Japan

Probably if you ask someone to name a quirky country with a funny-yet-interesting culture there’s a good chance that they’ll say Nippon ( Japan in Japanese ). From my experience, there’s certainly a lot to say about how incredibly rich Japanese culture is. I organized this Japanese voyage with 3 other friends, we wanted to not only see what the big city of Tokyo had to offer but also visit more greener and rural areas.

Tokyo

Tokyo is probably exactly what you imagine when you think about this city, well, if what you imagine is a big city wih great public transportation, amazing restaurants and a very vibrant night life. I think it’s rare that everything is so easy as it is in Tokyo, public transportation is fast and easy to understand, there are many public signs in English and people are very polite and always ready to help.

Big City Lights - Tokyo

Japan is well-known for their video-game culture and Manga, you can actually find many of both just about anywhere, but there is one specific place that’s considered the go-to place for these hobbies, that’s Akihabara. I really recommend coming at night to see the beautiful city lights or to come on a Sunday evening since the streets are closed off to vehicles. This was the first place we visited in Tokyo, we were amazed, so many lights, a lot of stores selling all kinds of cool gadgets, retro-gaming stores, Manga’s, cafés and a bunch of other things cough adult entertainment cough. It’s a dream-come-true for geeks and non-geeks alike, I had an amazing time.

Akihabara daytime

Retro-gaming

Karaoke is really a thing in Japan and people are quite good at singing, much better than me at least ! You have the option to do both public and private sessions, to be honest, even if you’re a bad singer I recommend doing a public session, you’ll have a blast and you’re destined to bond with someone over the bad singing.

Tokyo, and all of Japan really, is a very popular tourist attraction, you can expect to bump into many foreigners, which depending on your opinion, can be a good or a bad thing. This might make it easier for you to meet people that speak your language and it can be great, you can make new friends, but if you’re like me, and you want to meet the locals, you might find it complicated to meet Japanese that are comfortable speaking in English, but maybe I was just unlucky.

It would take a long time to name everything that you can do in Tokyo, if you would like a good guide for visiting Japan you’ll find plenty here.

Mount Fuji

Probably the best time I had during my trip was hiking all the way up Mount Fuji, it was awesome and not as hard as I expected. Sadly, that day I didn’t have my camera with me and couldn’t take any pictures, well, also we had bad weather and I didn’t want to risk it. Usually people hike up Fuji during night time, starting at 22h and reaching the top before sunset, if you’re lucky enough you can have a beautiful view of the region. What we did was a bit different due to time constraints, we woke up super early and got to the top around 11h, but because of the weather, it didn’t make much sense to stay up there, so we headed down almost immediatedly. Eventhough it sounds like it was just an O.K. experience, I really enjoyed hiking up 3,800 m in altitude, I guess you can say it was like a small personal challenge ( Fuji is by far one of the biggest mountains ). It’s funny how some moments are just meant to be lived and not recorded.

Moving around

Have I mentioned that people are very polite ? We were amazed how people where always super respectful when queuing to take the bus/train and also super helpful with the elderly, I wish it were the same in Paris ! For our 3 week vacation we decided to buy the Japan Rail pass which gives you unlimited access to all of the local and national lines belonging to the same company. This pass is a little bit expensive but you easily get your money’s worth if you do a couple of travels between cities. The only case where I think it wouldn’t be worth buying it is if you plan to stay only around Tokyo, but there are so many things to see everywhere ! The Shinkansen, Japan’s high speed train, is in itself it’s own tourist attraction, these are one of the fastests and most punctual trains in the world.

Big City Lights 2 - Tokyo

Food

Japan is not only about the sushi or shashimi, they are very good and you have to try them, but there are many other things you need to try too. One of the biggest regrets I have is not going ,at least once, to a fancy restaurant, we spent most of the time visiting that there was no time for a good restaurant. In any case, even the small restaurants are good and if you’re open to try new and interesting dishes you won’t regret it, I’m sure !

Other places to see

As I mentioned previously, in order to make a detailed list of everything you can do ( and eat, miam) it would take such a long time. Other places that I really loved were Kyoto, Nara, Miyajima, Osaka, Hiroshima, Himeji, Nikko & Koyasan. Yeah, so many places and there’s still a lot more to visit !

Koyasan Graveyard

Himeji Castle

Miyajima