - how good is this Hokkaido milk really? The answer
is ridiculously amazing. So creamy and somewhat cheesy even. The
aquarium, we are not sure about at the start but turns out to be one of the
trips’ highlights - so chilled and relaxing and the middle floor has an awesome
collection of much lesser seen creatures. Only negative is the penguins on the
top floor seem to be poorly housed and one of them has clearly gone insane,
trying to drive itself relentlessly through the glass wall. Apart from that it’s
awesome if not a little expensive and has some of the cuter souvenirs of the
trip.
3 After picking up the rail pass at the station: We go to have Jingiskhan at the
~TV tower~ with the locals. All the servers look really miserable, but the
customers are having a great time. I’m familiar with korean BBQ but I find the
rilled lamb especially amazing. We put some chinese cabbage on the grill for
the second round and are immediately stopped by a terrified man who lets us
know we have committed a fatal error, as politely as possible of course. The
TV tower is surprisingly fun and full of merch that seems cute and unique but
we will see repeated many times. ~Maidreamin~ is certainly an experience. I
see some people being super anti maid cafes but I would say there is no way
you cannot go to one. The girls are terrified to see us but my god to they do
their daman best to put on some kind of a show. Only other people in there
are a group of guys having a birthday and an old man eating a full meal by
himself. We get a Sexy lemon sour and a cute bear parfait that is enchanted
by the 2 maids, I annoy and interrupt them at every turn, not on purpose of
course, but they warm up towards the end. I suspect that a native Japanese
would get a bit more value out of them as they’re supposed to do some “cute”
things, one of them puts some glasses on at one point and that’s it. Altogether
it was unmissable and the photo of them we have looking confused and bored
will last until the end of time. Onto the ~University Museum,~ it’s a bit stuffy
but in the best way, it really is a university museum and a great building, I
would strongly recommend. We finish in the pop up beer garden, as with
many things on the trip is seems impenetrable at first but the wonderful staff
help us figure it out and it’s such a cool place to be, until the heavens open,
the rain comes down and that’s the end of it. Watching the reaction of the
locals is quite hilarious, some just stick it out under umbrellas, others are
visibly trembling at the thought of their hair or loli costumes wet.
4 ~Otaru~ is definitely worth a visit although it’s a bit like Japanese Blackpool.
Many tourists but the canal cruise is great and the Birmingham accent English
voice is priceless. The highlight of the trip is the street festival, everyone is in
yukatas, there are people breaking out into sing song all over the town as the
sun goers down and every stall is selling amazing street food including the
local fried chicken, Zangi, which is ginger or saffron flavourerd, and the long
fries, same as the milk - how good can Hokkaidan potatoes be?
RIDICULOUS. So fluffy and crispy, you will have never encountered anything
like this. We finish off with a concert from the local Christian church, it’s
certainly high energy which is both bad and good.
5 On arriving in ~Asahikawa~ it's the first time we hit the “everything closed”
for lunch problem. My cries to eat in the station fall on deaf ears (we find an
amazing food court there later!) and after much searching there’s a huge
queue in Satan’s sun for the good ramen place - impossible for any non
native. In the end we have an (amazing) meal in a fast food beef bowl chain.
The tourist information at the station speak little to no English and direct us to
the ~sake museum~ which like the beer museum is in the middle of nowhere.
It is tiny, contains almost nothing, the staff hide from us and finally reveal you
can buy sake but not drink it on the premises. We leave. That evening we go
back to town and try an izakaya after two drunk guys spill out and make
motions to tell us how good the food is - we sit right next to the grill and get
some legendary food, amazing atmosphere and one staff speaks Engliush
and waits on us like a personal butler. Sad that we weren’t allowed tip him!
6 After some more detective work we book the tickets to the “Joyful” Nrokko
train and it is indeed delightful. The countryside is lovely but it turns out the
lavender and flowers are just a tiny area packed with tourists at ~Tomita
lavender farm.~ Due to the heat and the small area there really isn;t much
going on, we get back to the station only to find out we misread the time and
have to stay another hour - the toilet attendant at the the temporary platform
speaks no English but is again amazingly helpful. We decide to hit the pop up
~beer garden~ at the station and eat a little item from every stall, it’s all
amazing and I think one of the girls makes fun of me for ordering a lemon sour
badly but that’s probably on me. The stall owners on the other hand are
thrilled we’re ordering from them and it’s not too busy, overall a smash for the
otherwise tiny Asahikawa.
7 train to Sapporo and then on to ~Noboribetsu.~ For me Noboribetsu might
have been the top highlight. We’re actually in Noboribetsu Onsen, basically a
street of hotels and spas surrounded by forested mountains and covered in
little Oni statues. Indeed, there are a lot of statues and a huge animatronic
Enma, king of Hell, who puts on a little show where he turns into a demon -
imagine if there was an animatronic Lucifer that turned into Satan in your
home town. Jigokudani valley is indeed impressive if not a bit smelly, but the
real highlight is our ryokan, Hard to put into words. The room is massive, the
service like nothing on earth, and the absolutely massive Kaiseki dinner one
of the greatest things I have ever eaten. The onsen I am unbsure about and
it’s sad not to go in with the wife, and I get bored quite quickly but I do have to
say that it was extremely refreshing and invigorating. The sleep is great too!
8 I manage to misunderstand the bus and for no reason there’s no more for
two hours. Date Jidaimura is a totally hilarious Edo themed park which turns
out to be a blast - a yokai exhibit, goblin haunted house a ninja house and
three (very similar) live shows. I love ninjas, so I’m on board, but I would have
liked to see more ninja techniques rather than jumping about with some silly
comedy, but despite the heat and the restaurant closing early I would heavily
recommend it. We walk there and back and this is where the prasol saves out
lives. It’s actually a very pleasant walk and I am super ready for another
kaiseki - although I swear it’s not quite as good the second time around with a
tiny bit less care put in. I think I offended one of the staff by puring drinks for
us while she was serving, because a different server returns to the room. Oh
well!
9 And so to the last hokkaido stop, ~Hakodate.~ We get totally screwed by the
early closing this time but find an extremely good ~craft beer~ place with
outstanding tacos The owner speaks good English and is one of those guys
just going on about his bar and business, but watching the whole crew help
each other out is awesome. We are joined by some Japanese hipsters that
question why they have to sit on beer barrels, just like you might in any hipster
joint. The famous ~brick warehouses,~ are a bit of a let down and have some
nice goods but nothing I would want or haven;t seen already. The beer hall is
somewhat dingy and disappointing but we take the Blue Moon cruise at
sunset exactly with a lemon sour in our hands and it’s utterly fantastic. Vistas
are of limited interest to me but I cannot stress how amazing this was.
10 Eating at the ~morning market,~ is every bit as good as I dreamed, a huge
bowl of fresh raw seafood and a beer at 10am - I didn’t like seafood at all until
a couple of years ago, now I am completely converted. We find the
Mashumaru ship by accident and it turns out to be really fun and interesting,
with lots of switches and buttons to flick that is fun for everyone and the whole
museum is well put together too. A highlight. Back to the brick warehouses,
they are still boring, and I convince the wife to eat at ~Lucky Pierrot~ which
she was extremely resistant to - unfortunately it turns out to be quite weird and
an odd taste and a strange, kitsch experience that would certainly appeal to
some - unfortunately it does not go down well and we are forced to curse the
clown’s name for evermore. One for weirdness enthusiasts and not hard to
see why it hasn’t made it out of Hakodate. Overall Hakodate was a bit weird.
11 And finally, down to ~Osaka~, now most people know what Osaka is like, I
have to say after all the amazing experiences we’ve had I am not a huge fan -
crowded beyond belief, noisy, and I’m not convinced the food is that great.
After some dining disputes, we drink too much and have an underwhelming
cake. I couldn’t say the takoyaki was really that amazing, to be honest. But
you know what you’re getting here I guess.
12 Much better vibes with ~Kuromon~ which is much more chilled and have
some top level sushi. Osaka is kind of weird. Not much more to say about it.
We try to visit a cool looking horror experience in ~big step mall~ but are
advised that we need to speak Japanese. At this point I only just trmemeber
about using Google Translate to communicate, a bit late. We decide not to
queue at the vegan okonomiyaki place with the other vegan-looking tourists
and end up queuing for quite some time at another one but it is so worth it I
cannot express it, if not for the hilarious banter between the staff, who clearly
all fancy the same waitress. We walk back through the host bar district, which
us foreigners will never get to experience, but from the outside looking in it
just seems awesome and hilarious. How many girly-looking dudes can you fit
into one district? All the girls touting whatever kind of bars exist there all look
beyond fed up.
13 The grand finale - ~Universal studios Japan .~ We get the twilight ticket
from Lawson after much confusion. It then turns out you’re not guaranteed
entry into Nintendo world with anything but the full price ticket - and of course
we do not manage to acquire them. However the heat is so ridiculous I
couldn’t image jumping around a Mario world. Everyone looks half dead. I
can’t see how any kids are enjoying the experience. The park is impressive
but as you have probably read, it is small, and the wait times for attractions
just completely unfeasible. We do make it to the MHA 4D theater, and I have
to say it’s a blast. I love seeing what they come up with for this kind of thing.
The wife loves it too and has no idea who these characters are. I always find it
odd that characters like Mickey Mouse are eternal because they have no
“storyline” but animes do, and thus require a lot of explanation as to what
point in the story these side-stories are set. It shouldn’t work, but it’s great.
And so we finish off with the One Piece show, which is held in the Waterworld
set -how is Waterworld still a thing? It’s 80 entire minutes, completely
incomprehensible (although I think after watching one One Piece saga they’re
all pretty similar) and I absolutely love it. How will they do Luffy’s stretchy
arms, I wonder? They don’t. It’s all just pretend play. That said there’s a lot of
love for the series and it is a great show, and it has a lot of heart! And the wife
got to high five Luffy at the end, we even had Shanks make an appearance
next to us even though he wasn’t in the story.
14 Ok that’s enough Japan.
