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Now that I got the shilling out of the way.

Lets get to why you’re here…

Tokyo is the New Paris

I spent the last 10 days in Japan. 5 days in Niseko skiing, 5 days in Tokyo. I wrote this up to serve as a way to document the fun things I did, and as a reference for anyone who is going to Tokyo soon.

Your three step guide to guarantee you have a blast in Tokyo.

1. Read this blog post

2. Have the US dollar to Japanese Yen exchange be at an all time high

3. If step 2 does not apply - go back to step 1

Let’s tango Odori

I prefer traveling to “under the radar” and “up and coming” countries. Tokyo doesn’t fit either of those those categories but it appears like it has reached an inflection point of getting really really popular. I have a hunch that it also has to do with the USD being so strong against the Japanese yen right now.

When I post about places I travel to, I get a lot of questions about the trip. I’ve done twitter threads documenting day by day notes. Instead of that, I am going to just share everything I did while I was here in Tokyo.

Tokyo is an incredible city. It’s the new Paris - the place you sees pics of your friends at and immediately begs your other friends to book a trip with you. Full of food, entertainment, culture, and endless ways to spend money. Perhaps go on a romantic getaway…

It’s also enormous. Like, really really big. If you search for things to do in Tokyo you’ll get a bunch of SEO garbage for the most popular things to do there. Not this. This won’t have any of the popular stuff. Instead it’s going to be:

• a list of the things I did while I was here

• Pro Tips on how you can get around easily

• secret spots to relax from the hustle and bustle

• how to explore the city on fast mode

• How to experience Tokyo like a local

What I Did

• Explore the city in Hyper-speed - I have this trick where you can explore a city on hyper-speed without much commotion. All you need to do is wake up early, pick a direction, and run. I did that in Italy. I did it in Tokyo. It's really hard to stay active while traveling. This helps a lot.

• Sumo experience - We planned this portion of our trip around seeing the World Sumo Championship. Tickets were extremely hard to get even when we were on the main website when they got released. We decided to pay a premium and get them through StubHub because we really wanted to see this. Unfortunately, we were sold counterfeit tickets. RIP

  

  A Mall in Ginza

• Work in Ginza/Otemachi - I worked at the Tsutaya bookstore. This is a really nice mall near the Imperial Palace. They also have a decked-out coworking space you can knock some work out in. It had a daily fee, so instead I just got a coffee from the Starbucks and worked there. After that, I watched the sunset from the 36th floor of the building

  

  Sunset from the 36th Floor

• Read at the Aman Tokyo hotel - If you've made it this far, this is probably one of the best secrets in here. Congrats. I got this tip from my friend, Nick Gray. The Aman hotel, Tokyo is a 5-star hotel. The lobby is on the 33rd floor of the building it's in. You can just walk up and hang out in the lobby. They also have a dining and cocktail area where you can have food and drinks. Would be a cute date spot too. It's completely free. You don't need to be a hotel guest to enjoy the lobby. I just walked right in, took the elevator up, sat down and read on my kindle for two hours. $2k/night to stay there. Serene vibes, fo free.

  

  Aman Hotel Lobby

• Sakurai Japanese Tea Experience - One of my highlights of Tokyo. A six-course tea tasting experience. I tried some hand-rolled and gourmet green teas. It was a 1.5-hour experience and only cost me $43. The tasting room was intimate. It only sat 10 people. Make sure to make a reservation for this. Tip - Don't eat too much of the raw tea leaves or else you'll get a caffeine overdose.

  

  Tea Tasting Experience - This was the iced tea

• High fashion district - After I was cracked out on green tea, I walked around Minamiaoyama. There were high fashion shops around every corner. To put it in perspective, there were brands that I didn't even recognize. I enjoyed people watching and experiencing Japanese fashion. I stopped in the Prada, Gentle Monster, and Chrome Hearts stores. I didn't know two of those three brands until after I stumbled into them. I got a lot of "looks" while in these stores, probably because I wasn't very dressed up.

  

  Prada Store

• Nezu Museum - Vibey museum with Japanese and Chinese sculptures and a really big Japanese garden.

  

  At the Nezu Museam - shoutout to Apple AI for the flawless job removing people in the background

• Dinner with locals - Got dinner with my friends who are locals to Japan. They're American-born and are living it up spending USD in Japan. We spoke over dinner about their plans to try to stay in Japan because the USD goes so far here. They gave me the recs for the "jazz bar," ae-ash coffee bar, the Toyosu fish market, and where to get affordable custom jewelry. Always prioritize meeting a local, they'll give you great recs and save you hours of research.

  

  My new friend Vincent I met at dinner

• Tableaux Lounge "Jazz bar" - Over dinner Vincent recommended I check out a Jazz club. It was a Saturday night so I sent it. That night they weren't playing jazz, it was a cover band. I came for the jazz, stayed for the environment. This was the mood of the night. Gotta say, Asian cultures love the American hits.

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• Underground malls - There are below-ground malls and tunnels in Tokyo. I got lost in them a lot. But once you figure it out, it helps you stay out of the cold (or heat) for a little longer.

• Custom made jewelry - I went to Glanta to get custom-made jewelry. The selection wasn't anything too special but it was affordable and I got a custom-made ring with a Japanese mantra on it.

• 100-year-old sound cafe - My friend Kurush showed me a 100-year-old sound cafe. Zero talking allowed. Cozy environment in the heart of Shibuya. They play classical music on a Hi-Fi record system. Great place to work, read, write, or contemplate your life choices (hypothetically).

• Get concerningly sick - I caught a NASTY fever that cut the whimsical exploration of Tokyo short by two days. I think I hit a 103-degree fever. I was bedridden for the final two days in Tokyo. This was not fun if you're in a really really small hotel room. Thankfully for this write-up, it does make it slightly faster to write up 3 days of exploring than 5.

  

  If I do some public math, that’s around a 104 deg fever

General Tips for Tokyo

HND vs NRT - these are the two major airports that you can fly into to enter Tokyo. HND is typically slightly more expensive to fly into. But you are now a 1 hour train from where you’re staying vs >2hrs to get in. If you’re flying into NRT and thinking about staying the night in Tokyo in between flights, keep in mind how far it is from the city.

Speed up entry - you can fill out this customs form to save you a precious 15 minutes when you enter Japan. Make sure to show the immigration people that you have the “QR” code so they can point you to the expedited line.

Google Maps - for navigation is incredible. It will give you step by step instructions on how to use the train system. There are signs everywhere within the train stations which make it really easy to navigate the stations. Google maps even tells you which car on the train to get on for optimal train switching.

Suica Card - i used to buy one off train tickets for every single train trip. Now you can just use a Suica card! You can go add it within your apple wallet app and you can tap to enter and exit any train station gate. You don’t even have to unlock your phone. You just tap it to the reader and it will pair with your Suica card. This will make navigating the hectic train stations 12x easier. You can even use the Suica card in different cities and convince stores.

Cash vs Card - most locations will take credit card or tap to pay. I would still recommend taking out some cash. Some of the best “hole in the wall” shops and restaurants still took cash only and it was nice to have it. I probably used most of my cash paying for an onsen in Niseko. In Tokyo, I took out 10k JPY and didn’t go through it all.

Cellular data - The rule of thumb use to be to get pocket wifi in tokyo. That advice is now outdated. If you have a newer phone many of them now are unlocked and use eSIMs. All you need to do now is sign up for an eSIM. You can use the Airalo app to find eSIMs for any country. I just went directly to Ubigi because that’s what my friend was using.

Group Size - It’s great to share the experience of exploring a new city with friends. But if your group is too big you will run into a lot of issues. Dinner becomes hard. You’ll either need a reservation or have to split the group up when you walk up. Traveling solo makes it really easy to pick a place last minute and get seated quickly. I’d say the idea group size in a large city would be no more than 4 people. Still, be ok with splitting up and doing things on your own.

Google Rating System -

Where to Stay - this time we stayed in Shinjuku. Our hotel was good but I felt like this area was too chaotic, touristy, and messy. I would recommended staying in a quieter area but still have access to popular areas. Trains are your friend here so don’t worry too much about not being in the thick of it.

The Dining Experience

• Don't waste your time asking for food recs or asking people who have been to Tokyo where the best food is. It's everywhere.

• Hole-in-the-wall Japanese restaurants eclipse a US Michelin dining experience — you don't need to prioritize the top dining experiences. Start with going to "regular" Japanese restaurants to adjust your taste palate before you ball out on the top dining experiences. I can say that fine vs. normal dining didn't stand out more than the other.

• Carbs, meat, and carbs — I can count on one hand how many times I had a vegetable here that wasn't an onion or soybeans. Actually, I don't even need to count on one hand for that. It was zero times. The Japanese diet is centered around three main pillars: rice, meat, and noodles. As a diabetic, this was pretty tough to navigate because every meal was carb-heavy.

• Raw eggs — many dishes include raw eggs. The Japanese have an egg tracking system where they almost never have to worry about salmonella outbreaks. The eggs here are also bright orange, aka they're high quality. Go ahead and eat them raw; they're delicious. I'd recommend mixing a raw egg in with rice.

• Some food pics. Can you tell which ones were gourmet, hole in the wall, or in a ski lodge?

  

  Couldn’t tell you what grade this was. Didn’t matter.

  

  This tuna cost $15 per slice

  

  Ramen

  

  Dan Dan Noodles

  

  More Ramen - this was $7. In SF this is $24 before: tip, service fee, health insurance surcharge, and SF employee mandate fee.

General Notes

• Trains are cool - The train system in Tokyo is incredible. You can get anywhere you need with Google Maps, a Suica card, and the rail system. It has never been easier to get around the city.

  

  All trains were different. This one specifically caught my attention.

• Tokyo is QUIET - Nobody talks in public. Trains are dead silent. I would assume this is a cultural thing but everyone is really quiet in public. While I'm on a train not a single person talks. If they do, they're probably not Japanese.

• I saw a lot of girls in skirts - This is surprising given how cold it gets. No matter the temp, they'll still wear skirts.

• EVERYONE is on their phone - I know Asian culture is big on mobile phones and technology but this was way more than what I saw in the US. Perhaps this is also a byproduct of a not-so-social culture.

  

  Everyone on their phones

• Japanese fashion in Tokyo - This is the least talked about part of Japan that I feel like goes under the radar. Japanese fashion is so FREAKING COOL. I see a recurring theme of boxy and baggy clothes but it goes way beyond that. The Japanese people take fashion as a form of self-expression seriously. You'll also see some bright clothing or their hair dyed certain colors. Makes me feel like I'm in a safe space for bleaching my hair.

• Everyone is heads down or just doesn't make eye contact. While it's a gentle and respectful environment, they're not exactly social to people on the streets.

• Inside is HOT - The moment you walk into any temperature-controlled space you will be blasted by hot and dry air. I think Japanese people (Asian people?) naturally run really cold.

• Lawson and 7/11 - I'm assuming that by this point you already know about the popularity of 7/11 and Lawson in Japan. So not much needs to be said here. While I was in Niseko these stores supplied about 60% of my meals.

• No grocery stores - I am not sure if this is just a Tokyo thing but I barely saw any grocery stores here. Curious if that has to do with the large eating-at-restaurants culture here. Grocery stores are certainly a US thing.

• Bidets - They caught my attention last time I was here… This time it felt like they were everywhere. And yes I mean everywhere! Bidets are not a luxury reserved for the wealthy here. They were in the ski slopes, train station, and restaurant bathrooms. What stood out this time is the abundance of heated seats and automatic toilet seats. So many!

Things I Want to Do Next Time or Could Be Cool

• Run to explore the city more — I would've done it every day if I didn't catch a nasty fever for the second half of the trip. Wake up early, pick a direction. Run away. Take the train back (or run back, if you're crazy like me)

• Ghibli Museum — a museum showcasing the work of the Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli. This was way more popular than I expected and I didn't realize you have to purchase tickets well in advance.

• Disneyland Tokyo — I have a lot of friends that went and had a great time. I probably won't go. But putting it here because I wasn't aware of how popular Tokyo Disney was. Good to know it exists here.

• teamLab — I went the last time I was here and was going to go back for one of their new installations. The flu stopped me from going again

• ae-ash coffee bar — a coffee bar that turns into a bar at night.

• Toyosu Fish Market — a massive fish market where you can see everything from the fish being brought in to eating fresh fish on the spot. This was on the list until… that flu hit me

• Explore the rich neighborhood — Daikanyama was recommended as an affluent area where you can see how the wealthy live

• Onsens in Tokyo — I went to an onsen every day in Niseko. I wanted to go to Thermae-Yu but couldn't because… the flu

• I am donut? — a gourmet donut shop near where I did the tea experience. There was a massive line and I was not going to wait 45 minutes for a prosciutto donut to skyrocket my blood sugar.

• Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum — also in the Minamiaoyama area

• Capybara cafe — Perhaps this is the Japanese version of a cat cafe.

• Go deep into rural Japan, hike the Japanese mountains — I am incredibly grateful to have hit the point where I have the skillset to travel to any new country to navigate and enjoy the city. When I come to Japan next (which I will) I would like to explore more rural areas and even hike deep into the mountains.

Resources

A lot of this was found through recommendations of friends and digging through some blogs. I want to give proper shoutouts to the

• Nick Gray’s Tokyo article. He’s done many, but this is the one I used the most

• My friends: Kurush, Dzuy, and Vincent

• This website has the most up to date stuff to do.

Sheesh. That was a long one. I hope you enjoyed it!

Should I go back to think boi posts?

Love Ya,

Jared

P.S. - If you have questions about Niseko - email me and I’ll spill the beans.

I Dig So You Don’t Have To

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