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Tuning into Tokyo

Every day a surprise in the Land of the Rising Sun

By Jamie Martin

January 6^th, 2025

Thursday, December 19, 2024

Somewhere over the Pacific about a thousand miles from Tokyo, I started booking hotels and restaurants for our two-week tour of Japan. We left Atlanta with only one hotel booked—our first three nights. I never plan our trips very far in advance, but even for me this was extreme. As we soared through the air at 550mph on two Rolls-Royce turbofan engines, I researched hotels and neighborhoods; trains and schedules; Michelin stars and food stalls. Plans within plans as the hours wound down to wheels down.

Delta had added the original 1954 Godzilla to the in-flight menu, which paired nicely with whiskey and the peaceful slumber of three hundred sleeping souls.

Deplaning after fifteen sleepless hours, we wobbled down the aisle on numb limbs and clumsy feet. As we emerged groggily from the jetway, Haneda airport was a conveyor belt of novelties: endless rows of bright-white coin-op machines filled with plastic trinkets; a 7-11 with cellophane-wrapped sushi and dozens of bizarre KitKat flavors (Matcha. Strawberry. Whole Wheat!); and monitors flashing everywhere with ads that were as fascinating as they were incomprehensible.

We cleared customs quickly and hailed a cab. Zipping along the waterfront, it wasn't yet real that this was Tokyo, or that, in the bay to our right was Godzilla, asleep. For now. The Shingawa skyline was fiery orange against a setting sun.

As dusk came, we settled into a high floor at the Westin and ordered our first of many fine Japanese single malts. Ebisu twinkled merrily and so did we, imagining all the salarymen working after six.

No Reservations

We hadn't eaten a real meal in over 24 hours, but Susie was exhausted so I left her and proceeded on foot to an izakaya about a mile away. It was cold and the walk was brisk. My AirPods were blasting an OSEES playlist in between marching orders from Google Maps. I felt like a local, despite this utterly foreign world filled with signs I couldn't read.

A crisp twenty-three minutes later, I arrived at Naminami and slowly opened the door. Inside, attractive and well-dressed young professionals filled the warm room with laughter and chatter. I didn't understand a word. It was wonderful.

Scanning the menu, I ordered an omakase option and prepared myself for my first meal in Japan. The bar had been set high: a few years prior, a friend told me I wouldn't ever eat sushi again in the US after eating it here. I wasn't disappointed. After a bottle of sake arrived, small plates began descending on the table: a chilled corn soup, seared Wagyu tenderloin medallions, sea urchin, shrimp tempura, sashimi, roasted duck, horse mackerel. Every bite a delight. I closed my eyes to focus the flavors.

And yes: I finished the bottle.

Friday, December 20, 2024

On our second day, we explored Ebisu and Shibuya. It was cold and sunny—a pleasant day for urban hikers. In a city as modern as it is ancient, Shinto temples squeezed between concrete monoliths, and paper lanterns competed with neon and billboards.

Very High Tea

After a long day of walking, we changed and headed to a late lunch in the clouds. At 580 feet, the Lobby Lounge of the Ritz Carlton is one of the highest places in the city to pop a bottle of champagne, and certainly the ritziest. High tea included a dazzling array of dainty finger sandwiches and petit fours, champagne and caviar...all for less than $70. We declined the $20,000 Diamonds Are Forever martini which came with a one-carat diamond and was presumably shaken, not stirred.

Shooting in Shibuya

That night, we met a small group of amateur photographers near Shibuya Crossing for a guided photography tour. The world's busiest intersection sees over 3,000 pedestrians cross every two minutes. Our instructor—Laurence Bouchard, a French street photographer based in Tokyo—shared with us some beautiful architectural features in photogenic locations and gave tips on shooting styles and compositions.

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Stranger and Stranger

The next day, we launched into the otherworldly interactive playground, teamLab Planets. As strange as this country already was, nothing prepared us for this alien immersion. After removing our shoes and socks, we joined a line of strangers apprehensively ascending a ramp with water running down it. It was only an inch deep, but the flow splashed around as you took each step. I rolled up my pants and wondered what we'd gotten into. About fifty feet up the path, we began to hear a waterfall. Soon we could see it: a shard of silvery white water pouring down from 30 feet up into a deep black pool.

Next we entered a living rainbow of brilliant color: standing barefoot on a mirrored floor, we wandered through hundreds of hanging strands of shimmering LED lights that reached far up to the high ceiling. With hundreds of LEDs, each strand strobed and cycled smoothly through the ROYGBIV spectrum.

Beyond this was a room filled with giant bouncy balls: some suspended high from the ceiling; others kicked around by visitors. Ambient light cycled between sky blues and verdant greens.

Another room filled with a foot of water projected lifelike animations of giant goldfish swimming around us. After that, a bright courtyard with hundreds of purple orchids bobbing and dangling from the ceiling.

Most amazing of all: there was no liability waiver. You couldn't stage something like this in the US because someone would inevitably fall, or drown, and sue you out of business. It's nice to visit other countries and see how responsible adults live.

Fresh Off the Boat

After our four-hour psychedelic journey, we were starving. Just next door was the new Toyosu Market—a centuries old fish market that had recently moved into a larger industrial complex.

If you've eaten Michelin-level sushi in the US, it most likely was flown in from Toyosu. It was after 2pm so we'd missed the live tuna auctions, but the market's shops and restaurants were still bustling. We joined a short line outside Nakaya, a hole in the wall that served thick slabs of sashimi—fish that were swimming oceans deep hours earlier.

Outside the market was a carnival of delights—food stalls and carts lined up in aisles like a street festival: sardines and octopus grilling over hot coals; fishcakes, pastries, and dumplings; dock-fresh oysters, crabs and urchin; Japanese omelets and draft beer. Each booth focusing on one specialty, drawing a line of patient customers. We sampled several and sipped sake by the seawall.

Trainspotting

After a long day on our feet, we rode the train back to Ebisu. The metro system in Tokyo is clean, efficient, and organized. We'd just spent a weekend in Manhattan and were impressed by how easy Tokyo was to navigate compared to the MTA's multi-level mazes.

Passengers were always quiet and polite. It's considered rude to make noise in public spaces, so the only people we heard talking or using a cell phone were tourists (typically Americans).

Back at our hotel, we prepared for dinner with a colleague of Susie's and started packing for our trip the next morning.

Nagano

Sunday, December 22, 2024

Yudanaka

The next morning, we took a bullet train from Tokyo to Nagano, host of the 1998 Winter Olympics. We accelerated to over 200mph in seconds without noticing it: there wasn't even a ripple in the hot tea on my tray table. Outside my window, Ebisu's city blocks zipped by like a flip-book. We submerged down a gray tunnel and thirty minutes later resurfaced in the Japanese countryside.

Shinkansen trains connect small towns and large cities across Japan. They run frequently, which was fortunate for us because I picked the wrong station and we ended up 100km from our hotel. Thirty minutes and a small fee later, we arrived in Yudanaka.

It was dark and still. There were no signs of life—nobody lingering on the platform, no cars driving along the road, no WiFi to contact our hotel. Snow fell softly around the station. Not a sound.

We waddled across an icy black street to a taxi service. A dispatcher huddled by a space heater in an office no wider than his desk looked up and read the message I'd typed into Google Translate. A minute later, a car pulled up and took us the last mile to Yudanaka Yumoto, a traditional ryokan.

Monkey Park

We'd come to Yudanaka for snow monkeys and hot springs. A few miles away, at Jigokudani Monkey Park, Japanese macaques spent their days bathing in hot springs, oblivious to the tourists who walked among them unbothered.

Even in this remote village, we ate well. At our hotel, a traditional breakfast included poached salmon, fried shrimp, eggs, pickled vegetables, bok choy, mushrooms, and a rich orange-carrot juice. For dinner at GOEN, the sashimi was fresh and colorful, the tempura light and crisp. Walking down narrow streets paved centuries ago, we passed a serve-yourself soft boiled egg cooking in a hot spring. On the next block, a vending machine with beer. At the monkey park, a large bowl of pork ramen hit the spot after a long cold day hiking up the mountain.

The hot springs weren't just popular with monkeys: Yudanaka is known for its public baths (onsen) and inns (ryokan). After an afternoon in the monkey park, we returned to Yudanaka. Gaijin walked the cobblestone streets in bath robes (yukata) and wooden clogs (geta).

It began to snow. Our hotel was still a mile away, mostly uphill, so we began to look for a nightcap and some shelter. An Asahi sign beckoned up ahead. We gently slid open the wooden lattice Kōshi-do and were met by the eyes of a dozen patrons cramped into a dark and smoky izakaya.

Behind the bar was a somewhat surly chef-owner with a cigarette barely affixed to his lower lip. His partner was an ebullient woman who was happy to tell us stories in broken English as she served the young Belgians seated behind us. I asked if they were still serving food.

"No menu. He cooks whatever he feels like," she told us. We ordered two whiskies on the rocks.

"You don't want soda?" she asked with some confusion. (It is more common in Japan to drink highballs, we had learned.) I asked her about the animal statues we had seen in front of shops all over town: a small bear with a jug, a straw hat, and comically-oversized testicles. I showed her a picture.

"TANUKI!" she exclaimed. She explained that the Japanese raccoon dog was a sort of jovial trickster representing good fortune for small businesses. I asked her to spell it.

"TA means...not me, but everyone else. Nuki is 'away!'" I gathered it's a mischievous fuck you to your competitors, which—as a marketing guy—I loved. I bought a small tanuki at an antique store a week later in Kyoto.

Osaka

Tuesday, December 24, 2024

We left our tiny town and travelled to Osaka, about 300 miles south. With a metro population of over 19 million people, Osaka is the 10th largest city in the world.

In the 17th century, it earned the nickname “the nation’s kitchen” as rice, seafood, and trade flowed through its warehouses and canals upriver to inland Japan. The growing merchant class got rich, but as Tony Bourdain explained in No Reservations, they were restricted from displaying outward wealth (this was reserved for the aristocracy); instead, they showed their success through subversive consumption of luxury goods (such as sewing a rare silk lining into an otherwise simple kimono) and conspicuous consumption of food and drink, hence the local motto, kuidaore: to eat oneself to ruin.

Where Tokyo is pristine, polished and protocol-driven, Osaka is gritty, joyous, and personal. We stayed in Namba, a few dizzying blocks from the technicolor Dotonbori district where the nights buzzed with more juice than Fremont Street and Times Square combined.

Dotonbori is a street culture of souvenir shops and boutiques, food stalls and sake stands, restaurant nooks and dark alleys, and entire arcades of just claw games. The district mascot, Kuidaore Taro, is a sadistic-looking clown in a red-striped jumpsuit with round glasses. It was a long way from the Florida malls I grew up with where having a Gap and a Banana Republic was considered cosmopolitan.

Octopunchy

Entering Dotonbori, you are greeted by giant animated creatures: a red octopus towering overhead with tentacles slowly waving and holding chopsticks and cleavers announces their takoyaki (fried octopus), a local specialty akin to conch fritters made en masse in long, domed trays. Beside his noodly appendages, an oversized ramen dish hovered mid-air with a pair of chopsticks lifting noodles up from the bowl. To the left, a massive snow crab lifted a hefty claw. We ate and ate and ate, and drank, and spent $16 on a claw game before giving up and finding the prize across the street for $3.

Somewhere along the way, we invented a simple game: Octopunchy. Remember the game where the first person to see a Volkswagen Beatle would yell "Punchbuggy!" and then slug the other person in the arm? We played this but with octopus/es/ods (nobody knows). They were everywhere.

Ordering in Japanese

It was rare to find a menu only in Japanese. From food stalls to izakayas, ordering food was easy thanks to pictorial menus and hyper-realistic food models called shokuhin sanpuru. Across Japan, these plastic proxies hung outside restaurants to advertise their menu and prices. They became common a century ago to accommodate illiterate customers and the many local dialects. Today they’ve become an art form and are sold to both restaurants and tourists. We perused a shop filled with hand-made wax models, painted to look glossy and fresh. (Not pictured: the picked-clean chicken wing fridge magnet I bought.)

English was common on restaurant menus and widely spoken. I only learned a few phrases in Japanese, but they went a long way. It was clear that Westerners didn't bother to learn the language, so even saying hello, please, or thank you was often met with gratitude or astonishment ("Where did you learn to speak Japanese?")

My favorite phrases were itadakimasu (eat-uh-docky-mosssss) and oishii desu (oh-ee-shee-dess). Said just before starting a meal, itadakimasu (“I humbly receive”) is an expression of gratitude for the cook, the ingredients, and everyone involved in the meal's preparation. Oishii desu (“it’s delicious!”) is said while eating to compliment the food or the cook. Showing appreciation for the food and learning a little Japanese endeared us to many chefs.

A Little Vinyl Lounge

Walking along a dark street, we passed a desperate plea: a handwritten sign taped to a deteriorating photograph strapped to something like a newspaper stand. It advertised a second-floor jazz bar with "vintage audio and hi grade Japanese whisky." In other scenarios, this would have given "spider and the fly" vibes, but for some reason we jumped right into the web.

Upstairs, tucked into a shotgun-style space was a dark lounge with two old men behind the bar and an old Denon direct-drive turntable spinning atop a glowing McIntosh tube amp. Questionably, they were grooving to Manhattan Transfer, the American vocal group that your friend's mom used to play for Christmas parties. Aside from this selection, we felt right at home in this dive bar adorned with posters from Blue Note's best.

They might have had the last in-floor toilet in Japan. Across the country, toilets have been upgraded to those robotic, electronic, seat-warming bidets that gently squirt you with warm water before blowing you dry. (I assume Toto sells a premium model that also bleaches and moisturizes.)

I ordered my new favorite whisky, the Yamazaki 12. It was really expensive at the hotel, but here it was dirt cheap. When I offered cash for the bill, the proprietors looked at me with disdain, took the bill and closed the register. They said nothing, but something was wrong.

"Was that not enough?" I asked nervously.

They didn't speak any English, but I worked out that I was off by a digit: I gave them something like a $10 bill for a $30 shot. I realized my error and learned a valuable lesson: the Japanese are so polite! Like, they were just gonna let me skate on an unpaid tab!

Wednesday, December 25, 2024

Christmas in Japan

While only 1% of Japanese identify as Christian, Christmas is a popular and romantic winter holiday celebrated across the country with Christmas trees, festive lights, and special meals. On Christmas Eve, millions of Japanese enjoy KFC, which successfully marketed "Christmas in Kentucky"to Japan in 1974.

We spent the day exploring shinto temples and the Osaka Castle.

A Special Meal

For Christmas dinner, we reserved a special omakase experience at Sushi Hoshiyama, an eight-seat, one-star sushiya on the Dojima river. Dinner was memorable for multiple reasons: chef Tadashi Hoshiyama's unique rice made with red vinegar from sake lees and blended with aged rice; his quiet intensity preparing traditional Edo-style nigirizushi (madai marinated in briny konbu, three courses of tuna, an Anago finish); and the restraint he showed towards four brash guests who sounded like Rodney Dangerfield in a dive bar.

Drinking heavily for 2+ hours with raised voices and belly laughs, three young men and an older fourth trashed the serenity and protocol of this temple to tradition. The chef leered. He paused and squinted at the men. And then he proceeded quietly and methodically. I was fascinated.

By the way they held court, I thought maybe they were yakuza, but all four were strikingly handsome and vividly-dressed, so I guessed at alternatives: a boy band and their manager? elite escorts and their pimp? An uncle and his "nephews?"

Thursday, December 26, 2024

Bib Gourmande

Osaka has over 180 restaurants with a Michelin star, and another 121 Bib Gourmande selections. Bib Gourmande—a distinction below a star—is awarded to restaurants serving excellent food at a good value. I often seek out Bib Gourmandes because they're easier to book, less formal, and less expensive—and usually just as mind-blowing as their starred cousins.

Our last meal in Osaka was at The New World, a Bib Gourmande tucked away in an upscale mall with a food court near Shinsaibashi station. Sitting at an informal lunch counter, we were served sashimi, wagyu, tempura, fried chicken, and more. One of our favorite meals in Japan.

Game Night

Our last night in Osaka was a Friday and we wanted something lively. We stumbled into a ping pong bar called Palette. I think we'd Googled "bars near me" and it looked fun.

We walked a few blocks and found the address, but it wasn't clear where the entrance was. We opened a door and found ourselves in a small room with a wall of guests' shoes. There was an unmarked door with something written in Japanese. Probably "take off your shoes." I opened it slowly and popped my head in to see several twenty-somethings at play: table tennis, board games, Space Invaders, cards. I closed the door quietly, receded into the anteroom, and looked to Susie for a ruling.

Just then, the door opened and a friendly hostess twisted our arm. We removed our shoes, ordered drinks and were immediately introduced to the proprietor and some of his patrons. Twenty minutes later, we were strategically moving giant Jenga blocks with our new best friends.

Kyoto

Friday, December 27, 2024

Our train slid into Kyoto Station just after dusk on Friday. The central station was an ant farm of activity with half a million passengers per day buzzing through tunnels and down escalators to platforms, restaurants, and shops.

Becoming Japan's capital in 794 CE, Kyoto was a planned city modeled on the Tang-dynasty capital of China, Chang’an (modern Xi’an). Streets were planned on a grid system with a wide central avenue. The palace sat to the north. Powerful temples guarded the city from demons in the northeast.

Early Kyoto invented Japanese high culture. It ran on ritual and etiquette, not military power. The city was dominated by aristocrats and monks who wrote poetry, refined cuisine, and defined aesthetics. The Tale of Genji—often considered the first novel—was written in Kyoto by noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century.

After Tokyo (Edo) became the capital in 1869, Kyoto remained the cultural heart of Japan. The Imperial Palace remained in Kyoto as did coronations and major rites, making it the spiritual capital, as well.

Today, Kyoto is Japan's ninth largest city with 3.8 million people. It is the home of Nintendo, Kyocera, and Omron, as well as dozens of universities and museums. It blends history and heritage with technology and modernity. It's typical to see an ancient temple sandwiched between souvenir shops and cafés.

We dragged our rolling luggage out of the station and into a light rain, grabbed a car and rode to our hotel.

Sitting pensively on the quiet Kamo River in a serene, centuries-old Gojo-Kawaramachi neighborhood, our hotel was a soothing sanctuary after three days of Osaka overload. A modern machiya with accents of wood, tatami, stone, paper, and bamboo, the Genji Kyoto is an elegant and sophisticated reinterpretation of traditional architecture and design. One of Michelin's new "Key" hotels—like stars, hotels can earn one, two or three keys—Genji Kyoto made our arrival feel more like the start of an immersive dining experience than checking into a hotel. Service was efficient, warm, and attentive. Our room was as comfortable and thoughtfully-planned as it was spacious and beautiful. A glass wall flanked one side of the room, affording us a panoramic view of the riverfront from our bed. Across the river, the iconic orange-red Kiyomizu-dera temple blazed in the night.

We freshened up and started walking to Takocho, a dashi shop that opened in the late 19th century. A fourth-generation chef in a festive bowtie served guests a la carte from a list of ingredients that were individually dunked into a steamy broth: octopus, egg, tenderloin, tuna, tofu skin, daikon.

Temple on a Hill

Founded in 778 CE near the Otowa waterfall, Kiyomizu-dera (“pure water temple”) was initially a devotional site to Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion. Pilgrims came from across the country seeking the healing waters of the Otawa spring to pray for fertility, healing, and safe childbirth.

It has been rebuilt numerous times after being destroyed by fires and earthquakes. The current iteration—the iconic, orange-and-red main hall—was constructed during the Edo period in 1633 without nails or metal fasteners. A large stage jutting out 43 feet above the forest is the source of a Japanese idiom: “to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu”...essentially to take a leap of faith. Many people did, believing if they survived their wish would come true.

Today, it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site that draws over four million tourists annually.

Land of Shrines

While Kiyomizu-dera is the most recognized temple in Kyoto, there are over 400 Shinto shrines scattered throughout the city.

Sunday, December 29, 2024

Eating Like Royalty

When Kyoto became Japan’s capital, the imperial court and nobility demanded sophisticated food for ceremonial banquets and daily life. Today, Kyoto has 183 Michelin-starred restaurants (NYC has 70). There are another 381 Bib Gourmande and Michelin-recommended entries.

Occasionally, we'd dine somewhere without a Michelin sign and wonder if they'd opted out of the star game...or if Bibendo just hadn't found them yet. The quality of ingredients and level of care—from cooking to service—were exceptionally high everywhere we went.

At Sonoba, soba noodles are served with oysters, bamboo shoots and fish on wicker baskets or ceramics made by the proprietor.

A few blocks from our hotel, diners queued outside New Taiho for a handful of seats around the countertop at this no-frills ramen stop.

Founded in the 8th century, Kyoto's Nishiki Market is a living organism where over 130 sprawling storefronts and stalls tell Kyoto's culinary history in sensory corridors spanning multiple blocks.

Return to Tokyo

Ginza

The epicenter of Japanese luxury, Ginza blends the boulevard boldness of Fifth Ave and Champs-Élysées with refined elegance. Started as a silver mint ("ginza") in the 1600s, Ginza was destroyed by fire in the late 1800s and rebuilt as a modern, Western-style neighborhood with fireproof brick buildings and gas lamps illuminating the broad avenues.

Today, it is a constellation of luxury stars: Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Gucci, Prada, Hermès, Fendi, Tiffany, Bulgari, Breguet, Rolex, Patek Philippe. As we walked down the Chūō-dōri promenade, a small crowd had gathered around an idling, driverless Lamborghini Huracán double parked in front of Cartier's ten-story "boutique." As men snapped photos of its ridiculous pearlescent paint job, I contemplated Tokyo's police presence, penal code, and potential penalties for me "re-parking" this $300k scream for help.

Whisky, Please!

The Japanese whisky industry is barely a century old, but like a lot of things Japan adopted from other cultures—denim, electronics, cheap superbikes that outperform Ducatis—they don't just improve it, they make it an art.

In 1923, Shinjiro Torii and Masataka Taketsuru founded Yamazaki, Japan’s first commercial malt whisky distillery, in a town near Kyoto. It became Suntory, Japan's largest whisky producer. A decade later, Taketsuru, who had apprenticed at Scottish distilleries in Speyside, left to found Nikka in Hokkaido. Together, they defined a new style of whisky known for balance, clarity, and harmony.

Although beer and sochu dominate Japanese alcohol consumption, whisky is revered. From dive bars to sophisticated speakeasies, it was common to see a deep bench of single malts—always measured and mixed with meticulous care and craft.

At High Five in Ginza, we were lucky to be seated: with just twelve bar stools and frequent appearances on The World’s 50 Best Bars list, High Five is in high demand. There is no menu. Guests are asked about their tastes and preferences, which are then imagined as custom cocktails by legendary bartender-owner, Hidetsugu Ueno, and his talented staff.

Tuesday, December 31, 2024

A Million New Years

Around 11pm on the night before our flight home, I convinced Susie to jump in a cab to Meiji Jingu to experience a Tokyo-style New Year. Constructed in 1920 to honor Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, Meiji Jingu is Tokyo's favorite Shinto shrine and the most popular destination for hatsumode (the first shrine visit of the New Year). Each January, several million visitors come to Meiji Jingu to pass through the main gate, wash at the temizuya, and make offerings to the deities.

Eager to meet our deadline, our cab flew west through neighborhoods familiar and foreign. Half an hour later, we were gridlocked. With a few blocks left and minutes to spare, we got out and started speed-walking. Following the crowd, we passed dozens of food stalls and street vendors. Savory scents and colorful lights filled the sidewalks as we hurried toward the park. As we entered, the capillaries of people trickling in from all directions joined major arteries and soon we were shoulder-to-shoulder with tens of thousands of sojourners.

Moments to midnight, we reached the giant gate and paused with the crowd to count down:

"3...2...1....Akemashite omedetō gozaimasu!"

A few minutes after midnight, the procession started moving again and we passed into a courtyard. Along the way, we saw barrels of premium sake and premier cru wines—Romanée Conti, Gevrey-Chambertin, Chassagne-Montrachet—annual tributes from France's most famous regions.

We travel. A lot. Friends ask What are your favorite places? It was always an impossible question before. Now I tell them:

"You could spend a week in whatever the Bakersfield of Japan is and still blow your mind. Everything is so strange and novel, so colorful, so wonderful. The food, the culture, the people..."

Everywhere we went, the people were so friendly...once you broke the ice. Some say the Japanese will talk to be polite or practice their English, but I saw genuine curiosity of Americans, or American culture...or possibly I am just very charismatic and interesting, like someone who has a colorful story about finding a missing toe.

We had postponed this trip for decades. Tokyo had seemed overwhelmingly complicated...like NYC on steroids in hieroglyphics. I wanted to wait until we knew someone there. A native. A guide. An insider to show you the best spots, like Bourdain had.

The truth is: Japan is easy. It's easy to get around quickly and affordably on bullet trains and local transit. It's easy to eat healthy, delicious food because it's all around you and often comes with a picture menu. It's easy to discover thanks to apps and guides and English signs and color-coded way-finding. It's easy to meet people because beneath that silent façade is a curious person who loves KFC, Metallica, and John Ford westerns.