This trip consisted of about 2 weeks of Lucy and Benton wandering around Japan. The main motivation for the trip was Lucy competing in the 3rd Taolu World Cup, which was at the start of the trip, in Yokohama (just outside of Tokyo).
Overall the order of things was Yokohama → Tokyo → Osaka → Onomichi → Hakone → Tokyo.
General Takeaways/Highlights:
Hotels had an anti-fog section of the mirrors (Benton is planning to purchase something similar for the bathroom in his apartment).
A lot of the taxis in Tokyo looked old; it turns out this is because from 1995-2018 the entire fleet was the Toyota Crown Sedan (it makes sense that this might be cheaper to maintain).
We ate tonkatsu at a place in Osaka that ended up being the best bites of meat we had on the entire trip.
We got a “fatty” cocktail with peach, bacon, and butter flavors from a cocktail bar called “Kirip Truman” in Osaka. It was interesting and tasty.
Shimanami Kaido 🚴🌉🌊
Japan does not have much in the way of public trash cans 🗑️
There is a general lack of “downtown” in cities; some areas are more dense than others, but it didn’t feel like places had much of a city center.
It felt like the Japanese language was pretty consistent (i.e. always the same departing phrase from shops; never goes off script; we could hear and understand words pretty easily during a lot of our interactions)
It was super quiet on the metro
Grape flavored ice cream should be a thing in the US
It was fun having the ability to avoid the weather if needed using the huge, connected tunnels between metro stations (especially in Osaka)