I have mixed feelings about our trip to Japan, in large part because of how surprisingly difficult it was to get information beforehand and how difficult it was to get around. We underestimated just how difficult “getting around” would be – from reading the subway maps/signs, to locating specific addresses, to finding restaurants that would accommodate us with our son. Having traveled to Asian countries before, I was surprised to find the lack of children in Tokyo and the hostility towards children, since most Asian countries are full of kids and tend to welcome kids with open arms.
That said, some of the blame is likely entirely our fault as this was the first international trip we took with our son. Although we had traveled with him extensively throughout the United States prior to this trip, we likely over shot in terms of making this around-the-world trip our first International trip with kids. Nevertheless, I loved loved loved our time in Japan and can’t wait to go back. If I could do it differently, though, I would:
hire a local travel guide, or make more heavy use of the concierge at the hotel to identify restaurants
send my husband out to scope out restaurants before venturing out with our son. On a few occasions, my husband did go out and scope out locations while we were resting or napping in the afternoon and that helped significantly in terms of confirming locations and ensuring that they would allow children to dine
not underestimate how important it would be to make prior reservations for better dining establishments. Many of the better rated or better reviewed restaurants are small (think 4-8 tables) and turn over maybe twice during one meal, so it’s imperative that you have prior reservations if you plan to dine
spend more time in Kyoto. Although we never ran out of things to do in Tokyo, it was definitely too overwhelming a place to be with a little kid. In Kyoto, children seemed more welcome, and there was lots more we could have done/seen that would not have involved what seemed like endless walking on city streets
trying to figure out the Japanese bus ticket machine
In terms of getting around, we had a much easier time getting around in Tokyo once we got our bearings. We eventually figured out how to purchase train tickets and the stops were labeled in English so we were able to pinpoint, generally, where we wanted to go. Once we got to our general location, however, it was still sometimes overwhelming in terms of how much walking we had to do to actually locate our destination. The walking became a problem only because we had a 4 year old with us, BUT, to his credit, we easily put 4-7 miles on those legs every single day, and he managed and did it without any major issues.
One of the nicest things about Japan was that everyone was extremely helpful and assisted in making sure that commuters got where they wanted to go. For example, our shuttle stop had an attendant with a loud speaker who would call over the bus and make sure that people who wanted to get back to the hotel got on the correct bus. This was an amazing perk and something that we saw quite a bit of throughout Tokyo.
bus attendant
If you have the opportunity to travel to Japan, I highly recommend it. A more off-the-beaten-path location like Okinawa or Kyoto is likely to be a better destination with kids, especially younger children. If you happen to be planning a trip in the Spring, aim for the cherry blossom season! Hopefully you get lucky like we did and hit them at peak bloom.
We spent three days and two nights in Kyoto and looking back at the pictures now, it truly is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been. Although the weather did not cooperate while we were there (it rained pretty much the entire time), we still hit many of the major sights and were extremely thankful that so many of the ancient temples and sites are still standing. Indeed, Kyoto was on the initial list of atomic bomb targets, but was scrapped from the list thanks to Henry Stimson, then US Secretary of War.
Where we stayed:
Westin Miyako Kyoto – For accommodations, we had a Japanese style room at the Westin Miyako Hotel, which is located about 1/2 mile from the major Kyoto business district. Since the Westin is on a hill, on the rare occasion when it wasn’t raining, we would walk downhill to the main business district, but take a taxi ride back up the hill.
With only six Japanese style rooms on the property, we were thrilled that we were able to book one on points. The six rooms were set apart from the main property, near the gardens, and after checking in, we went in search of our room:
the living room when we arrivedthe Japanese style bath with cedar tub and separate showerA close up of the cedar tub, which my son enjoyed bathing in!
Turn down service as the Westin Kyoto is a lot more involved than just fluffing some pillows and making the bed. While we were out exploring, housekeeping came and made up our beds for the night. They tucked the small table and chairs away and replaced them with heavy futon and bedding. Having grown up sleeping on a true tatami mattress, I felt right at home. My son seemed to enjoy the novelty of it and slept very soundly both nights we were there.
In addition to the Japanese style room, we also loved the breakfast buffet at the hotel. We ventured over to the main dining room our first morning there and quickly decided that it would be the perfect place to start our day. At the time, breakfast was ~$30USD per adult for the buffet, but we were happy to sample the different cuisine from the comfort of our hotel room.
rice with assorted seasonings, seaweed soup, various fish/futomaki/pickles, tea
Although my husband and I were thrilled to sample the traditional Japanese foods for breakfast, they also had a number of regular breakfast items. It was no trouble at all getting my son fed and, in fact, we saw numerous groups of families there with children ranging from infants to teen.
The other nice thing about the Westin is that they have their own private trails behind the hotel. We took advantage of the trails the morning of our departure, to stretch our legs.
Give a four year old a walking stick and some trails and he’s gold!
As I mentioned earlier, the Westin is on the top of a hill, so at some point on the trails, you come across clearing where you can look down and see the commercial Kyoto district. The hotel had this handy guide to point things out.
his own private torii gate adventure
What we did:
We didn’t let the rain deter us as we knew there was tons to see in Kyoto. After filling up on breakfast, we took a taxi ride from the hotel to our starting destination. Luckily, the taxis outside the Westin were familiar with the tourist spots, so we had no problems communicating where we wanted to be taken.
Our first stop was the Arashiyama District, where we intended to catch at least two major sights: the bamboo grove and the Tenryuji Temple.
Arashiyama Bamboo Grove – My husband said we were going to a bamboo forest and I wasn’t quite sure why. That is, until I saw the magnitude of the forest!
These photos do not accurately portray just how surreal walking in a bamboo forest is. Luckily, the “trail” is paved so even though it was wet, we had no issues walking the path. It would easily be something a stroller could accommodate. There were still a fair amount of tourists, though, even in the abysmal weather, so I imagine this is a place that can become overwhelmingly crowded very quickly.
Tenryuji Temple – Our walk in the bamboo forest conveniently let us out at the Tenryuji Temple. The temple is a UNESCO world heritage site and there were plenty of tourists, even in the bad weather.
The cherry trees were just starting to bloom in Kyoto.I love Japanese architecture, especially doors!My four year old was a real champ, despite the pouring rain. It helped that we let him carry his own umbrella.
side view of the temple (not a great shot as it was overcast and rainy)
Much of the area surrounding the temple is pebble/gravel, so it could be difficult to maneuver a stroller. If necessary, I would prefer using a baby carrier to a stroller for that reason alone.
Fushimi Inari Shrine – No trip to Kyoto is complete with a trip to the famous Fushimi Inari Shrine. We visited on our third day in Kyoto and the weather was decidedly nicer than the previous day.
The first thing we encountered when we arrived on the main temple grounds was this water/bamboo/cup fountain. It wasn’t a hand washing station and it wasn’t a drinking fountain (but I saw quite a few people sip from the cup and then back wash it back into the basin).
The instructive placard wasn’t much help in deciphering whether the spitting was appropriate or not. For the record, we did not spit.
There were numerous stations around the temple where you could write a message and hang your message/wish/prayer.
One of many shrine buildings, where we saw monks come and worship during our visit.
The Fushimi Imari Shrine is probably most visited, however, for the famous torii gates. Behind the temples, there are two trails of parallel torii gates.
the gates are donated by individuals and companies and names are inscribed accordinglyThis is what the start of the trails look like. Pick one (left or right) and start walking!
As you get further up in the trails, the crowds get sparse and the density of the gates also diminishes. The path also starts off paved, but eventually you find yourself winding your way through actual trails.
I would not recommend attempting to maneuver a stroller on these paths, and children who do not stay close should be watched closely, especially in the early part where there are dense crowds. After turning back, we went down to the commercial area near the shrine, where there were numerous tourist shops and street food vendors.
What we ate:
Our first night in Kyoto was a colossal fail. We walked down to the business district from the hotel and had a difficult time discerning restaurants from residences. We ended up dining at what could only be described as a Japanese truck stop before giving up and heading back to the hotel. The next day, my husband ventured out for a run through the business district while my son and I attempted to dry out our shoes. He located two restaurants, confirmed that they would both be open for dinner and later that night, we headed over to one of them.
As you can see, the menus we were presented with weren’t exactly helpful. Luckily, I can read the numbers on the bottom of the menu, telling us how much the meals cost. We blindly ordered our food and just trusted that it would be fine – and it was. I don’t recall the name of the restaurant, but I can tell you were enjoyed it tremendously. The hosts were also fantastic – serving my young son his own bowl of noodles and tamago (the baked egg dish you see on the bottom right of the photo with the noodles).
In addition to dining at the one restaurant in downtown Kyoto, we also dined at a restaurant in the Arashiyama district, after touring the bamboo forest and temple. We blindly chose a restaurant in the tourist area after a colossal fail on our part – based on a glowing recommendation in a tour book, we had walked over three miles in the rain and wind to find a restaurant nestled somewhere in the woods. We found the restaurant – but learned upon arrival that it was reservations only.
The awful gloomy weather we dragged our young son through in search of the “reservations only” restaurant that we did not have reservations for. Oops.
Luckily, the food at our randomly chosen restaurant was delicious and they even had instructions for eating the special tofu skin soup. I was thrilled, by that point, to get out of the rain and eat something warm, but the food was delicious. We typically stay away from restaurants in tourist locations when traveling, but Japan might be the exception.
The Kyoto train station is massive and has dozens of eateries. On the day of our departure, we wanted to ensure plenty of time as we were taking a scheduled bullet train and didn’t want to miss it, but of course, that left us with extra time at the train station and right around lunch. Luckily, we didn’t have much difficulty figuring out what we wanted to eat – eel bowls! These were delicious! I’ll also say that we did not have a lot of trouble figuring out what to order or what the different restaurants served, as plastic food samples are a big thing and each storefront had 3D samples of what they were offering.
plastic food offering a visual of what’s on the menuhalf eel / half egg-eel omeletI am a purist and stuck with the eel.
How we got around:
We arrived in Kyoto via train and from the main train station, we took the Westin Kyoto shuttle to the hotel and back. Finding the shuttle stop at the train station proved a bit difficult. I believe when we booked our rooms, the Westin website only said there was “shuttle service,” so upon arrival, we simply wandered to where most of the shuttles appeared to be picking up the guests. The Westin pick up location, however, was at a separate entrance than the one we had been waiting at — which we discovered only after waiting for 45+ minutes. The website has since been amended to state: The resort shuttle can be found at the Hachijo Exit and the shuttle runs every 20 minutes.
We also traveled around Kyoto via taxi and had no trouble communicating with the taxi driver. I suppose they get enough tourists to know the words for the main destinations and we simply handed him money based on what was on the meter.
We did continue to experience difficulty in purchasing train tickets, however. We never got proficient at purchasing train tickets during our time in Japan.
We quickly learned to always use the customer service window where someone who spoke some English could help us. This included purchasing our Tokaido Shinkansen (the bullet train) tickets, which took us on to our last destination — Tokyo!
I’ll be the first to admit that our time in Osaka started out rough. After finally clearing customs and making our way into a taxi, we were met with blank stares by the taxi driver who didn’t seem to understand “Westin” or “Westin hotel.” It wasn’t until I pulled out our hotel confirmation that he seemed to understand where we wanted to go. Although it seems silly in the age of smartphones and wifi-everywhere, I still print out hard copies of our entire travel itinerary when we travel and keep them in a binder for this very reason – to pull out when there’s a glitch or other issue with a reservation. Although 99% of the time I never need the hard copy, on the occasions where I have needed, it has been very handy. I’ve even had reservation representatives thank me for having hard copies with confirmations numbers that they can take with them when trying to sort out an issue.
We had no set agenda in Osaka, nor did we have much of a plan. We knew that it was the second largest city in Japan and that it was more of the business/financial district than a tourist destination like Kyoto or Japan, so after unpacking and freshening up, we wandered outside on foot to explore. Admittedly, we elected not to get into a taxi because we had no set plan and also because we feared more language woes.
Luckily, we stumbled across two things that really made our 24 hour stay in Osaka:
We spotted the large orange/red ferris wheel in the distance and, although I have a pathological fear of heights that precludes me from ferris wheels (including enclosed ones!), my husband and son enjoyed the ride.
After the Ferris Wheel, we walked around the surrounding area, the Tempozan Harbor Village, where there were lots of shops and small businesses. We stopped for ice cream and then just continued to walk around the area. One interesting thing that we came across was the Umeda Sky building with walkable bridge. Although we did not elect to take the walk across the sky bridge, it is definitely something older children would enjoy.
We did not go up the Umeda Sky building and walk across the bridge, but we did enjoy the replica building in the lobby!Plenty of fun things for kids, including massive ice cream sundaes, which of course we stopped for!
After a few hours of wandering around on foot, both my son and I were tired and wanted to go back to the hotel to rest. Although my husband wanted to go out for dinner, my son and I elected to just go back to the hotel for the night. I don’t recall what we did for dinner that night, but I do remember that the thought of venturing out again and trying to find a place to eat was just too overwhelming.
The next morning, I woke up early due jet lag and poked around online looking for things to do. We weren’t scheduled to depart for Kyoto by train until later that day, so we were looking for something interesting. I found that there was a Central fish market in Osaka that was a smaller scale version of the famous Tsukiji market in Tokyo.
As it was already 4:45 am, I knew that we needed to get a move on things if we wanted to see the good stuff! I quickly got my husband on board, woke our son up, and we went to the front desk to request a cab. Upon entering the cab, we encountered the same issues we had experienced the day before – the taxi driver did not know where we wanted to go. With the help of hotel reception (who thankfully spoke English!), we were soon on our way.
Pulling up to the fish market was somewhat terrifying as it was still dark and there was no obvious sign of where we were. It looked like the cab driver was dropping us off in a commercial area with no apparent signs of life.
I had no idea where we were going, but headed towards the one big building off in the distance. Upon entering the building, we quickly realized we had entered the right place. We found ourselves in a huge room filled with all kinds of sealife in various stages – from living to flash frozen and ready for shipping!
fisherman working on fileting their morning tuna catchchunks of flash frozen tuna, ready for sale/transportlive king crab that we were invited to pet!sorting out the morning’s catcheach of those white bins contains ice and some kind of seafoodfilleting a giant fish on the floor
We were the only tourists there and stuck out like sore thumbs. The fishermen were incredibly friendly and, although not a one spoke English, they were happy to see us and encouraged us to take photos. At one stall, the fisherman even invited my son to pet the living King Crab that was trying to climb its way out of the ice box!
If you find yourself in Osaka, this is a must see experience! Not only was it much more manageable than the Tsukiji fish market sounds, it was much more personal experience. The only difficulty will be trying to find out where you’re heading and, as this blog post from June 2016 suggests, the signage hasn’t improved since we were there in March of 2014!
After finishing up at the fish market, we were starving as we had been up for a few hours and hadn’t eaten a thing. One of the websites that had recommended the Central Fish Market suggested a small place called Endo Sushi. Although sushi sounded awful for breakfast (and still does), we were in Japan and I figured, hey, if they were selling it, it must be good!
It was somewhat difficult to locate Endo Sushi (the website says after “entering the area of the Osaka Central Fish Market, please go towards the left side of the building”), but after wandering around the block a few times, we finally came across it. We were quickly seated and presented with a menu.
It was still dark when we finally found Endo Sushi!
Although the proprietor did not speak English and we got some curious looks, we had no trouble ordering one each of #1 and #2 – never under estimate the power of pointing your index finger!
Our food came quickly and was outstanding; I also loved the novelty of the bowl of soy sauce, with the brush that we used to gently brush soy sauce onto our nigiri.
help yourself soy sauce and fresh ginger
Now, you may be wondering what kind of 4 year old eats sushi for breakfast? My answer? I don’t know. Endo Sushi is located in a strip mall, and I ducked into a small corner store just a few stores down that happened to have a variety of sweet and savory rolls (the bread kind, not the sushi kind). I picked up a few rolls and brought them into Endo Sushi, where my son happily sat and munched while we enjoyed our sushi. Nobody seemed to mind that he was there, and they even offered him some miso soup, which he was happy to devour along with his roll.
By the time we finished eating, it was time to head back to the hotel, gather our things, and go to the train station. It was a relatively easy walk to the train station, where we purchased our tickets to Kyoto. Figuring out what tickets we needed was a bit difficult given that the signs were all in Japanese. The only things we could decipher were the names of the stops (Kyoto) and the prices in yen, but we had no idea whether there were different rates for children versus adults. Luckily, each Japanese train station has two things that proved immensely helpful as we were traveling through the country: 1) a staffed window with a knowledgeable and friendly transit employee, ready to help, and 2) extraordinarily friendly Japanese passengers who were willing to stop and help us purchase our tickets when we were confused. We took advantage of their friendliness and willingness to help whenever we could and that really made getting around Japan less stressful than it would have been without their assistance.
Although our first 24 hours in Japan started out rough and was overwhelming, I wouldn’t hesitate to go back to Osaka. It is a perfect starting point for a trip across the Island, and I highly recommend the Osaka Central Fish Market as the perfect first day in Japan adventure – since the Fish Market opens so early and you’ll likely be jet lagged, it’s a great thing to do when you’re awake, but most of the rest of the world is still sleeping. Moreover, the fishermen seemed to genuinely enjoy that we had our son with us and went out of their way to show up things – like the friendly king crab!
As you get further up in the trails, the crowds get sparse and the density of the gates also diminishes. The path also starts off paved, but eventually you find yourself winding your way through actual trails.
Now, you may be wondering what kind of 4 year old eats sushi for breakfast? My answer? I don’t know. Endo Sushi is located in a strip mall, and I ducked into a small corner store just a few stores down that happened to have a variety of sweet and savory rolls (the bread kind, not the sushi kind). I picked up a few rolls and brought them into Endo Sushi, where my son happily sat and munched while we enjoyed our sushi. Nobody seemed to mind that he was there, and they even offered him some miso soup, which he was happy to devour along with his roll.