Japan | Pt. I | Tokyo Adventures

If you fol­low us on Insta­gram, you’ve prob­a­bly seen a few pho­tos from our trip to Japan last fall. It was sort of a end-of-the-wedding-season cel­e­bra­tion squeezed in between our penul­ti­mate wed­ding in Octo­ber and our “for-real” last wed­ding in Decem­ber. Once we got back, there was real­ly no breath­ing room to reflect on how amaz­ing the trip had been — we just jumped right back into the flow of things, work­ing on our last 2014 wed­ding, edit­ing fea­tures, and revamp­ing the site.

But a lot of peo­ple have been ask­ing us about our jour­ney through Japan, want­i­ng to know exact­ly where we went and how it all looked. Half-inspired to share more from our trip with these peo­ple, and half-inspired to relive it our­selves, we decid­ed to put togeth­er a guide/journal of our adven­tures across this beau­ti­ful country.

To say we fell in love with Japan is an understatement.

It is one of the most stun­ning places we’ve ever vis­it­ed. We were com­plete­ly tak­en aback by the cul­ture, the archi­tec­ture, and the atmos­phere, not just of Tokyo, but of the entire coun­try. So much so, that it’s hon­est­ly tak­en every ounce of self-control in us to not go back this fall.

We cov­ered a lot of ground in the two weeks we were there, start­ing in Tokyo, down to Mt. Fuji in Kawaguchiko, up to Yudana­ka, then back down through Kyoto and Osa­ka to Fukuo­ka, and back up to Tokyo for the last few days of our trip. We’ve decid­ed that the eas­i­est way to tack­le this behe­moth of a jour­ney is to break it up into four parts: Tokyo | Fuji & Yudana­ka | Kyoto, Osa­ka & Fukuo­ka | and back to Tokyo.

We left Pear­son for Tokyo at around 1:30 PM and were sched­uled to arrive, 13 hours lat­er, at 5PM the next day. We real­ized we’d be trav­el­ing through time and space into the future, but didn’t have much to do with this extra­or­di­nary pow­er, so we slept, lis­tened to music, and began a sep­a­rate adven­ture of re-watching Break­ing Bad from the beginning.

As soon as you approach the island, you’re greet­ed by Fujisan, which is pret­ty damn cool.

Once we arrived, we had an hour-long bus ride to Shibuya. There’s a lot of dif­fer­ent dis­tricts in Tokyo, but Shibuya is a more vibrant, cen­tral loca­tion to stay. Every­thing you need is there, and every­thing you’d want to see that isn’t there is a short subway/train-ride away. At the hotel, our bat­tle with jet-lag began. We ordered a cou­ple of wood-oven piz­zas from the restau­rant in the lob­by and crashed watch­ing Japan­ese TV, which is expo­nen­tial­ly more enter­tain­ing than any­thing you’ve ever seen. We promise you.

We stayed at the Shibuya Granbell Hotel, and couldn’t rec­om­mend it enough. We usu­al­ly pre­fer to stay at bou­tique hotels instead of the big name alter­na­tives because they embrace the char­ac­ter of the places you vis­it, offer­ing a cer­tain charm and unique space to dwell while fore­go­ing the gener­ic hotel-carpet look. The Granbell also had some pret­ty sweet rates for longer stays, and offered us a two-story room with a bal­cony and an amaz­ing view that you could enjoy even from the whirlpool on the sec­ond level.

Despite of all this awe­some­ness, we had a busy cou­ple of days before our trek across the coun­try began, so off we went to vis­it what quick­ly became our favourite part of Tokyo — Shimokitazawa.

Shimok­i­taza­wa, or Shimoki­ta as the locals would say, is a young, trendy neigh­bour­hood offer­ing tons of inde­pen­dent fash­ion retail­ers, amaz­ing cafes, restau­rants, and lots of drool-worthy pan­cakes, waf­fles and crepes. What Williams­burg is to New York, Shimok­i­taza­wa is to Tokyo — down to the qui­et, relaxed atmosphere.

All we had on the agen­da was cap­puc­ci­nos at Bear Pond — which were ridicu­lous­ly good. Aside from this morn­ing stroll, we tech­ni­cal­ly should have nev­er returned to Shi­mo (at least itinerary-wise), but we would find our­selves there the next day for break­fast, and then a cou­ple more times after that. We loved this place so much that we wouldn’t hes­i­tate to Airbnb here next time.

It was also the place we enjoyed our first vend­ing machine splurge.

We went back to Shibuya, and on our way back to the hotel to get ready for a night out, we tack­led the infa­mous street cross­ing. Def­i­nite­ly busier vibes here, albeit perfect.

Vic­to­ria was ready to party.

That night, we cabbed it to the Tokyo Park Hyatt in Shin­juku — famed for being the hotel in Sofia Cop­po­la’s Lost in Trans­la­tion. We explored the hotel’s many nooks before head­ing up to the 52^nd floor for our din­ner reser­va­tion at New York Grill. We had cae­sar sal­ads, steaks, mashed pota­toes, and some Cop­po­la brand­ed wine. It was deli­cious and so was the view.

After din­ner, we couldn’t help walk­ing across to the bar and enjoy­ing a drink, although it was sig­nif­i­cant­ly more packed than in the movie.

We head­ed off to our next spot, walk­ing through Shin­juku to Kabu­ki­cho — Tokyo’s red light dis­trict. We have a love/hate rela­tion­ship with Kabu­ki­cho. For one, it’s colour­ful, busy and packed with inter­est­ing lit­tle shops — some that required a peek-in, oth­ers that we wouldn’t dream of going in — and its iza­kayas (or tiny Japan­ese bar) are world-renowned. On the oth­er hand, it’s sort of a tourist trap and there’s for­eign touts try­ing to lure said tourists to sketchy bars off of the strip. Just ignore the touts, or bet­ter yet, pre­tend to only speak Span­ish. Ricar­do did and it com­plete­ly caught them off guard.

We explored a lit­tle and found our des­ti­na­tion, The Robot Show at the, well… Robot Restau­rant. Just before the show kicks off, they put you in a large epilepsy-inducing wait­ing room with a robot band play­ing 90s pop bal­lads. The singers were amaz­ing, which helped with the jet lag. It was hit­ting us pret­ty hard at this point.

Real­ly hard.

The show itself is as bla­tant as its title and the sto­ry is vir­tu­al­ly non-existent. There was lots of lights, lots of robots, lots of yelling, and lots of drinks.

Slept. Woke up. Dressed. Shimok­i­taza­wa again. This time for break­fast pan­cakes at j.s. pan­cake cafe. They were eas­i­ly the best pan­cakes we’ve ever had, so need­less to say, it wouldn’t be our last time here.

We walked around for a bit. At which point, Victoria’s un-broken-in Tim­ber­lands start­ed slow­ing us down.

Just a lit­tle read­just­ing and we were good to go.

We made our way to a very con­gest­ed Hara­juku dis­trict, where there was a sur­pris­ing lack of Hara­juku girls. The main strip was PACKED, both with peo­ple and hilar­i­ous lit­tle shops (and crepes!). As you start mov­ing away from Takeshita-dori how­ev­er, the crowds dis­perse, and as you trav­el through to Omote­san­do Hills, the neigh­bour­hood becomes a lit­tle more quaint and the cloth­ing shops a lit­tle less out there.

Omote­san­do itself was a thing of beau­ty. Tiny shops nes­tled in between res­i­den­tial homes — all of which were incred­i­bly designed.

We reached our des­ti­na­tion, sim­ply named Omote­san­do Kof­fee. Tucked away in these qui­et res­i­den­tial streets, this one-man stand pro­vides metic­u­lous­ly craft­ed espres­so drinks in an utter­ly serene set­ting. There was a lit­tle bit of a line-up, but it was well worth the wait.

After cof­fee, we walked down to Cat Street and explored alley­ways and side cor­ri­dors before call­ing it a night.

The Tim­ber­lands were real­ly act­ing out.

Just like that, our Tokyo adven­tures came to an abrupt end. We woke up the next morn­ing, packed up and pre­pared to take a cou­ple of trains to Mt. Fuji. Vic­to­ria was hav­ing acai bowl with­drawals and found a Hawai­ian cafe a few blocks away from Shibuya cross­ing called Island Vin­tage Cof­fee. Vic­to­ria found her acai bowl, Ricar­do found acai break­fast waf­fles. Deli­cious­ness ensued. We hopped on a train away from this beau­ti­ful city, feel­ing like we bare­ly scratched the sur­face at all.

Stay tuned for Part 2 where we explore Fujisan and Yudanaka’s hot springs.