Hello! I recently went to Japan for two weeks with my wife! It was a lot of fun, and I took a lot of pictures. Instead of a social media post, I thought I’d post them here and write a little about what I did and saw. (Although, if you follow my Instagram stories at all, a lot of this will look familiar to you.)
If you’re just looking for the photo dump, click here to go to the carousel at the bottom of the page.
I flew out of JFK Airport in New York City on July 3, 2026. It was the longest flight of my life so far, something like 14-plus hours. It also left in the morning, so I couldn’t get much sleep on the plane. I watched a lot of “Law and Order,” which is great for shutting off your brain, and arrived at Haneda Airport in Tokyo with a great deal of fatigue. From there, I took a local train to Shinjuku Station, a pretty big city hub, which was very large and confusing. On the final leg of the very long journey, I got on one of Japan’s famed bullet trains to Osaka, a large and important city, where Jules was already staying. I’d never been to Japan before, and I have no command of the language whatsoever, so the prospect of navigating myself from Tokyo to Osaka had been making me pretty anxious. But I managed okay.
Jules had been in Japan for about a week at that point, for work. My vacation overlapped with her business trip by a few days, which allowed me to stay in her hotel rooms and save us a little money on lodging. We could also hang out when she was finished working for the day. She came to pick me up at the train station in Osaka, and we took a cab back to the hotel, which was incredibly nice. Here was the view from the room:
We went to get something to eat in the building (the hotel started on something like the 29th floor of a large building, much of the rest of which basically contained a shopping mall), and I went to bed.
Jules basically planned and arranged the entire trip — and did a truly remarkable job! — except for one event on my first full day there: a baseball game. After exploring the city a bit, we went to see the Orix Buffaloes, a local team from Osaka, in a home game against Tokyo’s Saitama Seibu Lions. Japan has a strong baseball culture, and the games are known to be very lively, so I was excited to see one. And it did not disappoint! Fans in Japan have large, loud cheering sections with elaborate musical cues and even a horn section. It was cool. We sat next to an Australian couple who only had a very tenuous understanding of the game (Australia is apparently more of a rugby/cricket country, apparently) but were very enthusiastic and fun to talk to. After the game, we went to a ramen spot for dinner. Very nice day!
Day two was Monday, so Jules had to work. I took the train with her and her colleagues to Kyoto, another large and important city nearby, where they continued to a business destination and I peeled off to sightsee. It was raining, but I decided to walk the couple of miles to the Gion district, which is popular for tourists because it has a lot of traditional architecture and shrines and stuff. On the way, I found a walled Buddhist garden and stopped to look around.
Gion was very cool, but very crowded and touristy. I basically spent the day walking up hills in the rain looking at shrines. When I walked back down, I got a beer and an okonomiyaki — sort of a savory pancake stuffed with eggs, wagyu beef, and vegetables. The restaurant had only that on the menu. They don’t even take your order; they just bring you one. And the walls were covered with funny, lewd drawings. Cool place. From there, I walked around a bit more and then stopped for another drink. Some delicious champagne-style sparkling sake at a very stylish bar. (I had looked for something a little more divey but they were all closed until later in the evening.) Then I went home. A very cool day, but I walked about 10 miles in soaking wet socks and shoes, and the resulting blisters plagued me for the rest of the vacation.
The next day Jules had to work, so I walked an hour or so from the hotel to Osaka Castle, which is pretty much what it sounds like. A big feudal castle in the middle of Osaka. Walking around is my favorite way to experience a new city, and this was a good opportunity to do it. What I saw of it reminded me a lot of lower Manhattan — lots of tall buildings and businessmen.
The castle itself was very interesting, and a prime example of something I found very striking about the country: the frequent juxtaposition of very old things with very modern ones. It’s really just in the middle of the city, with like, a moat and ramparts and stuff.
The inside is a museum. There was a service available that let you get your photo taken as a samurai. I, of course, availed myself of it, and the below photo was the result. I texted it to Jules, who had apparently been wondering if I was doing okay on my own at the very moment it arrived. I was! Afterwards, I got some ramen and took the train home.
That evening, I got to have dinner with Jules and her coworkers at the hotel restaurant. I got a steak. I very, very rarely eat red meat back at home, so all this beef was quite the indulgence.
The next day, we all traveled to Tokyo, the final destination of the “Jules has to work” portion of the trip. I left my bags at the hotel and walked around the surrounding Sumida City neighborhood. The iconic — and truly fucking large — SkyTree tower was nearby and loomed over everything.
Google Maps allowed me to discover the nearby “Tobacco & Salt Museum,” to which I went directly. (I learned that the two eponymous commodities were once governed in Japan by the same monopolistic government corporation, hence the seemingly random pairing.) It was actually a very interesting museum, with permanent exhibitions about traditional Japanese methods of refining sea salt and processing tobacco, as well as the role of each in history and culture. In the gift shop, I bought a kiseru, a traditional Japanese pipe used with tobacco that’s shredded much finer than most pipe tobaccos, and something to smoke in it. The gift shop also just sold regular cigarettes, which I thought was funny for a museum to do.
After a debrief meeting in the morning, Jules was free of all professional obligations for the remainder of the trip. We walked to the “kitchen district,” which had a bunch of kitchenware stores and fancy knife shops. Jules bought a fancy knife from a saleswoman who happened to be Japanese-American and spent a lot of her youth in St. Thomas, where Jules also lived for a few years. (And, ahem, where acclaimed middle-grade graphic novel “Sea Legs” takes place.) Wacky coincidence! Then we got ramen and went back to the hotel for a bit. That evening, we met up with some friends from New Haven who have since expatriated to Tokyo. It was nice to see them.
The day’s final chapter proved to be a highlight of the trip: We went to Rocky Top, a very authentic live bluegrass bar in the very uncorrespondingly fashionable Ginza district. We had just heard about it after our friend Matt sent us an Instagram video about it, and we figured, what the heck. After the band finished, a very nice man named Yoshi chatted with us for a while. He was also a bluegrass musician and told us a little about the venue — apparently something of a holy site for the Japanese country music community, which is a thing that exists — and himself. Very nice and friendly man, as were so many of the people we met.
The house band, consisting of a mandolin player/lead vocalist, banjo player, and a percussionist who played some kind of instrument consisting of shaky-and-clacky balls connected by string. They played mostly American country and bluegrass standards, as well as one Japanese folk song updated in that style, and they were incredible.
The following day we needed to check out of the hotel, but had late checkout (on work’s dime!), so I took the opportunity to walk around a bit more and get a haircut.
Then we took the train to Oarai, a small seaside town that’s home to one end of a ferry route to the northern island of Hokkaido — more on that later.
The place isn’t really frequented by foreign tourists, and we were the only ones at the hotel, an all-inclusive beach place that included a lounge with pour-your-own alcohol and coffee and a massive all-you-can-eat buffet for dinner. (Did I mention what a remarkable job Jules did planning this trip?) We stayed in a traditional Japanese-style room, which was a first for me. Aside from the ferry, Oarai is known as the setting for an anime show called “Girls Und Panzer,” about schoolgirls who participate in organized tank combat games. (Japan is weird.) It’s a major point of local pride.
The next morning, we checked out a nearby shrine, which was beautiful. We also went to the local aquarium, which was quite large, and just explored the town a bit.
In the afternoon, we walked to a nearby aquarium, “Aqua World,” and explored the area.
In the evening, we boarded the Sunflower, the aforementioned ferry to Hokkaido. It was an overnight trip, leaving around just before dinner and arriving after lunch the next day. We had a small private (Japanese-style) cabin, but I spent most of my time lounging in common areas and on the deck. Food was served buffet style, and it was surprisingly good.
Once in Hokkaido, we headed to Sapporo, the island’s main city and one of the largest in Japan. We had three nights and no other firm plans than a dinner reservation on one of them. So we spent a lot of time walking around and exploring the copious local shops and restaurants. The hotel was just a few minutes’ walk from the Tanukikoji Shopping Street, a seven-block outdoor shopping mall with what seemed like hundreds of businesses, so there was plenty to check out just there. And, of course, I had to sample the local beer.
The hotel was also on a main street with lots of signs that looked quite cool lighted up at night. I took more pictures with some disposable cameras, but I haven’t develped the film yet. (For that I’ll have to wait until I can get to Abracadabra Film Lab in Easthampton, Mass.)
For dinner on the second night we visited Ramen Haruka, a popular joint that specializes in ramens emphasizing local produce — namely corn, butter, and cheese. I got corn and butter ramen. There was about a 45-minute wait in line before getting into the cramped dining room, but it was worth it. An all-time meal. We also ducked into a little cocktail bar called Bar Solitude. The bartender was an older, very well-dressed gentleman playing Sammy David Jr. and other old jazz; he made an absolutely fantastic martini.
Oh, ALSO — here’s probably the weirdest thing that happened on our trip: We were walking through a sort of mall-style building, past a restaurant. Outside the restaurant were a bunch of stools lined up, some with random logos stenciled on them. This was one:
Olives and Oil is an Italian restaurant in New Haven. This is definitely the logo. There’s only the one location; it’s not a chain or anything. What was this logo doing here? Why? How?!
Anyway.
Another highlight from Sapporo was taking a ropeway up to the top of Mt. Moiwa, a mountain on the outskirts of town. Walking over, I assumed it was going to be like a big ski lift (you know the one at Lake Compounce?), but you actually go up in a very modern covered gondola. The mountain is tall enough that you have to go up in two stages. It was too rainy and foggy that day to get much of a view from the top, but the forest scenery during the ascent was very beautiful.
For dinner that night, we went to L’Espérance, a French-inspired vegetarian restaurant. The meal came in about six small, excellent portions. I only took pictures of two — an eggplant mousse was made basically as a work of art, and a stuffed tomato with basil oil and radishes. The rest was also delicious!
The restaurant itself was also very interesting. The dining room was small (like most in Japan), with big wooden tables. We were initially seated at one with a solo Dutch woman opposite us. She wasn’t very chatty and mostly read her Kindle the entire time we were sitting together. The kitchen was visible over a low dividing wall, and the two staff members fluidly traded off the duties of preparing and serving each course. Cool meal.
Finally, we returned to Tokyo for another two nights. This time, we made a short flight rather than a long boat ride. Not as romantic, but I think I caught a view of Mt. Fuji from the plane.
Our hotel was in the Shinjuku neighborhood. If you’ve ever seen those stock photos or videos of “TOKYO” with all the crowded crosswalks and neon signs, there are decent odds it was Shinjuku. Also, it has Godzilla!
More pics of Shinjuku in the daytime and at night:
Jules was interested in buying a pair of Onitsuka Tigers, a popular brand of sneaker. The Japan-made pairs are very high-quality and available only there.
There was supposed to be a Tigers store in a shopping mall beneath the train station (the busiest in the world, incidentally), so we headed there. As it happened, the mall was quite large and difficult to navigate.
When we finally found the store, it was smaller and had less selection (particularly of the Japan-made shoes) than expected. But a clerk told Jules they had a new, much larger flagship shop just around the corner.
We pulled it up in Apple Maps and let it navigate us there. The second Onitsuka Tigers store was indeed much larger, but also lacked what we were looking for. Another clerk clarified that it wasn’t the new flagship store we were looking for and pointed us in the right direction.
We easily found the building that supposedly housed the Onitsuka Tigers flagship store, but it consisted mainly of empty stairwells and one restaurant on the third floor. Jules and I split up to investigate. I asked the host at the restaurant about the Tigers store, and he knew just enough English to say, “go outside, on the other side.”
Almost ready to give up on our quest for this elusive shoe store, we walked around the block to the other side of the building in a final effort. Here’s what we saw.
It was huge! How did we miss it?! Anyway, Jules didn’t get any shoes.
On our final full day in Tokyo, we began by making a pilgrimage to the “Universal Bakes and Cafe” vegan bakery. It was very hot and required a bit of walking after the train, but it was well worth it. They were delighted when they learned Jules’ last name. We ordered some food and cold drinks, all incredibly refreshing. “I hear you’re the rightful owner of this place,” another customer said to Jules (in English) as we were eating. He looked and sounded very German, but seemed like a regular. All of which is to say, Jules is the internationally recognized Universal Bakes.
We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring that neighborhood, which was very nice. It had a lot of boutique shops and vintage clothing stores, which we alternated between window-shopping outside of and ducking into to escape the heat.
By mid-afternoon, the worst of the heat was over, but we were still in the mood for something a little more… air-conditioned. So we decided to head to the Sompo Museum of Art, conveniently located a short walk from the hotel.
The museum’s main exhibition was a retrospective of the painter Kayo Yamaguchi (1899–1984). His work largely focused on scenes of nature and wildlife. At a distance, the paintings (most of which were several feet in width) appeared almost in soft focus, but a closer examination would reveal a truly incredible attention to detail. I was also struck by the vitality behind the eyes of the animals.
Photos weren’t allowed of Yamaguchi’s work, unfortunately, but we were allowed to photograph the only other piece on display — one of Van Gogh’s sunflower still lifes. (We were almost encouraged to take a picture of that.)
After the museum, we went back to the hotel to recharge a bit, then went out to hit a few bars that had been on our to-do lists: a heavy metal bar called GODZ; a cyberpunk-themed joint that looked like something out of “Blade Runner” (or, well, “Cyberpunk”) and served excellent vegan food; and the Old Blind Cat, another little cocktail bar playing old jazz. The latter introduced me to the early work of Quincy Jones, which I’ve been listening to a bit since.
And that about wraps it up. The next morning we went to the airport and went home. What a trip! Thanks for reading!
In conclusion, Jules is the best.
The carousel below includes some photos I didn’t use above. Scroll using the arrows on the side.
