Trip of a lifetime

In 2015, Alex and I were able to cross maybe the top destination for both of us off our list – Japan! Not only was it our dream destination, it was our first international trip together. Alex and I took Japanese class in high school together and both really enjoy the language and culture – and we were able to immerse ourselves in that for 2 full weeks.

I have never been able to just pick a few locations and really enjoy them – when I plan a trip, I want to see everything! And the trip to Japan was no exception. Over the course of our two weeks in Japan, we hit 5 major cities, 2 of the 4 major islands, and so many cultural sites. Below is a high-level overview of our trip:

Day 1: Landed in Tokyo mid-afternoon, headed to the Airbnb to sleep off the jetlag
Day 2: Spent the day exploring Senso Ji, Meiji Shrine, and visiting the Ueno Zoo
Day 3: Traveled to Hokkaido, stayed overnight on Lake Toya
Day 4: Traveled to Nagano
Day 5: Explored Matsumoto Castle and Kamikochi
Day 6: Traveled to Kyoto
Day 7: Explored so many sites in Kyoto, and went to the aquarium in Osaka
Day 8: Traveled to Hiroshima
Day 9: Explored Hiroshima, including the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Miyajima
Day 10: Traveled to Tokyo
Day 11: Headed home!

As you can see, it was non-stop moving – which is honestly how we usually travel, and although it can be exhausting, it was soooo much fun!

One of the common concerns I hear from people interested in traveling to Japan is language – and I have great news! If you can speak English, you will be fine! Nearly all signs we saw had English, the restaurants have English menus, and announcements at train stations (more on those later) are generally at least bilingual Japanese and English. Moreover, a lot of people we encountered were at least familiar with common English phrases. All this made for a much less stressful trip.

All that said, Alex and I had studied Japanese in high school and I had minored in Japanese in college – and we were ready to prove our studies had been worth it! Our first interactions with most people was at least attempted in Japanese – and quite often they at least pretended to understand us, which was a huge confidence boost.

There are two encounters that stand out in my memory where we successfully used Japanese – even though we likely didn’t have to. The first was buying train tickets. A few times we had to talk with a person to purchase the tickets, and none of the tickets ended up being for the wrong time, destination, or quantity. Win!

The second time is just an exciting story! We had just arrived in Kyoto and wanted to head to our Airbnb right away to deposit our luggage. We managed to find the house after a little bit of wandering (and plenty of Google Maps), but when we got there the key wasn’t where they said it would be! We spent the next two hours trying to contact the hosts, eventually deciding that we needed a plan B. And this is where the Japanese came in handy – I started calling up hotels in Kyoto and had to negotiate figuring out if they had an available room for the next two nights. Fortunately, the people on the other end of the line were very patient and helpful and we were able to find a place to stay – right next to the Kyoto train station, where we had started two hours ago.

An aside: the Airbnb host finally got back to us – turns out she was in South Africa (quite literally the other side of the world!) and the person who cleans the house forgot to put the key back after cleaning. It was a lot of stress, but we were glad we were able to get something figured out without too much trouble.

Let me just say this – I love trains. I can’t say what it is about them, but navigating them, getting the tickets, riding them, everything about them is enjoyable. And Japan is the reason for all of this. Their system of light and high speed rails is slick! Yes, it is intimidating at first, looking at the map of the Tokyo system, but once you figure out how the map works, it’s kind of fun to plan out how you’re going to get from point A to point B (again, Google Maps is super helpful with this as well).

Japan Rail has a handy pass for international travelers that covers most of your needs while in Japan. It was expensive, but the convenience was life saving – we could literally just walk up to the kiosk, get our tickets, and go! We used the pass in Tokyo itself, going from cultural site to cultural site; and we were able to use it going from city to city, using the high speed rail and shinkansen.

I feel like it’s worth calling out the one city where we didn’t use the rail a ton – Kyoto. The city relies much more heavily on buses than trains, so we ended up using that system, which was also very easy to navigate.

All in all, I would highly suggest planning your trip using the rail system. Unless you’re planning going somewhere off the grid, don’t get a rental car – just ride the rail!

Check out next week’s post, where I’ll talk about the food, some highlights from our trip, and some things I wish I had known the first time I went.