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cneville1

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Random work trip to Tokyo got scheduled today for next week. Will have part of next Thursday and Friday and all of Sunday on my own. Staying in Shiodome? I think? I know jack **** about Tokyo but if anyone has any cool spots (booze or otherwise) that I can hit I'm looking for recommendations. Thanks TB!
 
The Yushukan war museum/shrine was pretty intense, but i'd recommend.

Also the Meiji Jingu shrine is worth checking out.

If the Yomiuri Giants are playing baseball at the Tokyo Dome, i'd recommend it, great atmosphere.

For bottle shops, Liquors Hasegawa has some Japanese beers (there are two Liquors Hasegawa in Tokyo station). The better one is near Daimaru department store (outside the ticketed part of the station). Tanakaya (walk off the train at Mejiro station and turn left from the station and walk about 100m) has a great whisky selection and more international beers etc. It is cash only.

For bars,
  • Devilcraft in Kanda (tiny place, 5 floors), about 16 taps and really good pizza. It was probably my favourite.
  • Brimmer Beer box is unique (a bar inside a shipping container).
  • Craftheads has a big name because of the US beers and whisky selection.
  • Goodbeer Faucets has about 40 taps and generally fun stuff to drink.
  • Popeye is a long standing bar (about 30 years). Has 80 odd taps and generally pretty busy. It is located right near the Ryogoku JR Rail station (this is the one near the Tokyo home of Sumo wrestling). Probably the best place to find lots of Japanese beer on tap.
  • Baird bar in Harajuku has more US influenced beers (made in Japan)...there is a lot of US beer to be found in Japan.
  • TY Harbor Smokehouse (the best way to find it is to find the Oakley O store) was nice, good staff and food.
  • Ushitora is also a nice place to drink and eat with some good Japanese beers on tap. I found it hard to find, took me about an hour or two of wandering around Shimokitazawa.
I have a friend who lived there for a few years, he suggested to me that the best thing to do to enjoy Tokyo is to buy a Suica card (for train/subway) and get out at a station and just wander around and check it out. You certainly see a lot a get a good feel for the place. Just remember the trains stop at 0100hrs (not at the end of the line...i.e. if the next stop is at 0100, the train stops there for the night).

Hope that helps and enjoy your time there.
 
The Yushukan war museum/shrine was pretty intense, but i'd recommend.

Also the Meiji Jingu shrine is worth checking out.

If the Yomiuri Giants are playing baseball at the Tokyo Dome, i'd recommend it, great atmosphere.

For bottle shops, Liquors Hasegawa has some Japanese beers (there are two Liquors Hasegawa in Tokyo station). The better one is near Daimaru department store (outside the ticketed part of the station). Tanakaya (walk off the train at Mejiro station and turn left from the station and walk about 100m) has a great whisky selection and more international beers etc. It is cash only.

For bars,
  • Devilcraft in Kanda (tiny place, 5 floors), about 16 taps and really good pizza. It was probably my favourite.
  • Brimmer Beer box is unique (a bar inside a shipping container).
  • Craftheads has a big name because of the US beers and whisky selection.
  • Goodbeer Faucets has about 40 taps and generally fun stuff to drink.
  • Popeye is a long standing bar (about 30 years). Has 80 odd taps and generally pretty busy. It is located right near the Ryogoku JR Rail station (this is the one near the Tokyo home of Sumo wrestling). Probably the best place to find lots of Japanese beer on tap.
  • Baird bar in Harajuku has more US influenced beers (made in Japan)...there is a lot of US beer to be found in Japan.
  • TY Harbor Smokehouse (the best way to find it is to find the Oakley O store) was nice, good staff and food.
  • Ushitora is also a nice place to drink and eat with some good Japanese beers on tap. I found it hard to find, took me about an hour or two of wandering around Shimokitazawa.
I have a friend who lived there for a few years, he suggested to me that the best thing to do to enjoy Tokyo is to buy a Suica card (for train/subway) and get out at a station and just wander around and check it out. You certainly see a lot a get a good feel for the place. Just remember the trains stop at 0100hrs (not at the end of the line...i.e. if the next stop is at 0100, the train stops there for the night).

Hope that helps and enjoy your time there.
forgot to thank you, this is super helpful! leaving tomorrow, will report back.
 
I'm going to Tokyo in a few weeks, and outside of a few bars, some tourist stuff, and a New Japan Pro Wrestling event at Korakuen Hall, I'm mostly planning to wander around as of right now. But I'm still looking for as many suggestions as I can get, and maybe someone to ask some stupid questions (since I somehow don't know anybody personally that has ever been to Japan). Any takers?

cneville, any help for a guy that kind of looks like you?
 
I'm going to Tokyo in a few weeks, and outside of a few bars, some tourist stuff, and a New Japan Pro Wrestling event at Korakuen Hall, I'm mostly planning to wander around as of right now. But I'm still looking for as many suggestions as I can get, and maybe someone to ask some stupid questions (since I somehow don't know anybody personally that has ever been to Japan). Any takers?

cneville, any help for a guy that kind of looks like you?
oy. from MrKennedy 's list, i only went to goodbeer faucets, which was a cool spot but i wouldn't necessarily seek it out. i ended up having about ~18 hours of non-work time on this trip so i didn't get to do a lot of what i wanted. the meiji jingu shrine + war museum is a must see for sure. i also went to oerbier man which was a bizarrely satisfying experience.

other than that, my most memorable experience was wandering to a sake bar in the subway station near my hotel in a super business-y part of town and chatting with a the chinese bartender, his korean girlfriend, and a japanese businessman who loved donald trump. the bar closed at about 9pm, and the bartender (who spoke the best english) asked if i wanted to spend the rest of the night in "deep shimbashi" with the group. figuring i was unlikely to get killed in tokyo, i went along.

the second part of the night started with 24oz glasses of sake mixed with green tea, picked up with eating seared whale from a 90 year old woman at what looked like a diner counter, and ended at about 3am at a 5 seat (no joke) yakitori bar where the only thing to order was sapporo.

japan is incredible and i'd love to go back. i highly recommend just blindly exploring--just remember you can't read street signs and very, very few people speak english.

edit: here's the sake bar i went to
 
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FYI: Japanese craft beer is really expensive. Way more expensive than you've probably ever experienced. The Japanese government taxes malt at a super high level which is why you'll TONS of happoshu (near beer) by Sapporo, Asahi, Kirin, Suntory, etc. Pints are like $12+. Fortunately most places offer half pints of everything.

My favorite beer spot in Tokyo is Ushitora in Shimokitazawa which is also my favorite neighborhood to hang out
in.

My other favorite neighborhood in Tokyo is Yanaka. It's the only part of the city that survived the firebombing during WWII so still has a shitamachi old school feel to it. There's a little place called the Yanaka Beer Hall that shares a building with a bakery which is pretty cool.

Koenji is another great Tokyo neighborhood. There's a Craft Beer Market taproom there and Koenji Bakusho Kobo.

Baird has taprooms in Tokyo, they make solid beer. I like the Nakameguro and Harajuku spots.

Kiuchi (Hitachino) has a new shiny taproom in Akihabara that apparently makes a bunch of small batch stuff that never leaves the space. It wasn't open last time I was there but looking forward to checking it out this coming April.

I've been to the Devilcraft in Hamamatsucho. Good Chicago deep dish pizza and lots of Japanese craft beers on tap. They also brew their own beer.

Pigalle is a really cool European craft beer bar in Sangenjaya. I stayed there in 2014 and randomly ended up drinking a bottle of Blaebier with the owner.

There's a BrewDog in Roppongi (my least favorite part of Tokyo) if you've never been to one and want to check it out. They make some Tokyo-specific beers, too.

CraftHeads often has lots of Three Floyds beers, but I've never been interested in drinking American stuff while I'm in Japan. GoodBeerFaucets is also cool.

I think Brimmer closed down but they're working on getting a new spot if they're not open again. The cheapest craft beer in Japan, hands down. I'm not sure how they can afford to keep their prices so low.

Tanakaya is the best bottle shop I've found in Tokyo. It's in Mejiro right off the JR Yamanote line. They have Cantillon if you care, but only Rose de Gambrinus, Kriek and Classic Geuze. But you're in Japan, ignore all the imports and drink lots of Japanese craft you'll never see again. I did buy a Cantillon tulip there I'd never seen before, though.

Minoh from the Osaka area makes awesome beer. So do Sankt Gallen, Fujizakura Kogen, Kumazawa (Shonan Beer), Shiga Kogen and Oh! La! Ho!. They all bottle/can their stuff if you don't see it on tap.

Go to 7-11 and get a can of their house beer. It's terrible but there's something fun about 7-11 branded beer. Look for Zima variants. I had Sakura Pink Zima when I was there in 2014.

Kirin has a line of Grand Kirin pseudo craft beers which you can find at convenience stores. They're not great, but easily available and there's just something neat about a mass produced Galaxy IPA in 12 oz bottles for cheap.

Also, eat ramen. Like, all the ramen. It's all good, you really can't go wrong. Kohmen is a large chain all over Tokyo that has killer tantamen ramen and shiso gyoza. Also eat some jiro ramen which is the most ridiculous tasty fatty concoction ever. Eat lots of tempura. Then eat more ramen. It's cheap and good everywhere.

Go to Cibo in Ebisu Garden Place for killer cheap okonimiyaki and killer views of the city.

Take the subway and JR lines around the city, but also walk as much as you can. You'll find so many cool places that way.

The Toyota interactive museum on Odaiba is way more fun that I thought it would be. Check out the new 1:1 scale Unicorn Gundam outside Diver City if you go out to the island. Pretty impressive feat of engineering. And I love Gundam.
 
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If anyone has any specific questions about Tokyo or Japan, feel free to ask. I've been all over the country multiple times, might be able to answer them.
 
If anyone has any specific questions about Tokyo or Japan, feel free to ask. I've been all over the country multiple times, might be able to answer them.

I have 2 small stupid questions to ask, because I keep reading conflicting things and can't get one good straight answer:

1. Should I expect to be able to use my credit card at most places, or do I need to get like a stack of cash? I mean, yeah I don't expect every little hole in the wall ramen spot to take a credit card, but some things I read suggest that outside of retail and nice restaurants, nobody will accept a card.

2. I'm confident in my ability to figure out and navigate the transit system (I'm used to NYC and if this is essentially that, but bigger and more efficient, I'm sure I'll get the hang of it), but the best payment option seems to elude me. Is there some kind of weekly pass I should consider investing in that will get me around the city? Do I need different passes for different lines?

Thanks for the chance!
 
I have 2 small stupid questions to ask, because I keep reading conflicting things and can't get one good straight answer:

1. Should I expect to be able to use my credit card at most places, or do I need to get like a stack of cash? I mean, yeah I don't expect every little hole in the wall ramen spot to take a credit card, but some things I read suggest that outside of retail and nice restaurants, nobody will accept a card.

Japan is very much a cash society and you should feel completely safe carrying large sums of money on you. Crime is very minimal and no one is ever going to bother you. There will definitely be places that don't take credit cards (you'll be able to get Yen at any 7-11 ATM with your foreign ATM card), but more and more business are taking them now.

My first time there in 2006 on our honeymoon, pretty much no one took credit cards. It's greatly improving but you'll still find tons of shops that are still cash only.

2. I'm confident in my ability to figure out and navigate the transit system (I'm used to NYC and if this is essentially that, but bigger and more efficient, I'm sure I'll get the hang of it), but the best payment option seems to elude me. Is there some kind of weekly pass I should consider investing in that will get me around the city? Do I need different passes for different lines?

Thanks for the chance!

If you're not going to leave Tokyo, you'll just want to get a Suica card at the airport that you can load with cash for train rides on the subway and JR lines. The train out to Odaiba doesn't use Suica, but everything else will take it. The machines have English options and there is normally someone at the train station who can help you out.

If you're planning on leaving Tokyo and want to take a Shinkansen, then you'll need to pay for that, but otherwise a Suica will get you around Tokyo.
 
The train out to Odaiba doesn't use Suica

Small nitpick as your post is full of good info but if you're talking about the Rinkai line (which services Odaiba from Shibuya/Oimachi), you can 100% use your Suica card.

fare_iccard_all.jpg
 
I was recently in Tokyo for Zwanze Day, there were only about 25 people at the venue at the peak. Huge pours (about 3-4x the size of Zwanze pours in SF) for ~$9 USD. I stopped by Tanakaya for a recent drop of St. Lam & Vig 750s. Most nice department stores have a decent lambic selection, although I found the prices in Kansai to be about 20-30% less generally.

I'm not a huge fan of Japanese beer in general, but I found Yorocco in Kanagawa-ken (Zushi) to be the best of the new wave of brewers.
 
Small nitpick as your post is full of good info but if you're talking about the Rinkai line (which services Odaiba from Shibuya/Oimachi), you can 100% use your Suica card.

fare_iccard_all.jpg

Huh. I remember the conductor telling us we couldn't use our Suica on that line. I know I wouldn't have been dumb enough to try and use my JR Pass. I wonder what was up.
 
Huh. I remember the conductor telling us we couldn't use our Suica on that line. I know I wouldn't have been dumb enough to try and use my JR Pass. I wonder what was up.

Hmm... I know that a JR pass obviously wouldn't work on a non-JR rail line... but that's an odd thing to advise.

The only transports I've taken that didn't accept IC cards were remote funiculars, ropeways and ferries in the countryside (Chichibu, Ishigaki, Sakamoto... may be forgetting a couple). On this past trip my friends were able to use their PasMo on the shinkansen, I think this was a new development as of September 2017.
 
Going to Tokyo in May, so I'll be studying this hard...

Question: What did you do for internet on your phone? Do they just have pre-paid SIMs you can buy? Is it for a period of time, or data consumed?
 
Going to Tokyo in May, so I'll be studying this hard...

Question: What did you do for internet on your phone? Do they just have pre-paid SIMs you can buy? Is it for a period of time, or data consumed?

Mobile Wifi devices are very popular in Japan. You can rent them at the airports, and all of the AirBNB places we've ever stayed at have included them in the rental cost.
 
Going to Tokyo in May, so I'll be studying this hard...

Question: What did you do for internet on your phone? Do they just have pre-paid SIMs you can buy? Is it for a period of time, or data consumed?

I have Verizon, so if you have another service provider YMMV. But with Verizon, you can pay $10 per 24-hour period and have access to your full data plan without needing to worry about renting, reserving, or carrying any kind of wifi device. The hostile in which I stayed also had free wifi. So between those two options, I was totally covered, and had zero issues with service, even while hiking up a mountain in Kyoto.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask here or PM me though. I asked lots and lots of stupid questions to people about really small things, just to ensure that I didn't **** up. I ultimately found Japan to be extremely easy to navigate, due in no small part to my willingness to ask stupid questions, but mostly because of (1) ready access to Google Maps, and (2) every single person in Tokyo and Kyoto being so god damn willing to bend over backwards to help me and my friends out. So yeah, if you need anything, hit me up.
 
Going to Tokyo in May, so I'll be studying this hard...

Question: What did you do for internet on your phone? Do they just have pre-paid SIMs you can buy? Is it for a period of time, or data consumed?

I've done all 3 (international roaming, SIM, mobile wifi router), each have their merits.

#1). On business, I just do roaming. It's the easiest... but also the most expensive at $10 a day. The absolute biggest advantage of this is being able to make phone calls without using VOIP.

#2.) For personal, solo travelers are best served by SIM card rental, especially if you have a newish unlocked phone. For non-technical people, installation can be confusing... although there are hundreds of websites that detail the process, should be easy enough at this stage in the game. Once you clear customs at Haneda or Narita you can find kiosks selling SIMs, I used the brand "b-mobile" and it cost me around $50 for 15 days with a 3GB/72hr (rolling) capping out at 10GB. I never hit either cap but if you do on the rolling, you get throttled to 200kbps until the 72 hrs period is up. If you hit the max cap, you can pay to refill your card, it's something like $10 for every additional 5GB. I'm not a big data user though, and if you keep it mellow with the streaming & video watching/uploading until you're back on hotel wifi, it's highly doubtful you'd hit that. It should work out to be around $3-5/day depending on the plan you choose.

#3.) For couples/groups (esp. ones that will be sticking together), renting mobile wifi routers are great. It's a little more expensive than SIMs but because you can port in up to 8 devices, it can be a great cost savings, even with 2 people. The only disadvantage to the mobile routers is they are battery hogs (they usually come with back up battery packs) and all that gear can add up to more crap (cases, cords, backup batteries) one person needs to lug around & then remember to charge up every night. Also if you need to split up, the person not carrying the router will be left to their own... uh, devices (lol). The data plans work on the same network as the SIM cards (see above). As long as you arrive at an hour when the airport post office is open, your rental agency can arrange to pick up once you clear customs, or have it sent to your hotel/airbnb. 15 days capped out at 3GB/72hr (rolling) was $75 split between 2 people worked out to be ~$1.50 per person per day.

I spent a lot of time in Japan pre-mobile web and the advances in tech (google maps, google translate, hyperdia) have made tourism incredibly easier in this day & age, which explains there is a massive tourism boom. The amount of resources available on travel sites is extremely helpful as well.
 
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I've done all 3 (international roaming, SIM, mobile wifi router), each have their merits.

#1). On business, I just do roaming. It's the easiest... but also the most expensive at $10 a day. The absolute biggest advantage of this is being able to make phone calls without using VOIP.

#2.) For personal, solo travelers are best served by SIM card rental, especially if you have a newish unlocked phone. For non-technical people, installation can be confusing... although there are hundreds of websites that detail the process, should be easy enough at this stage in the game. Once you clear customs at Haneda or Narita you can find kiosks selling SIMs, I used the brand "b-mobile" and it cost me around $50 for 15 days with a 3GB/72hr (rolling) capping out at 10GB. I never hit either cap but if you do on the rolling, you get throttled to 200kbps until the 72 hrs period is up. If you hit the max cap, you can pay to refill your card, it's something like $10 for every additional 5GB. I'm not a big data user though, and if you keep it mellow with the streaming & video watching/uploading until you're back on hotel wifi, it's highly doubtful you'd hit that. It should work out to be around $3-5/day depending on the plan you choose.

#3.) For couples/groups (esp. ones that will be sticking together), renting mobile wifi routers are great. It's a little more expensive than SIMs but because you can port in up to 8 devices, it can be a great cost savings, even with 2 people. The only disadvantage to the mobile routers is they are battery hogs (they usually come with back up battery packs) and all that gear can add up to more crap (cases, cords, backup batteries) one person needs to lug around & then remember to charge up every night. Also if you need to split up, the person not carrying the router will be left to their own... uh, devices (lol). The data plans work on the same network as the SIM cards (see above). As long as you arrive at an hour when the airport post office is open, your rental agency can arrange to pick up once you clear customs, or have it sent to your hotel/airbnb. 15 days capped out at 3GB/72hr (rolling) was $75 split between 2 people worked out to be ~$1.50 per person per day.

I spent a lot of time in Japan pre-mobile web and the advances in tech (google maps, google translate, hyperdia) have made tourism incredibly easier in this day & age, which explains there is a massive tourism boom. The amount of resources available on travel sites is extremely helpful as well.
If you're on T-Mobile, international data is free as well for a lot of the plans - slow but will suffice for email and maps I've found.
 
When it comes to maps, download the area to your phone in advance, or over wifi. Maps are a huge data hog otherwise.
 
Anyone know of specific american whiskey / bourbon that you cannot get in Japan? I want to bring a bottle as a gift. My google-fu isn't returning anything concrete.
 
Anyone know of specific american whiskey / bourbon that you cannot get in Japan? I want to bring a bottle as a gift. My google-fu isn't returning anything concrete.

If there were some way you could get in touch with the owner/operator of Zoetrope, I'll bet he could give you a list. In my two or so hours spent in that bar, it was abundantly clear that that guy knows everything about whiskey.
 
Just got back from Tokyo. I probably did 1% of what was on my list. What a completely insane city.

Also, the whisky shortage is real bruh. I couldn't find ****. Grabbed some Nikka 12 and The Chita, that was it :(
 
Just got back from Tokyo. I probably did 1% of what was on my list. What a completely insane city.

Also, the whisky shortage is real bruh. I couldn't find ****. Grabbed some Nikka 12 and The Chita, that was it :(

Just booked our trip for November 17-27, any beer places you particularly enjoyed? I haven't been since 2014 (Ushitora, Baird and Pigalle were the beer bars I hit last time) and things have changed a lot from what friends who live over there have told me.

Also that's a bummer about the whiskey, my wife was really hoping to pick up something we can't get at home. I've heard much of it is being sold online instead. Did you hit Tanakaya?
 
I didn't go out of my way to hit beer places - I drank a ****ton of highballs. That being said, I was really impressed by Yona Yona in Shinjuku and Popeye's in Sumida. I wanted to hit Baird but so many of these ****in places don't open until 5pm.

Didn't end up going to Tanakaya, it's just too damn far out of the way. I would just make sure you walk in to Bic Cameras and Don Quijote, you never know what you're going to see. Also, there are multiple Liquor Mountains, check those out. The duty free place won't have ****.

I posted this earlier, but here's my list:
(Link to media)
 
I went to Popeye in 2006, it was cool. I should probably go back.

DonKi is the most insane store I've ever been in.

I really liked Tanakaya last time, we like riding the Yamanote all the way around and it's right off one of the stations. And they always have Cantillon 375s.
 
I went to Popeye in 2006, it was cool. I should probably go back.

DonKi is the most insane store I've ever been in.

I really liked Tanakaya last time, we like riding the Yamanote all the way around and it's right off one of the stations. And they always have Cantillon 375s.
I've traveled to other countries, but none of them made me think, "Man, I really miss that place. I need to go back."

But that's how I feel about Japan. I need to go back ASAP.
 
I've traveled to other countries, but none of them made me think, "Man, I really miss that place. I need to go back."

But that's how I feel about Japan. I need to go back ASAP.

We've got a soft spot for Friesland in the Netherlands, but Japan is definitely our place. We've been going every four years since our honeymoon in 2006 and always miss it. Did you get out of Tokyo at all? We've done Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, Nara, Miyajima Island and Nikko on past trips. Gonna spend two or three days in Kyoto this time around.
 
We've got a soft spot for Friesland in the Netherlands, but Japan is definitely our place. We've been going every four years since our honeymoon in 2006 and always miss it. Did you get out of Tokyo at all? We've done Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, Nara, Miyajima Island and Nikko on past trips. Gonna spend two or three days in Kyoto this time around.
Nope, that's one of the reasons I want to go back. I mean, there's still stuff in Tokyo I want to do as well. We were supposed to go to Nikko but ended up not going.
 
Yeah, we've never seen all of Tokyo and don't even really try. We just hit up our favorite areas (Yanaka, Shimokitazawa, Koenji, Nakameguro) and call it good. Gonna have to do a bit more touristy stuff this time since our daughter has never been, but it should be a blast. And I need to go back out to Odaiba for the Unicorn Gundam.
 
What airport do you guys fly out of and how much does a round trip ticket cost? How long do you usually stay and how much do you spend?
 
What airport do you guys fly out of and how much does a round trip ticket cost? How long do you usually stay and how much do you spend?

If you can fly into Haneda I strongly recommend it. It's only a 20 minute train ride into Tokyo proper as opposed to the hour ride in from Nartia (which is out in Chiba prefecture). Delta used to do a non-stop flight from Seattle to Haneda and it was amazing, but they've sadly canceled that route, so back to Narita for us.

Our flights this time were roughly $1,100 a person, but you could get lucky and find something cheaper. $1,100 was the cheapest my wife had seen in months (we exclusively fly Delta for the miles) so she jumped on it.

We stay at least 10 days and split that between Tokyo and one other city. On our honeymoon we did Tokyo and then 2 days in Kyoto/Nara and one night on Miyajima Island off the coast of Hiroshima. Second trip we just stayed in Tokyo and did a day trip out to Nikko. Last time was 3 days in Osaka and the rest in Tokyo with a day trip to Hakone (Fuji). One of these times I really want to get up to Hokkaido in the winter.

You can do Japan a lot cheaper than you think once you're there as long as you don't stay at fancy hotels, eat at Michelin star restaurants and take taxis. What's your budget and what are you looking to do and buy?
 
If you can fly into Haneda I strongly recommend it. It's only a 20 minute train ride into Tokyo proper as opposed to the hour ride in from Nartia (which is out in Chiba prefecture). Delta used to do a non-stop flight from Seattle to Haneda and it was amazing, but they've sadly canceled that route, so back to Narita for us.

Our flights this time were roughly $1,100 a person, but you could get lucky and find something cheaper. $1,100 was the cheapest my wife had seen in months (we exclusively fly Delta for the miles) so she jumped on it.

We stay at least 10 days and split that between Tokyo and one other city. On our honeymoon we did Tokyo and then 2 days in Kyoto/Nara and one night on Miyajima Island off the coast of Hiroshima. Second trip we just stayed in Tokyo and did a day trip out to Nikko. Last time was 3 days in Osaka and the rest in Tokyo with a day trip to Hakone (Fuji). One of these times I really want to get up to Hokkaido in the winter.

You can do Japan a lot cheaper than you think once you're there as long as you don't stay at fancy hotels, eat at Michelin star restaurants and take taxis. What's your budget and what are you looking to do and buy?

I was just curious as to how much a vacation out there would cost. I live in Pittsburgh, so obviously flights will be much more. When I take vacations/road trips in the states, I have pretty much every activity and meal planned down to the minute, but I would be ok with just going to Tokyo and walking around and exploring. I never get to do that on trips anymore. I don't know if I would really buy anything besides food and drink.
 
I was just curious as to how much a vacation out there would cost. I live in Pittsburgh, so obviously flights will be much more. When I take vacations/road trips in the states, I have pretty much every activity and meal planned down to the minute, but I would be ok with just going to Tokyo and walking around and exploring. I never get to do that on trips anymore. I don't know if I would really buy anything besides food and drink.

There are definitely things you need to have planned (Studio Ghibli museum, DisneySea if you're interested) with specific dates and times, but Tokyo is best seen just wandering.

I don't normally bring beer back with me but I always stock up on Japanese craft bottles and cans to drink back at our place in the evenings, some clothes at Muji and some used video games at Book Off and other used game stores. And random Gundam crap.
 
There are definitely things you need to have planned (Studio Ghibli museum, DisneySea if you're interested) with specific dates and times, but Tokyo is best seen just wandering.

I don't normally bring beer back with me but I always stock up on Japanese craft bottles and cans to drink back at our place in the evenings, some clothes at Muji and some used video games at Book Off and other used game stores. And random Gundam crap.

I need to visit Tokyo. Been a bucket list thing for me for a while. I hope I get the chance to someday. If I do, I'll make sure to come back to this thread.
 
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