For several months now, I’ve been keeping a secret and hoping not to jinx myself. Finally I’m ready to share the news.
We’re going to Japan!
Photo: yoshikazut
At the end of this month, Kevin and I will be leaving for a nine-day tour of Japan. In that short time, we’ll be exploring Tokyo’s fast-paced urban life, Kyoto’s history and temples, Shizuoka’s (at the base of Mt. Fuji) green tea industry, and the natural beauty (and earthquake recovery) in the rural northeast. My head is spinning thinking about all of it, but I’m very excited.
Photo: diloz
I was invited to go on this trip as a guest of the San Francisco public affairs division of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This visit is part of their U.S. media campaign to promote travel to Japan. The application — including lots of emails back and forth to government offices in Tokyo — took several months so I kept it quiet until just recently when I received my final approval. Kevin decided to join me at our expense, and we’re both thrilled to have this opportunity to share our stories with the world.
Photo: heiwa4126
This will both of our first trip to Japan (and my first to Asia!) so I have a lot to learn. The consular office gave us some ideas for the itinerary, but it is full of things we wanted to see, do, and eat. A few things we are planning to do include:
- Explore Japanese cultural history and traditional Buddhist temples
- Learn about sushi and seafood — we’ll be visiting the Tsukiji Market, the largest fish and seafood market in the world.
- Learn about Japanese green tea production, tea-drinking customs, and culture
- Learn about traditional Japanese vegetarian foods (me) / eat EVERYTHING (Kevin)
- Explore Japanese major league baseball. We’re going to spring training for the Yomiuri Giants — the sister team of our own San Francisco Giants!
Photo: swier
Tohoku Recovery
In planning the trip, consular staff asked if we would consider visiting the north part of the main island — a region called Tohoku. This large, mostly rural area sustained the most monumental damage in the great earthquake and tsunami of 2011. Though the tens of thousands of families who lost loved ones in this disaster are still trying to heal, the communities are steadily rebuilding. Despite these efforts, this region’s economy has lagged behind. Today, nearly three years after this disaster, most tourists to pass up this area though many of the region’s sites are far from affected cities or sustained little damage.
Still, I hesitated. I’ve said before that I’m one of those neurotic weirdos who stays awake at night worrying about cell-phone radiation. The thought of coming within a hundred miles of the Fukushima exclusion zone worried me. But then I thought again.
Photo: kyaabo
The Japanese government and U.S. State Department agree that, except for the immediate vicinity of the Fukushima reactors, it’s safe to travel in Tohoku. Radiation levels in Sendai (the region’s capital) are lower than recent reports from London, Paris, and Berlin. Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of people in this area rely on tourism — it’s an important part of the economy. And those hundreds of thousands of people live there 365 days a year. I know tourism can help struggling communities and as I attempt to be a responsible traveler, I can’t in good faith turn down this opportunity to see what the region has to offer. And frankly now that I’ve learned more about the region, it’s the part of the trip I’m most excited about. It’s Japan — but off the beaten path.
Please help us out…
What questions do you have about travel to Japan? What do you want to see? What do you want to know? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. Also, I’m curating a Japan travel Pinterest board with travel tips and destination photography so if you have any links to share, please put them in your comment and I’ll pin them to the board.
We’ll be sharing photos during the trip on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram so join us there for the latest updates.
SO exciting! I went to Japan 4 years ago just for 3 days (as a stopover from Bali) and we just LOVED it! I recommend it to everyone even though it’s based on what little we saw and did. Have a great trip!
Jenna, that’s so great to hear! I’m looking for reading material and great photographs! I just searched your site and found your posts about Kyoto. That’s the city everyone is raving about, I’m so excited eager to explore that area!
Japan is magical. Kyoto is stunning and so easy to walk. You may even get to see the cherry blossoms! Make sure you go to the basement of department stores to see all the food. OH and you can find an ATM that will work with your US bank card at the post office. Seriously. ATMs are everywhere but they won’t work for you. Go to the post office. I’m so excited for you!!! We dream about going back. Maybe next spring. Oh, and you should read ” Pretty Good Number One.” A delicious look at Tokyo and all of the foods of Japan. Written by a local Seattle food writer. It’s hilarious and educational all at once.
http://www.amazon.com/Pretty-Good-Number-One-American-ebook/dp/B00C9T9X2Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392878308&sr=8-1&keywords=matthew+amster-burton
Great tips, Keryn! I’d heard the money situation is complicated and that you can’t actually use credit cards in very many places (even beyond our usual difficulties not having a chip+pin card!) And I love the reviews of this book and it’s only a few dollars on Kindle, I’m buying it right now! Thank you!
Yay! This is so exciting and while 9 days will just give you the smallest taste of Japan, it is certainly enough time to fall in love with the country and have some great adventures! We actually spent 2 days in Sendai and thought it was a perfectly fine city—you really couldn’t tell that it or many of the surrounding areas had been affected by anything!
I’m not sure I remember reading you guys had stopped in Japan on this trip! I’m looking to your site now and you have a ton of posts! Interesting about Sendai, I’m guessing that by now we won’t see much (if any) physical damage I hear they cleaned that up pretty fast, I’m still curious about how the communities are faring. I’m going to this event this weekend (http://www.jamsj.org/jamsj-news-item/2014/2/upcoming/1/ai-love-japan/) to hear from volunteers who visited recently, and they’ll be livestreaming discussion with development folks on the ground.
You guys aren’t on Pinterest are you? Can I pin your articles, or would you prefer I not?
Steph, scratch that question. I did just notice you have a pin it button on your posts so I guess you’re fine with me sharing them 🙂 Also, I definitely remember reading this post: http://www.20yearshence.com/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-more-about-japan/
Yes, please do share and if you have any specific questions about places or things to see/do or want any other tips, feel free to email me and ask!
You are going to love Japan. I would recommend quite a few things…all on my site already, but monkeys near Nagano, Tsukiji Market, going to an onsen and going outside! It’s all wonderful! Enjoy!
Thanks, Corinne! I just found your posts and I’m adding them to my Japan Pinterest board. I’m not sure we’ll make it to Nagano, but the fish market and the onsen on definitely on my list! Thanks for the tips!
WAAAHHHH I’M SO EXCITED FOR YOU GUYS! I cannot wait to see photos, and I’ll send you an email with some recommendations. I hope you guys have the best time!
I’ve been meaning to email you! I was reading your site the other day, I really enjoyed the vegetarian eating, money/ATM, and 7-11 posts 🙂 You’re not on Pinterest, are you? I pinned a bunch of them to my Japan board and wanted to link to you. Anyway let me know if you have any other tips about these areas!
Yeah, I gave up on Pinterest a while ago, but thanks for sharing my posts on there!
I’m glad you are going to see some Japanese baseball, EIT. Please take lots of pictures.
I knew you would appreciate that, Gerry! Kevin is pretty excited we’re catching “The Giants” 🙂
EEEE! I’m so envious, I hope to make it to Japan one day. Have a great time and I can’t wait to read about your trip.
Thanks, lady! I hope so, too!
How exciting! 🙂
Thanks, Stephanie! I’m really excited about your trip to Machu Picchu! I can’t wait to see your photos and hear your stories!
I’d love to learn more about how you got your trip funded, how long the process took, and what kind of expectations the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has for your reporting. I have more travel on my to-do list than I can afford, and can probably make a good case for my travel writing credits, but wouldn’t know where to start. Thanks!
Hi Matthew! Glad you chimed in! Keryn Means recommended your book and I ordered it on Kindle the other day. I’m going to start reading it tonight, it looks fantastic! And I’m not sure I’m the best person to talk about this with as I was kind of in the right place at the right time–I learned about this opporunity from a friend of a friend who I met at a dinner party who works for the agency. But if you want to learn more about growing your blog and making more professional connections going to the annual TBEX conference would be very helpful (they haven’t announced this year’s location: http://tbexcon.com/2014-north-america/). With your professional writing experience you’ll have no problem breaking into the network. There are also several travel blog groups on Facebook that might be helpful for you, I’ll send you an email with the links. Hope this helps!
Hey so my suggestions are more food focused. Go to a regular grocery store and just look at some of the items and cost of things, I always go to the bread aisle to get some bread with chocolate swirls in it. I also liked going to a local bakery, certain ones sell breads in the shape of panda or kitty heads. These are normally filled with creme or red bean paste. Another suggestion is try some taiyaki, you can find fresh ones at some of the more tourist shopping spots. Those are filled with red bean paste normally. When we went last time, Dennys was the surprise for me. There was very few items that were what you would find here. I hope an Izakaya is on your list of places to stop as well.
Hi Becky, thanks for these great suggestions! I’m home now but I did read your comment before the trip and they were spot on with what I wanted to experience. I definitely tried the chocolatey bread, but I didn’t find taiyaki! I saw some fish-shaped foods in a department store, but it turned out those were actual fish cakes, not sweets 🙁 I was disappointed by that! I read about the custard filled ones and really wanted to try them. And we did visit an izakaya, it was a really fun night! The waiter kept giving us nice local sake’s to try, and he never charged us for them because he was just excited to share them with foreign travelers. Everyone we met was so nice!
Hello, I was wondering if you have gotten around to the vegetarian tips for eating in Japan. My husband (like yours) is excited to get there and eat everything, I am wondering how many jars of Nutella I must take with me and boxes of granola! Any tips?
Hi Elsa, I have not written that yet, but here are some thoughts:
Look for vegetarian restaurants, or, if you want to be safe, vegan restaurants — or choose the “vegan” option if there is one on the menu. We went to one “organic and fresh vegetable” restaurant and they had several different lunch options. I chose the “vegetable” option, rather than the “vegan” lunch. The vegetable plate was made up of mostly vegetable side dishes, but it included one course that had pork in it! (It was for vegetable-lovers, not vegetarians 🙂
Look for Buddhist temples that serve traditional vegetarian meals called “Shojin-ryori” (the food that zen buddhist monks eat). We went to this one in Kyoto: http://www.insidekyoto.com/shigetsu-restaurant-arashiyama — be sure to walk through the Arashiyama Bamboo forest right next door: https://everintransit.com/arashiyama-bamboo-forest/
At sushi and ramen places we visited for my husband’s sake, I ordered side dishes of kimchi and edemame while my husband ate full meals (note: the kimchi will probably have dashi in it). You can also look for vegetarian maki rolls: avocado rolls, daikon radish rolls, or inari–rice stuffed into sweet soy pockets.
Also, consider staying at a hotel that offers a traditional Japanese breakfast buffet (they usually have some Western options too, like scrambled eggs and fresh fruit), then you can select from among a wide range of food items you feel comfortable with. I filled up each morning on the breakfast buffet in case it was difficult to find food for me later on. My husband went easy on the breakfast because he knew it would be easier for him to find things to eat.
I tried my best to avoid fish and fish stock, but I had a few stumbles and I’m sure I ate a few things that had dashi (bonito fish stock), but that’s okay with me. That’s the tradeoff I make to eat traditional foods–I just do the best that I can. If you are very strict, are religiously vegetarian, OR have a fish or seafood allergy, I would recommend taking a translated card that explains exactly what you can and cannot eat, including specifically that you can’t have dashi (I just did a google search and found these ones: http://www.justhungry.com/japan-dining-out-cards)
Try a Japanese Italian restaurant! Japanese eaters love Italian cuisine and they’ve adapted it to add some Japanese flavors (seafood preparations, Japanese seasonings, etc.) You can order a pizza or pasta dish.
There’s no need to bring Nutella, there are plenty of delicious Japanese sweets to try: Wagashi is the word for traditional Japanese confections. Each area of the country has their own specialty. Do try them all! 🙂 One of my favorites was yatsuhashi, triangle shaped sweets found in souvenir shops and train stations in the Kyoto area. http://content.time.com/time/travel/cityguide/article/0,31489,2049375_2049371_2049342,00.html . When we visited Sendai (an area known for soybean production), we tried edemame-flavored sweets and ice cream (mentioned in these two posts: https://everintransit.com/tag/miyagi/)
Have a wonderful time and let me know how it goes, and if you have any other tips or good foodie finds!
Elsa: I took your comment and turned it into a long overdue post with a few more thoughts –> https://everintransit.com/vegetarian-food-in-japan/
I hope this helps!