Japan: Sushi and a few other things

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Rachel and Gil’s Travels

9 min readOct 19, 2019

Over the course of our 14 days in Japan, we rode bikes, subways, bullet trains, and ferries, to explore the kawaii country. Each city we visited was vibrant with activity and rich with culture. This was our first non-Southeast Asian country of the trip, and a refreshingly different experience (read: we didn’t sweat for 2 weeks!)

In Japan, there is little to no attempt to speak English which was both a challenge and a charm. We found our way around with the help of friendly smiles and Google Maps. With the lack of ability to communicate with locals and culture of small restaurants of just 5–10 seats at a bar, we made friends everywhere we went. At each meal we quickly bonded with our neighbors, sharing a camaraderie of navigating this alluring land.

Kyoto

Kyoto was magical and our favorite city to date. It has a rich history as the capital of Japan from the 8th-19th century with over 2000 Shinto Shrines and Buddhist Temples (mainly still in tact since it wasn’t targeted during WW2… thanks America!) We started our journey in Kyoto by renting bikes which made transportation easy, kept us in shape as we sampled food everywhere, and allowed us to see hundreds of local alleys.

We loved every moment in Kyoto, but particular highlights included:

Participating in a traditional tea ceremony where we learned how to make, give and receive matcha with a husband and wife who taught us about Kyoto culture and dressed us in traditional attire (as always, photos below…)
Walking around the city on a tour of many temples to learn about the Japanese Shinto/Buddhist culture, and the Gion district which is famous for Geisha culture. We learned, contrary to popular belief, that Geishas are more similar to nuns in the Vatican than Las Vegas escorts
Wandering through countless temples, shrines, zen gardens, and pavilions
Biking all the way to Arashiyama (over 10 km, not considered a typical biking distance) to see the Bamboo Forest and Monkey Park — this was the first Monkey Park where the people were in the cages, not monkeys! We also stopped in an owl petting cafe, a typical Japanese attraction
Tasting everything — since this was our first stop in Japan we were so excited to taste all of our favorite foods. We had too many snacks at markets outside of every main stop (matcha ice cream at least once a day…) which was an easy way to taste the local cuisine

Nara

We stopped in Nara for a quick day trip between Kyoto and Osaka. Nara was the capital before Kyoto, but more importantly, they say Nara has more deer inhabitants than people. The streets of Nara are filled with friendly deer who bow to you in exchange for a cracker. We had a lot of fun wandering the park of temples and feeding deer, as well as helping many locals students practice their English as they approached us in the streets, engaging in discussions about the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.

Osaka

Osaka is a bustling Japanese foodie city with many different neighborhoods and little English. Our experience in Osaka was different due to the Typhoon that hit Japan. We had to quickly readjust plans, cancel a planned overnight at a Buddhist temple, and move from a cute AirBnb to a hotel just in case (it turned out to be nothing more than a light rain in Osaka.)

Highlights from our time in Osaka included:

Shopping at a grocery store for the first time in 1.5 months to pick up food to cook in our Airbnb. The grocery store was exciting with neon signs over each section, and the avocados were still overpriced
Diving deeper into the history of Japan through a free walking tour where the guide not only told us about the history of Osaka but also explained some basic rules and how to use their complicated toilets (going to miss these!)
Enjoying a night out with friends we met on the tour at an American themed rock and roll bar on the fifth floor of an office building
Jumping into a karaoke bar on a street lined with them because they were singing Complicated by Avril Lavigne (the bartenders cheered us on for an hour as we rocked out to American tunes)
Relaxing for a day to wait out the storm since the Shinkansen (bullet train) wasn’t running and no restaurants were open
Eating a fancy sushi dinner in which each piece was made individually and presented to us by the sushi chef

Naoshima and Kobe

We were planning to visit the art island of Naoshima as a day trip, but we decided to stray from our detailed itinerary and turned it into a bigger adventure. We were sitting at a coffee shop one afternoon in Osaka and were trying to figure out how we wanted to approach the Naoshima trip the next day (approx. 6 hr round trip.) We then decided to go to Kobe for dinner that night to try the famous Kobe beef (which we found to be overhyped but still delicious) before heading to Uno to crash near the ferry to the island. We booked a hostel through AirBnB that was located in what looked like an abandoned warehouse with basic amenities (it teetered the line between industrial chic and plain industrial,) but it was okay for the one night. The next morning we jumped on an early ferry, rented e-bikes, and made our way around the island exploring many different open air art installations as well as the Benesse House Museum. These installations accentuate the natural beauty of the island with interesting modern art. We ended our adventure in Naoshima with a Japanese seasonal farm to table lunch that we stumbled upon (and it of course turned out to be delicious.)

Tokyo

Ending our crazy Japanese adventure in Tokyo was the perfect culmination of this leg of our journey. We had been to Tokyo four years ago so when we returned we were excited to check off some of the activities we missed during our last visit. We explored the neighborhoods, shops, food, and crazy culture that is Tokyo. In many ways it reminded us of NY with its crowded streets and busy metro, but in many ways it was more intense than NY with endless bright lights on skyscrapers, each neighborhood felt like its own Times Square. We had a couple of incredible days in Tokyo with some highlights:

Partying in Shinjuku: We went to the famous Robot Show which is an over-the-top, futuristic and kitschy performance that can best be described as a Japanese Cirque du Soleil if it was made on a $5k budget with anime cosplay and low-grade remote controlled “robots.” At the show we met an Aussie couple and grabbed a drink with them in the Golden Gai district, an area with hundreds of 5–10 seater bars, and picked up a group of Brits who were also at the robot show so after we bonded quickly. We ended the night many hours into the next morning with new friends and karaoke
Touring the city: We went on our 3rd free walking tour of Japan in Tokyo. Our Tokyo tour was not our favorite in terms of sights or tour guide (would highly recommend our Kyoto & Osaka tours for anyone visiting Japan soon!), but it was a great history lesson that tied together our understanding of Japan
Making sushi: We attended a sushi making class in a chef’s home. It was a really intimate experience in which he taught us the proper techniques to make sushi — seasoning the rice, shaping the pieces / rolls, cutting the fish, and putting it all together
Trying a real omakase: Rachel went to a chef’s tasting menu of over 25 items as recommended by our sushi instructor (Gil enjoyed a necessary bowl of hotel pasta that evening after nearly 2 months of Asian food…) This meal was like a private show with the chef, and the best sushi meal of Rachel’s life