Japan Trip 2025

We initially booked our flight through Chase Travel. Taking United from PHX to NRT with a layover in SFO. I decided in the last few weeks before our departure to upgrade our seats to business class. The first reason being to help protect my back after such a long flight. The other becuse I've never flown business, wanted to try it out. I figured it would be a good way to start this trip.

Pro trip, if you book through an agent like Chase, make sure they're the ones that upgrade your flight, don't do it online. It took a few hours on the phone and a knowledgeable gate agent to get it fixed after I tried to do the upgrade through United's website.

Ueno came up consistently as a good place to start when exploring Tokyo. It's a straight shot from NRT to Ueno on the Keisei Skyliner, and Ueno station connects to both the shinkansen and the Yamanote line, opening up the rest of the country. Tickets from NRT to Ueno were ~$15 or so, and we booked a stay at the APA hotel next to Ueno station.

Our first day there we investigated Ueno Park, went on a bar hopping tour of Ameyokocho, and met up with Joe & Company at Ginza Happa in Shinjuku for Sarah's birthday. We also made sure to get our personalized Suica cards and try the konbini egg sandos!

We didn't account for the 3 day weekend making Ameyokocho ridiculously busy. We had fun on our tour, but it would've been a bit more fun if things were less crowded. I wasn't feeling great after the second bar, so we cut it a bit short.

Since we were NOT adjusted to the time just yet, we were up and ready WAY too early. Decided to walk to Asakusa and explore Sensoji temple. We avoided most of the crowds at the temple doing it that way.

We also got to visit Hoppy street. It's a short street near the temple with plenty of places to relax and drink. I was very excited to enjoy the namesake drink while there.

I suppose no trip to Japan is complete without a beach episode. We spent a few days in Kamakura. This allowed us to spend time exploring Komachi Dori, Enoshima Island, & a few temples in the area.

We first spent time exploring Kamakura, specifically Komachi Dori. My biggest takeaway? There's a lot of places that serve sausages in that town. Notable restaurants are Barchies and Samurai Sausage.

The next day was for Enoshima Island with a side of beachcombing. We were able to take the Enoden train from Kamakura station. Anna also tried the regional specialty, whitebait.

Final day in Kamakura included more beachcombing, and visits to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu temple and the Great Buddha.

This is where we settled for the last half of the trip. Booked the JR East Mets Koenji Hotel, right on top of the train station.

I thought it would be fun to go to a show while we were in town. Koenji is known for having a few music venues. I didn't think I'd find something good so soon! Walking around Koenji and we found Showboat. Looking up the show for that evening decided it for us. It was sort of an alt / punk show featuring Dirty Old Drunx, PET, The Paint It Blue, and The Nuggets! Definitely a highlight of the trip.

One reason I picked Koenji was for it's proximity to Nakano Broadway. Nakano Broadway is a mall known for watches and nerdy botique shops. I had high hopes for the watch shopping, but almost all shops were outside my budget. Think Rolex, Omega, etc. We were, however, able to visit Cafe Zingaro and Tonari No Zingaro where I bought up a sweet Takashi Murakami hat. I also bought some Japanese Magic The Gathering cards at Mandarake.

James was on a shorter timeline than us. He decided to get a room at the same hotel as us in Koenji. We packed a lot into the last few days he had in town including some shopping in Koenji, a visit to Shinjuku, and some questionable sashimi.

The final few days of our trip. We booked a tour to visit Omoide Yokocho. I absolutely forgot to take pictures of the place as I was too busy getting to know the others on the tour, still bummed about that. However, it was a fun experience and I'd recommend it to anyone else interested. After the tour, we spent some time in Golden Gai. Not getting back to the hotel until almost 5am.

All I can say, is that this was exhausting. I managed to watch all the recent spiderman movies on the overnight flight. I also purchased lounge access for our layover in SFO, helped make it worth it when we passed out in the "Quiet Room" of the lounge.

Bought some neat things on this trip! Many stores in Tokyo let you buy things tax free, giving you an instant 10% off the standard price. I saved a few hundred bucks on the watches I bought. Also saved money on my Hard Rock Ueno t-shirt, go figure. Not pictured here are a number of gachas, a sweet Jet Pen, and some souvenir t-shirts.

• Seiko SRPH33
• Japanese Magic Cards
• Family Mart Socks
• Casio Oceanus OCW-S100

There are two live streams I've found on YouTube that stream Kabukicho. I orignally just pulled screenshots on my phone, but I figure embedding them is more entertaining. You can see when Anna, James, and I found the street!