Surprise! You're flying luxury
The kids found out at the gate. Eleven hours later, a Nintendo escalator in Shinjuku said Welcome to JAPAN, and the whole thing started for real.
Magic show and fine dining at Ninja Tokyo
Booked as dinner, delivered as theatre. A chef appeared at the table with fire in his hands, dessert arrived inside a box of dry ice, and the A5 wagyu turned out to be the thing everyone still talks about.
Akihabara, and the first climbing gym
Electric Town in the afternoon — walls of manga, card shops stacked to the ceiling — then straight to B-Pump Akihabara. Climbing turned out to be the thread that ran through the entire trip: a bouldering gym in every city, shoes rented in four languages.
Christmas morning at the hedgehog cafe
Not a metaphor: Christmas Day began with a room full of hedgehogs, a tray of mealworms and a strict sign about the exercise wheel. The panda mice were the surprise hit.
Shibuya
The crossing at eleven in the morning is a different animal from the crossing at midnight — and they did both, six days apart. In between: Shibuya 109, the Mugiwara Store, and a Don Quijote run that took longer than anyone planned.
Madness in Harajuku
Takeshita Street on Christmas afternoon, shoulder to shoulder the whole way down. Rainbow cotton candy taller than a head, a Chainsaw Man exhibition, and back rooms full of original art and fandom worlds.
Christmas in Japan
No tree, no wrapping paper. Christmas was five people in one hotel apartment, a table covered in cards to sort, a convenience-store haul, and nowhere else to be. One room = major bonding, 24/7.
Nozomi 327, and tea at the temple
Shinagawa at 10:01, Kyoto by lunch, Mt. Fuji out the right-hand window somewhere around Shizuoka. The afternoon went to a tea ceremony on tatami — kneeling, whisking, and drinking it in three turns of the bowl.
Nishiki Market
Five blocks of covered arcade and roughly four hundred things to eat. Takoyaki made in front of you, A5 wagyu on a skewer for ¥1,500, dorayaki, tempura, and a lantern ceiling the whole way down.
Fushimi Inari, before the crowds
Out the door early and up the mountain — roughly ten thousand vermilion gates, each one paid for by a business, name and date carved into the back. The first stretch was packed. Twenty minutes higher it emptied out, and it stayed that way to the summit view over Kyoto.
Sushi Army
A class in Nippombashi: rice, vinegar, a bamboo mat and an instructor with real patience. Everyone plated their own board and wrote on it in sauce. One said SUSHI ARMY. One said JAPAN '25.
Dotonbori
The canal at golden hour, the Glico Man with his arms up, and a Don Quijote with a ferris wheel bolted to the front of it. Everyone did the pose. Nobody was above it.
Nara: the deer that bow
Twelve hundred sika deer roam Nara Park, and they have learned that a bow gets a cracker. Buy a stack of shika senbei and you become the most interesting person in the prefecture — briefly, and then not at all.
Todai-ji, and the Buddha's nostril
The Great Buddha Hall is one of the largest wooden buildings on earth, and the bronze Buddha inside is fifteen metres tall. At the back, one pillar has a hole cut through it the size of the Buddha's nostril. Squeeze through and you're said to be granted enlightenment. Everyone tried.
A day off, more or less
Pancakes for breakfast, D. Bouldering Namba in the afternoon, an escape room in the evening, and a long slow browse through One Piece singles in glass cases. The kind of day that doesn't make the itinerary and ends up in the top three.
teamLab Planets
Shoes off at the door, trousers rolled to the knee, and then two hours of walking barefoot through water, mirrors, projected koi and a room of glowing eggs that change colour when you push them. The koi burst into flowers when you touch them. Photographs get about half of it.
Lots of trains, and a lot of walking
Somewhere between fifteen and twenty thousand steps a day, most of it on marble station floors. The trains stopped being a novelty around day four and became the way the day was shaped.
GoOoOoo Tyler
New Year's Day at a sumo stable: the shiko stomp, the butsukari drill where one wrestler slams into another's chest until he can't stand, and then an open invitation to the ring. Tyler was the only one who took it. He got tied into a mawashi by the stablemaster and went in against a professional.
Eat, walk, repeat
Tsukiji Outer Market in the morning — maguro on a paper plate, a tamagoyaki sheet the size of a place mat, crab legs eaten standing up. Then Ginza, and coffee at Nissan Crossing with your own face printed in the foam.
Skytree, and the last full day
Met up with Kris, Drew and Evan at the top of Tokyo Skytree — 350 metres up, the whole city flat below and Tokyo Bay at the edge of it. Then ramen, piggybacks down empty side streets, and the last few hours of a trip nobody wanted to end.
Haneda, 7:40pm
Subway selfies on the Asakusa line to the airport, and then ten hours back across the Pacific, landing in Los Angeles seven hours before they took off, at least on paper.
