ギア-GEAR-

Itinerary / recommendations We spent six days in Tokyo, two in Hakone, and five in Kyoto. Given perfect foresight, we would have spent a day less in Tokyo. While Tokyo has some great museums and sightseeing, its biggest draws were the shopping and mind-boggling infrastructure. We easily could have spent another day in Kyoto either exploring here or taking a side trip. Tokyo Ginza is full of department stores, restaurants, and nightlife. The department stores are awesome. The basement levels of every floor have entire floors devoted to prepared foods. The restaurants here tend to be a bit spendy. The Imperial Palace nearby has beautiful grounds. Visiting the palace takes some planning; the hours are limited and tours fill up quickly. The Tsukiji Outer Market is the biggest food market in Tokyo and has plenty of other random things for sale. Sushi for breakfast? Absolutely. A tourist trap I was happy to fall into. TeamLab Planets is an immersive (literally, shin-deep in water at times) art exhibit. My wife and had a blast here. I would book this a bit in advance; the better time slots tend to fill up. The Miyzaki museum needs to be booked way, way in advance. Akihabara is Japan's anime & pop culture hub and is absolutely worth a visit if you are at all into anime or just wants to see a very different neighborhood. Arcades are a huge deal here and can be a great place to kill some time. We found our favorite coffee shop in Tokyo here, Vault Coffee, which is run by a single (very) young man. Nearby is 2k540 Aki-Oka Artisan, a collection of shops selling handmade goods shoehorned in under a viaduct. Lots of neat stuff in here, in a really interesting space. Shibuya is famous for the "Shibuya scramble", the world's busiest pedestrian crossing. The official stores of a number of gaming companies can be found here, including the only Nintendo store. The mall PARCO has the most insane collection of couture fashion I have ever seen; it was worth visiting this neighborhood just to see such wild clothing being sold (and worn!). The Tokyo National Museum has an incredible collection. Thousand-year old katanas that look like they could be brand new, 1200 year old, somehow perfectly preserved wooden statues, and artwork spanning Japan's thousand-plus year history. Jonas will need to pick his spots unless he wants to spend a whole day here. Hakone The point of Hakone are the onsen (bathhouses) fed by the many hot springs in the area. There are some relatively inexpensive places to stay here. Great place to relax for a couple of days. Stayed in the Hotel Indigo, which I cannot recommend enough. The town of Gora literally has steaming water bubbling out of driveways and flowing through spillways at all hours. The drive/train trip up is stunning. In Gora, there is a cable car and then a ropeway that goes up to the top of Owakudani with sulfurous gas pouring out of the mountainside. I think every person in the ropeway said "whoa!" out loud when we crested over the top and it came into view. This also gave us the best view of Mount Fuji on the trip. Kyoto Kyoto was Japan's capital for a thousand years, and, as such, has a wealth of incredible historical sites to visit. The Otagi Nenbutsuji Temple has 1200 statues carved by people who made pilgrimages to learn how to carve (and thus were amateurs). This is one my favorite places to have ever visited. The statues are so unique and so expressive, and the entire temple was designed with such intent, that there is a certain magic captured here that has to be experienced. To get here, take a train to Arashiyama and then catch a taxi up to the temple. From there, it's an easy walk down into the town. While in Arashiyama, we came across Cafe Dining Sera, which is a bit off the beaten path, and was one of the more unique places we dined in Kyoto. Lunch was fantastic and was still pretty cheap (~$10). This is near the Bamboo Forest, which is mostly a photo-op, and Daikuku-ji Temple. This temple has a statue of the Buddha from 932, the oldest man-made pond in Japan (~1150 years old!), and it's still a functioning place of worship. There were people transcribing the sutras and monks chanting when we visited. The statues at the entrance are absolutely frightening. Finally, also in Arashiyama is the Iwatayama Monkey Park. After a hike to the top of a mountain, with some of the best views in Kyoto, you enter a park with monkeys absolutely everywhere. Pretty fun experience. We stayed in the Cross Hotel, which is excellent. If you don't stay here, look for something in this neighborhood - the location is perfect. It's right in the midst of restaurants, arcades, karaoke and other nightlife, and an incredible amount of thrift shopping. Big Time was my favorite thrift shop; that being said, there is something for every taste here. The Fushimi Inari Taisha is a temple with over 10,000 gates that you walk under. This temple is home to the patron deity of business, and every last gate here is sponsored by a business. The gates follow a long trail to the top of a mountain, where you will see amazing views of the entire city. I recommend starting early; this is 2+ hours of walking. The final set of temples and shrines we enjoyed were the Yasaka Shrine and the adjoining Chion-in Temple. It's worth walking there from the Pontocho area because the walk goes through Gion, a historic district of Kyoto famous for its geishas. The shine, which dates from 656 (!!!), is one of the most impressive we saw on the trip. The Chion-in temple is a short walk from the shrine. This temple is the headquarters of the Pure Land Sect and is a functioning religious site. The (rather imposing) main gate is the largest of its kind. The main hallway is one of the most beautiful holy sites I have ever had the fortune of visiting. We had an absolute blast at a show named GEAR that is sort of like Cirque du Soleil in subminiature (5 performers in a very intimate theatre). Finally, the Kyoto Railway Museum is the perfect place to geek out while viewing  many generations of Japanese trains, from the steam era all the way through the newest shinkansen. The museum has very thorough explanations of all of the technology their trains use. He will need Google Lens to translate. Travel tips Many places are cash only. 7-11s are ubiquitous here and have interoperable ATMs, so reloading cash is easy. No need to convert currency while still in the United States. If you bring a large suitcase, I highly recommend using luggage forwarding (ta-q-bin) to send bags ahead to the next destination rather than haul large bags onto trains. Every hotel offers this. It costs less than $20 to overnight a bag from Tokyo to Kyoto. It rains a lot in Japan. Rain gear is a must. No need to bring an umbrella, a large one is less than $5, and can even be had from vending machines. I suspect you will be taking trains everywhere. If you have an iPhone (not Android!), you can pay for public transportation on his phone using Pasmo or Suica. This will spare the annoyance of buying many, many train tickets. Many places (museums, restaurants, etc) do not have English signage. Google Lens solves this problem. Even if your cellular plan has roaming, it's worth getting an esim to have access to more bandwidth for looking things up, traveling point to point, etc. I got a plan from Ubigi for $17 that covered our needs.