Well, here it is, after months of watching Terrace House and scheduling around Tokyo’s weather, I arrived in Japan and it was…cold! Well, not really cold cold but anything around fifty degrees is too cold for me. Within the first few days I’d already bought three warmer weather tops: a hoodie, a cotton duster, and a denim-ish jacket.
My light packing — lighter than even my previous two trips — was completely ruined. Also, my friend hated my orange New Balance shoes so much that after a few days of harassment, I turned those in for some fresh white ones. Of course, these newfound beauties, Clearweather Donny, cut into my heel so I had to keep the orange ones around anyway until I could break the new ones in.
And that is the extent of anything bad about Tokyo. Everything else is exactly as everyone says. The people are wonderful, the food is terrific, the transportation seems easy, there’s a bajillion places to explore and familiarize yourself with. And the two things that people tend to warn about, the crowds and the cost, have been much less than I feared. In fact, we haven’t really encountered the crushing mass of people much and while things can definitely be expensive, I’ve found prices for things to be somewhere below New York / San Francisco costs. In other words: not bad!
Finding AirBnBs were a struggle though, mainly because we were coming in at the tail end of sakura season, and because we were looking only about a week before. My regular move is to book AirBnbs not too far in advance but this time that lack of pre-planning backfired. However, after a few nights of dedicated looking — mostly on my friend’s part — we lined up some wonderful places to stay for the next three weeks.
Usually, splitting an AirBnb is better with more people but as I’ve discovered, finding a two bedroom place in Tokyo is nigh impossible, especially for long stretches of time. The price is either outrageously high or you’re forced outside most of the busy areas. Still, with some digging and patience, and Steph's ingenious plan to hop around different neighborhoods every few days, we got it all settled. I’ll detail out the spots as we go but generally I’d say two people is the ideal traveling configuration in Tokyo, as spaces can be tiny.
Note: The AirBnbs love to advertise sleeping room for at least two-times a “normal” space though. A studio sized one bedroom can be advertised to fit five assuming side-to-side tatami mats. Call it Tokyo AirBnb occupation inflation.
For the first leg of my trip, one friend from San Diego was coming with me for a week (let’s call her Sarah) and another from Taiwan for three weeks. Let’s call her Stephanie (real name, since I’ll be linking to her stuff anyway). And then other people will be dropping in-and-out over the next five weeks I'm here. Everyone is in Japan!
Anyway, gonna try to travelogue Tokyo, just as I did with the first few days of Taiwan a few years ago. That one stopped at Day 9 so we’ll see how well this one works out. Ostensibly Steph and I are also here to write, so we’ve scheduled some stays to bunker down and work. There was some consideration of getting a rail pass and going to Kyoto, Osaka, and the art island, Naoshima, but ultimately we decided against it. This wasn’t our first/last trip to Japan so why rush it?
One thing I wish I had done beforehand: order the the correct SIM and pocket wifi stuff. The lead time for both is a few days, which can include delayed activation time, so I ended up having to spend about an hour at the airport after landing to get things set up -- with a SIM I just bought for two day holdover. Grabbing a random SIM at a kiosk and getting on your way is not that easy... Be smart, get your internet stuff figured out before you arrive.
I used Mobal for phone data ($40 for 7 GB, fourteen days), and then just ordered a Kyushu pocket wifi that will cover me for thirty days, at about $100 with unlimited usage and no throttling. Almost all the AirBnbs offer pocket wifis you can carry around with you but they are throttled at 500MB -- after which it goes to 2G, which is super slow -- and you can't really stream much. I can't live like that with the NBA playoffs around the corner so I needed better options.
My light packing — lighter than even my previous two trips — was completely ruined. Also, my friend hated my orange New Balance shoes so much that after a few days of harassment, I turned those in for some fresh white ones. Of course, these newfound beauties, Clearweather Donny, cut into my heel so I had to keep the orange ones around anyway until I could break the new ones in.
And that is the extent of anything bad about Tokyo. Everything else is exactly as everyone says. The people are wonderful, the food is terrific, the transportation seems easy, there’s a bajillion places to explore and familiarize yourself with. And the two things that people tend to warn about, the crowds and the cost, have been much less than I feared. In fact, we haven’t really encountered the crushing mass of people much and while things can definitely be expensive, I’ve found prices for things to be somewhere below New York / San Francisco costs. In other words: not bad!
Usually, splitting an AirBnb is better with more people but as I’ve discovered, finding a two bedroom place in Tokyo is nigh impossible, especially for long stretches of time. The price is either outrageously high or you’re forced outside most of the busy areas. Still, with some digging and patience, and Steph's ingenious plan to hop around different neighborhoods every few days, we got it all settled. I’ll detail out the spots as we go but generally I’d say two people is the ideal traveling configuration in Tokyo, as spaces can be tiny.
Note: The AirBnbs love to advertise sleeping room for at least two-times a “normal” space though. A studio sized one bedroom can be advertised to fit five assuming side-to-side tatami mats. Call it Tokyo AirBnb occupation inflation.
For the first leg of my trip, one friend from San Diego was coming with me for a week (let’s call her Sarah) and another from Taiwan for three weeks. Let’s call her Stephanie (real name, since I’ll be linking to her stuff anyway). And then other people will be dropping in-and-out over the next five weeks I'm here. Everyone is in Japan!
Anyway, gonna try to travelogue Tokyo, just as I did with the first few days of Taiwan a few years ago. That one stopped at Day 9 so we’ll see how well this one works out. Ostensibly Steph and I are also here to write, so we’ve scheduled some stays to bunker down and work. There was some consideration of getting a rail pass and going to Kyoto, Osaka, and the art island, Naoshima, but ultimately we decided against it. This wasn’t our first/last trip to Japan so why rush it?
One thing I wish I had done beforehand: order the the correct SIM and pocket wifi stuff. The lead time for both is a few days, which can include delayed activation time, so I ended up having to spend about an hour at the airport after landing to get things set up -- with a SIM I just bought for two day holdover. Grabbing a random SIM at a kiosk and getting on your way is not that easy... Be smart, get your internet stuff figured out before you arrive.
I used Mobal for phone data ($40 for 7 GB, fourteen days), and then just ordered a Kyushu pocket wifi that will cover me for thirty days, at about $100 with unlimited usage and no throttling. Almost all the AirBnbs offer pocket wifis you can carry around with you but they are throttled at 500MB -- after which it goes to 2G, which is super slow -- and you can't really stream much. I can't live like that with the NBA playoffs around the corner so I needed better options.