Takeaways From Two Weeks in Japan

Before our first visit to Japan, everyone said we’d be blown away, life-changed by going there. They weren’t wrong. Originally published as an Eat Your World newsletter in July 2025.

It took us far too long, decades of traveling, to get to Japan. And when we finally visited for two weeks with our kids in July of last year, we were struck by just how different, how interesting, how delicious and clean the country is as a whole. We divided our time simply for this first trip: five days in Tokyo, five days in Kyoto (with day trips to Osaka and Nara), two days in Fujikawaguchiko (a small town in the countryside around Mount Fuji), a final night in Tokyo before flying out. In retrospect, it was the perfect two-week Japan itinerary for our family, with one exception—I wanted a bit more time in Osaka.

On the flight home, as I started to process the trip, some immediate takeaways sprang to mind. A year later, they still ring true.

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Japan truly does many things much better.

It was a common talking point among our family: Which of Japan’s norms do you wish were in the U.S.? The amazing toilets were often at the top of this list–even the public train-station toilets feel luxurious and clean in Japan (we’ve since outfitted our own bathroom with a Toto washlet and electronic bidet!). But we also loved the hotel-provided yukatas (robes) and onsens (hot baths), the vending machines on every block, and the convenience stores on every other block (7-Eleven, Family Mart, Lawson’s) that had truly good, and inexpensive, prepared foods. I enjoyed not having to think about tipping in Japan–it is just not a thing there, and it makes dining out so much cheaper (I presume restaurant staff and taxi drivers are paid a living wage instead).

We agreed it was annoying that there were never any garbage cans on the street, but marveled that people didn’t litter AT ALL (they also don’t eat while they walk, which was hard for a family of New Yorkers to accept, but I appreciated how it made us slow down and focus on the food). Also, the politeness! You are warmly greeted every time you enter a restaurant; people don’t speak loudly on trains, they carry their bags in front of them so as not to take up excess room … and public transport is unfailingly efficient and on time (in contrast to NYC’s well-connected but often-delayed subway system).  

It’s overwhelming, but do the work when planning a trip to Japan.

I struggled to plan this trip, mostly because I was too busy to focus on it until a few weeks before we left, and then started to deep-dive on reading books, watching some YouTubes, doubling the number of restaurants and shops on my Google map, and making a few reservations. It was a lot all at once, but would have felt easier if I’d started earlier. (Last-minute planning is kind of my thing; fortunately my husband researched and booked accommodation months in advance, and planned a baseball game in Tokyo with his work colleagues there. And thankfully I did book—and recommend booking!—teamLab Planets a month-plus in advance, and two animal cafes I knew my kids would enjoy.)

It’s worth it to consume as much as you can, just to go into this culture a little less clueless. My kids loved the “what not to do in Japan” videos they found–and they were truly helpful (or we would have had to learn the hard way not to open our own taxi doors!). You’ll still know next to nothing, but it will be something. ​
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Recommendation: Michael Booth’s Sushi + Beyond: What the Japanese Know About Cooking, which I purchased in 2011 for the original trip to Japan we’d planned (canceled after an earthquake and tsunami triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster a month prior to our departure). It proved to still be a great read as a sort of overview of Japanese cuisine and culture, and even led us to a wonderful experience at Izuu for Kyoto’s OG saba-zushi (mackerel sushi).

Accept you will barely touch this country.

In A Beginner’s Guide to Japan, Pico Iyer opens by noting he’s lived in western Japan for more than 32 years, and yet: “to my delight, I know far less than when I arrived.” Imagine having just two weeks! Tokyo has a reported 160K restaurants (NYC has fewer than 30K), all stacked on top of one another, clustered in food courts, or hidden down alleys. My Google map had 224 restaurants/shops/sites saved for this trip, recommendations from trusted friends, newsletters, media, books–and we went to maybe 10 percent of them. Every neighborhood of every city contains multitudes. On our first full day, we met an off-duty tour guide who told us we really only needed to visit two shrines/temples in Tokyo: Meiji-Jingu and Senso-ji. We were so relieved. You’ll see what you’ll see, and it will be fantastic.

Summer is not a great time to visit Japan with kids.

Unfortunately it’s the only time of year we could visit without pulling ours out of school, but damn, it was hot. Like the brief heat waves in NYC when we are actively trying to stay in air-conditioning, except instead we’re outside walking 20K steps every day. It’s not pretty, and all the handheld misting fans and sun umbrellas in the world barely make a dent. (To be clear, both of those things are still musts. Linen clothing is also your friend!)

Thankfully there are a lot of shopping malls in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka with blasting A/C. Of course, you should still go with your kids if this is the only time you can do it, but know that every visit to every outdoor shrine will quickly become tortuous to them. Next time we are going to Hokkaido in the north in the summer. (Note that the area around Mount Fuji was blissfully cooler than the cities we visited, and I wholeheartedly recommend going there.)

Get out of the cities. (Or, why you should visit a small town like Fujikawaguchiko.)

For this, our first visit to Japan, we knew we needed to experience Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. Many people add Hiroshima to that itinerary, and we considered it, but I knew that two full weeks of sweaty city sightseeing was going to be too much for our kids, and I was right. Instead we stayed two nights at an Airbnb in small-town Fujikawaguchiko in Yamanashi Prefecture, which we reached easily from Kyoto by taking a train to a bus. I only wish we’d had more time there. We rented a car via the house too, which was exactly what we needed. Driving around between small towns, stopping wherever we pleased, is definitely our family’s preferred way to explore a place, and we managed to see and do a lot in our short time there. (And our kids were grateful to have Netflix access after days of Japanese-only TV in the hotels!)

The countryside around Mt. Fuji has recently been in the news for overtourism, which seems to be plaguing more and more of Japan. Fujikawaguchiko was definitely not overtouristed in the month of July, and still offered stunning views of Fuji at every turn, flower-ringed lakes, peaceful onsens, and more. Our family swam in Lake Saiko, visited ice and wine caves, and walked through the gorgeous Aokigahara “Sea of Trees” forest. At Ide Sake Brewery we bought sake to enjoy later on our rooftop; we dined on local houtou noodles and udon (it was even cool enough to dine outside!), and we enjoyed sake ice cream and seasonal flavors like lavender, kyoho grape, and white peach. We easily booked a last-minute private room in an onsen with unbelievable sunset views of Mt. Fuji out the window. It was perfection. I’m sure visiting during April’s cherry blossom season is another story, so be warned—and please be a good, respectful visitor any time you go.

There aren’t lines at every restaurant in Japan.

I heard this from a few people, and you’ll certainly see this on social media, but we didn’t have this experience at all. We waited on exactly three lines for food (the longest one wasn’t for a restaurant at all, but a festival food in Kyoto we were curious about). We did make a few reservations (including one excellent omakase at Michelin-starred Udatsu Sushi, which was welcoming to kids), but only days in advance (not months!), and generally we just didn’t encounter many queues. Is it because we don’t generally take recs from TikTok and Instagram? I’m not sure, but walking into restaurants wasn’t nearly as intimidating as I was led to believe, even for some Michelin-noted spots. Again, visiting during the springtime high season could certainly yield a different result.

Don’t stress too much about where to go.

You’ll make it to some places your friends recommend, but you’ll also inevitably find your own spots (like this incredible $7 breakfast we stumbled on our last morning in Tokyo), the restaurants you wander past that look good, the shops that call to you. Among the country’s many vintage clothing stores, my kids found the perfect one for them in Kyoto, a store called Blue that sells all manner of rock-band T-shirt, patches, pins, and even socks. We visited this store on two different days and probably spent a good 90 minutes inside. In Japan it’s ideal to have a loose agenda that allows plenty of time to just open-endedly explore, whether that means peeking into a beautiful shrine nestled among the high-rises or examining Metallica socks in a shop blasting Green Day. As we all quickly learned, you just never know what you’re gonna find in Japan.

Do buy a knife in Japan, if you cook.

A year later, the item we use the most from our trip is the gorgeous wooden-handled steel chef’s knife we purchased at Musashi in Kyoto. Every time I use it, I think of Japan. And I can’t say that about every bag of Kit-Kats and facial mask I also came home with. Also, for the shoppers, know the name Don Quijote—it’s the largest discount store in Japan, and has so many of the things you’ll want to buy—and expect to buy an extra piece of cheap luggage to haul everything home in!

One last recommendation: The eSim provider I purchased for this two-week trip, Holafly, worked without a hitch everywhere we traveled in Japan–unlimited data for less than $7 per day, and I used the heck out of it. We set it up on the way to the airport and did nothing else. If you’re traveling internationally soon, use this link to score 5 percent off.