On Tour: Japan Part 1: Tokyo For Vegans

For a while there I was alluding to a big trip that was a birthday celebration and how I wanted to save money so I could buy records and stuff during my trip. You might have been wondering where I’ve been. If you follow my Instagram, you’ll know that I was in Japan. I’m gonna say it now, Japan is my favourite country I’ve ever visited, yes I liked it even better than Australia, and it didn’t take long for me to go “Alright, when’s the next trip to Japan happening?” I said that as soon as we got on the plane to Korea.

I convinced my dad to plan a trip to Japan for my 30th birthday because he’s a big baseball fan and one of his dreams is to go to baseball stadiums wherever they are in the world and lucky for us there was a cruise to Japan that was during baseball season so we got to go to a game, but I’ll talk about that later in this blog post.

Naturally I had worries before travelling even though it’s been my dream ever since I was a child to visit Japan. I’ve seen all the videos with clickbait titles that talk all about how everyone in Japan hates tourists and that it isn’t the same as it used to be thanks to TikTok and Instagram influencers ruining travel. Not gonna lie, that made me anxious. I also worried about finding vegan food since I know how much people like seafood there – it’s not just vegetarians and vegans who would struggle, those with seafood allergies and those who keep kosher are in a similar boat. The explanation for why everything seemingly contains meat (yes, I consider seafood to be meat) is that in Japan, there’s a focus on quality ingredients and making something vegan is seen as cheaping out since plants are cheaper than meat.

Turns out I was worried about the wrong things. The real issue when we travelled there was the heat and humidity. I’ve been living in the British Isles for about a decade now and we just don’t get hot weather like Japan does in the summertime, therefore I’m not used to it at all. Thankfully, despite being as pale as I am, I don’t burn much if at all, even if I only apply sunscreen once or not at all, thanks to being part native Venezuelan. My family live in Florida and even they said it was way too hot. Still, I had a great time and it was an excuse to have a lot of iced matcha lattes and matcha ice cream – my favourite! I swear half the money I spent was on that lol

When I was about 6 years old, one of my favourite shows was the anime Sailor Moon, one of the most iconic ones! I have fond memories of there being a Sanrio store at Gurnee Mills (the mall I’d frequently go to in my childhood) and I remember my older cousin taking me there to get some Hello Kitty merch. I had a wallet and a plastic Hello Kitty box. I remember begging my grandmother to buy me all the Sailor Moon dolls. Sadly, I don’t have them anymore, but I can relive my childhood and buy the little tchotchkes that I wanted to have when I was a kid on this trip to Japan. I also am a fan of city pop and Japanese jazz fusion. Fashion wise I love Gothic Lolita, even though my bank balance says different, but thankfully there’s some overlap with 60s dandy and a bit of 50s pinup, so I can dupe the vibes with what I own already. If you have full skirts with petticoats and frilly shirts, there’s some elements there and I can mix and match the styles.

If you want a really good idea of what some touristy parts of Japan look like, the Yakuza/Like A Dragon games depict it very well. I was watching my husband playing some of the games and there were many moments where I was like, wait that looks familiar! In the first leg of the trip, we were staying near Kabukicho, the red-light district, which is called Kamurocho in Yakuza. In the game, if you go into Don Quijote, you’ll hear the catchy song (warning: it will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day… possibly the rest of your life lol). The name suggests there may be a kabuki theatre there, and one was supposed to be built there in the 40s, but those plans never materialised. Very lively place! My next blog post will be talking about Osaka, and in the Yakuza games you can go to Sotenbori, which is based on the famous Dotonbori. The attention to detail! Speaking of video games, there were many times I’d see some random object and I’d be like wait, I’ve seen this in Animal Crossing!

Where to begin?

Getting there

Because of the war in Ukraine, a lot of countries in the west don’t get along with Russia, to say the least. Feels like we’re back in the 80s I swear, so that means European airlines don’t fly over Russia and instead have to take a longer route flying over the North Pole and near Alaska or flying south of Russia and then dipping back up again. Just like how during the Cold War, they’d fly over Anchorage. Longer route, more fuel needed, therefore higher costs. Fun! But there’s a different way and that is flying with Air China, one of a handful of airlines that still fly from Europe to Asia over Russian airspace. China doesn’t hate Russia like America or the EU do. China has recently liberalised its visa policy so you could stay for a couple of days as a side trip without having to apply for a visa, but our objective was going to Japan. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a long enough layover time to see Shanghai, but maybe one day I’ll visit China. During this long flight, I got a rare chance to see a sky full of stars because in Siberia it’s not very populated so I pressed my head against the window and looked up at the sky. Reminds me of the Road To Hana and how on the way back to the port I saw so many stars in the sky. I also got to see some cities from the sky and that was cool. That’s why I prefer flying over land versus flying over the ocean. There’s not much to see when you’re flying over the ocean, especially on a red eye flight.

When we landed in Japan, we were greeted with the coolest welcome signs with none other than Nintendo characters. Nothing says welcome to Japan like seeing Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Princess Peach, Rosalina, Yoshi, Bowser, and Toad. Getting to the city couldn’t be easier and there are quite a few train options. Top tip: make sure you get your IC card at the airport or you’ll have a hard time finding one in the city and you’ll be stuck having to buy tickets manually (we made this mistake because we were in a hurry!). If you have an iPhone, you can get a digital IC card that you can top up, but if you have a non-Japanese Android, you’ll need an IC card. I have an iPhone, but my husband has a Google Pixel that we bought in America so he needed an IC card, which you can only top up with cash, so make sure you have enough yen! Thankfully, our accommodation was not too far from Shinjuku Station (the world’s busiest railway station), which has a place where you can buy IC cards. By the way, that station is a labyrinth and you will get lost there multiple times. Sometimes I wonder if I’m still at Shinjuku Station. One thing I loved about the trains is the video screens playing ads and not too long ago I was playing Pikmin 4 and in Japan it seems like Pikmin Bloom is popular, or at least is really well advertised (after the fact I downloaded the game and it’s really fun and encourages you to get your steps in). And even if they get quite crowded, they’re still really quiet and clean, so I didn’t feel too overwhelmed. I’ve felt more overwhelmed in New York and London. Even if you don’t speak Japanese, the trains are easy to navigate because the lines each have letters and each stop is indicated by a number.

Day 1: Getting our bearings in Shinjuku

Day one was really just getting our bearings and walking around the area near our accommodation. We walked from our accommodation in Takadanobaba to Shinjuku, which wasn’t that bad all things considered. After getting Eoin his IC card, we went record shopping so I could get my first objective completed, buying some city pop vinyl! I got a few Tatsuro Yamashita albums (Ride On Time, For You, and Big Wave) and Toshiki Katomatsu’s After Five Clash. I bought some at Disk Union, which has multiple floors dedicated to different genres and some at Tower Records. If you want to stock up on music, I’d recommend going to Tower Records, which has tax free shopping if you spend over a certain amount. Just make sure to bring your passport!

Something that I noticed is that shops are a bit different from back home. In England, there’s high streets with individual shops and there are malls and shopping centres, but in Tokyo you have a lot of big department stores like Parco, Marui, Seibu, or Takashimaya. Even if a shop isn’t in a department store, they’re often in buildings with multiple floors and you’ll have to look for a sign that says which floor the shop you want to go to is on, like B2F, B1F, 1F, 2F, 3F, and so on. Like in the US, 1F is the ground floor. This can make finding specific shops you want to go to a little tricky since not everything is at street level view and you’ll have to look up or find a sign or go through a narrow doorway and find a lift or the staircase. Web design in Japan is quite different from in the west so you might be confused if you look at the website. These department stores usually have anywhere from 5-10 floors and have all sorts of things for sale: clothing, shoes, music, books, video game and anime merch, jewellery, gashapon and skill cranes, and food.

My husband needed some shorts since he doesn’t have any because you don’t really need them in England and so we went to Uniqlo to get some clothes for him. His plan was to pack light so he could bring back souvenirs, board games, anime and video game merch. After buying some records and clothes, we decided to go to the board game/trading card game/TTRPG/toy model shop Yellow Submarine and it’s nerd heaven. We didn’t buy anything the first time, just wanted to check out what’s for sale and compare prices. Obviously since you’re in Japan, the games are going to be in Japanese, but there are some games that are universal or come with English instructions. Most board games at Yellow Submarine are new, but you might be able to find them used for a cheaper price at a shop like Suruga-ya, which has video games, electronics, board games, CDs, DVDs, and all kinds of merch. If you like retail therapy, Japan is perfect for you!

All of this shopping made us hungry! Like I said, Japan is notorious for not being the most vegan friendly place (those who keep kosher or have a seafood allergy wouldn’t have a great time finding food either), but when you’re in a big city it’s actually possible to find food, but it will take a little effort. Even before going vegetarian a long time ago, I never liked fish. I didn’t grow up eating seafood since my grandma lived with us and she was allergic to fish. And so when I first tried fish when I was around 11 or 12, I was disgusted! My mum’s friend gave me sushi at a party and I spit it out straight away! My mum would serve me fish after my grandma moved out and I pushed the plate away after one bite. I really like veggie sushi though! Funniest thing is I like vegan imitation fish, like I’ll eat vegan salmon slices on toast, vegan tuna on toast, and vegan fish fingers and filets. I also love snacking on seaweed. For some reason fish bothers me, I think it’s because of the smell and texture.

It’s not going to be like London or Berlin where you don’t even have to try to find a vegan option and everything’s well labelled. For starters if you don’t speak Japanese, you’ll need to translate the ingredients list so make sure you have a data plan, I used an Airalo eSIM – If you need a referral code for a few bucks off your first eSIM, mine is ANGIE6820. Also, do not take for granted that something will be vegetarian. Even the most seemingly vegetarian things might have meat in them. For example, some pastries will have meat. My husband saw this pizza flatbread in a konbini and we checked the ingredients and it had sausage in it. A lot of things will have fish flakes or fish broth, so watch out for that if you’re veggie or have a fish allergy. If you’re looking for a restaurant, Google and HappyCow will be your best friends. For the most part, we tried to stick to exclusively vegetarian/vegan restaurants since we know you can’t go wrong! But there are some vegetarian/vegan friendly places. Personally, I preferred eating more local cuisine since I didn’t come all the way to Japan just to eat western food. I prefer Asian cuisine anyway.

It was late when we got out of Yellow Submarine so we didn’t have too many options, but we did find a ramen bar in Shinjuku Lumine called Afuri. While not a completely vegan restaurant, they had a vegan rainbow ramen made with vegetable broth and wheat noodles. For those with social anxiety, you order and pay at the screen and wait for a free seat at the bar. Food was really good. Even if it’s hot out, I always love ramen!

One thing I worried a lot about before my Japan trip was queues and waiting for food since storefronts are usually quite small. Service in Japan is polite and efficient, just the way I like it (sorry, I find the overbearing bubbly American customer service to be a bit much!). You’re expected to eat your food and go, so thankfully there’s quick turnaround.

In Shinjuku, there’s a 24/7 Don Quijote and that was a place Eoin was really looking forward to going to since he saw that shop in the Yakuza game. When we were in Hawaii, we saw a Don Quijote there, but we didn’t go since we had other things to see. If you spend over 5500 yen including tax, then you get 10% off tax free. In Don Quijote you’ll find prices including and excluding tax. I was not prepared for Don Quijote. The closest equivalents I can think of that my readers will understand are the middle aisles of Aldi on steroids, or for those from Toronto it’s like a Japanese version of Honest Ed’s. You really can find anything at Don Quijote and the prices are pretty good!

If you’re looking for an even cheaper shop, my parents really liked Daiso, which is the equivalent of a dollar store, but even larger. There are some American locations, mainly on the West Coast, but some in Hawaii, Texas, and New York. And there are locations in Australia too. Sadly, none in Europe yet!

Day 2: Shibuya and Harajuku

These are neighbourhoods I had heard a lot about before my trip and with our accommodation being right near the Yamanote line, it was quite easy and fast to get there. Shibuya is home to the busiest crossing in the world, the famous scramble crossing. Of course I had to bring my book and the Pikmin headband my friend Chloë made to these iconic locations we were visiting. Right near the scramble crossing there was a Hello Kitty 50th anniversary popup.

You could take pictures with a gigantic Hello Kitty plushie and watch a promotional animation and see a shiny Hello Kitty statue. There was also some Hello Kitty art at the nearby Shibuya 109 department store, which has a lot of women’s clothing and shoes. With the weather being really hot, I desperately needed a drink and so my husband and I went to the Starbucks above the Hello Kitty popup. We got iced pumpkin spice lattes and watched the Shibuya crossing from above. Piccadilly Circus who? Times Square who? We also killed some time at the Mega Don Quijote in Shibuya until the Nintendo Store opened, which was something that was on our bucket list.

While a lot of shops in Japan are against people taking pictures, I didn’t have any problems taking pictures in the Nintendo shop and the Pokemon Centre. In fact, a worker saw my Winged Pikmin headband sticking out of my bag, called it kawaii and offered to take a picture of me at the shop. I even got a picture with Mewtwo! In the Pokemon Centre, you can make a custom t-shirt and Eoin was thinking of getting one for himself since it’s such a unique thing, but instead he opted for a big plushie of one of his favourite Pokemon, Charizard. It has wings you can pose!

Conveniently, there was a vegan restaurant inside the same building as the Nintendo store. It was on the basement floor along with a variety of other restaurants. The restaurant is called Vegan Izakaya Masaka. In case you’re not familiar with the terminology, an izakaya is an informal Japanese bar that mainly serves snacks and small plates. The seats are low or on the floor and you eat from a low table. Think of it like Japanese tapas. If you like to try a little bit of everything and eat family style, then you’ll like this style of dining. My husband and I ordered a few small dishes to share between the two of us: rice balls, gyoza, and fried mushrooms. We had some iced green tea and mango ice cream for dessert.

Afterwards, we went to Harajuku. Like many people of my generation, I first heard about Harajuku because of Gwen Stefani and her backup dancers, the Harajuku Girls. Think of Harajuku as being like the Camden of Tokyo. Well known for its street fashion, full of tourists, and the clothes aren’t cheap! Like Camden, you’ll find some vintage clothing shops here, more like secondhand really since a bulk of the clothes are from the 2000s and maybe 90s at earliest (and I did find some fast fashion stuff at some of these types of shops, but let’s not talk about that!). However, while walking to the main street of Harajuku, Takeshita Street I did find a vintage shop that at first glance seemed to have just 80s and 90s clothes, but I found a whole rack of Gunne Sax clothes. Be still my beating heart! I have three Gunne Sax dresses, a Gunne Sax blouse, and a Gunne Sax skirt in my collection and I saw this really unique looking multicoloured patchwork looking Gunnne Sax maxi skirt perfect for a cottagecore look and I had to have it! I like that it ties at the waist because I have a very difficult time finding skirts small enough for me. I have to imagine this skirt has made a long journey from San Francisco, where the brand is from to Japan and now to my home in England! My husband needed a new pair of jeans so he bought a vintage pair of Calvin Klein jeans.

I went to the Laforet Mall in Harajuku and cried at the prices of everything and got a few pictures at the Sailor Moon store, what a dream come true for younger me! When I was in primary school, I was obsessed Sailor Moon and I begged my grandma to buy me the dolls whenever we went to Toys R Us.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant called Zen that serves okonomiyaki, which is a savoury pancake sort of dish cooked on a teppen, or a flat griddle. The dish’s origin is the Kansai region and Hiroshima, and you can easily find the dish there (we didn’t have it in Osaka though, but we did try another vegan version of a specialty dish there, stay tuned for the next blog post!). They’re often made right in front of you. This place is one of the few that we’ve seen that offers a vegan version of the dish, and with vegan mayo! Where else are we going to try this and the whole point of travelling is to try things that we’ve never tried before! I’m personally not much of a fan of mayo, even before going vegan, but I liked the meal and was glad to try it.

Day 3: Shrine and Shinkansen!

Harajuku isn’t just fashion, there’s also history there and when looking at the map, Meiji Jingu caught my eye. A lot of our days in Japan we visited shrines and temples and it was really cool seeing them. I’d only seen a temple once before in Hawaii, so I was looking forward to seeing some more. One thing that made me nervous was watching all the etiquette videos and naturally, you might overthink while you’re visiting, but really all you need to do is exercise common sense and kinda just do what others are doing. Some shrines and temples have a fee to visit, while others don’t. This one didn’t charge a fee, but you could pay for an Ema, or small wooden plaque where you can write your wishes. Different shrines have ema with different designs. You can also throw a coin into a box and make a wish or give a donation for incense.

Afterwards we decided to get lunch at a restaurant I was really looking forward to going to, an all vegan chain restaurant called Ain Soph. It was so good, that we went back again. This was easily my favourite restaurant that I went to in Japan and while it is pricey, the food is excellent. My favourite dish I had there has to be the fluffy pancakes. Japan is well known for fluffy pancakes and they’re hard to find vegan. Thankfully I didn’t have to miss out! Both times I had green curry with rice and vegan karaage, which is Japanese fried chicken. Dip the vegan fried chicken in the curry sauce, it’s good!

After a nice half day, it was off to our next destination, Osaka, which we’ll be talking about in the next blog post. There are a few ways to get there, a slower train, a plane, or a shinkansen (bullet train). Riding on a shinkansen was on my bucket list so we had to do that! One thing I hate about flying is having to get to the airport early, go through security and have to deal with transport to and from the airports, miss me with that! The shinkansen is extremely fast, clean, very roomy, and overall a great experience. It’s very smooth and quiet. If anything made me go “why don’t we have this in England?” it’s this! Imagine if you could take a bullet train from London to Edinburgh? That would revolutionise travel! One thing I did worry about with the trains is if we would need to ship our bags because they’re too big, but a regular checked bag like this is fine and it fits overhead no problem.

On the way from Tokyo to Osaka you can see Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan – incredibly iconic, but most of the time it’s behind clouds, but lucky for us we got to see it on the way back. If you want to be on the correct side of the train, make sure you’re in seats D and E! If you’re not, you can get up and walk to a window and get a photo, that’s what we did. Since it was basically summertime when we went, there was no snow at the top.

Days 4-6: We gonna rock down to… Electric Town!

After nearly a week in Osaka, it was time to come back to Tokyo. This leg of the trip, we stayed by the Sky Tree, so more convenient for going to another neighbourhood Eoin wanted to visit. My family hadn’t properly seen the city, so we went our separate ways and saw different places.

My husband is more of the anime, electronics, and nerdy stuff enjoyer and one neighbourhood he really wanted to see was Akihabara, also known as Electric Town. If you’re really into anime, video games, and electronics, there are a lot of shops there that you’ll like and they often have multiple floors. One of the most impressive things was the Don Quijote there, which had entire floors full of anime merch and they had a TV playing episodes of One Piece. There was also some NSFW stuff and there was a noisy arcade there. That’s one of the things that I really thought was interesting about Japan, how quiet the trains are, but then if you want noise just go to the arcades and the pachinko parlours. Talk about sensory overload! The last day we were in Tokyo, we decided to go to Akihabara and go to an arcade to play Dance Dance Revolution to spend our last yen coins.

One of the days we were in Akihabara we were desperate for food, but not a lot was open because it was quite late, but thanks to Google Maps we found a small ramen spot called Kyushu Jangara that served vegan ramen. There was a queue out the door, but as usual, service is fast and efficient and as you’re waiting in the queue, staff will take your order and call you when your ramen and your table is ready.

The other restaurant we dined at was a completely vegan place called Komaki Shokudo Kamakura Fushikian.

Asakusa

Not far from the Skytree is Asakusa. We went to the Sensō-ji temple there and there was some street food around there. What I really loved was the chanting and drumming. As I walked into the temple I heard monks chanting and it was really something, mesmerising! In person, you really feel it. Videos don’t do it justice. It’s a very popular temple to visit with over 30 million people visiting every year.

Ginza, Imperial Gardens, and Budokan

As a rock historian, there was one venue I really wanted to see. Well, it didn’t start off as a music venue, but rather it was originally used for martial arts during the 1964 Summer Olympics, and that was the Budokan. Two years later, The Beatles played there, the first rock band to do so. In 1978, Bob Dylan and Cheap Trick played there and the latter’s live album is one of my favourite live albums of all time. I’ve been playing it a lot lately thanks to the Cheap Trick biography American Standard that I just reviewed, check that review out! Got some pictures there and then walked to the Imperial Palace Gardens, which is beautiful and something you gotta visit while in Tokyo.

Exchanging notes about my trip with my friend Patrick, who visited Japan a month later, he said that the Imperial Palace Gardens was one of his favourite things he saw in Japan. Not far from there is Ginza, which is a really posh neighbourhood full of designer boutiques and fancy department stores. We went to a vegan restaurant there called 2foods and it was really good. The restaurant’s focus is on vegan comfort food, but a bit healthier. I had vegan omelette rice, a matcha doughnut, and this really nice like sweet potato matcha latte. Another visit, I had veggie chicken nuggets with these really good dips.

Tokyo Tower

One of the most iconic buildings in Tokyo is Tokyo Tower and it kinda looks like the Eiffel Tower, but painted orange for air safety regulations. I remember seeing it in anime as a kid. It was the tallest tower in Japan until the Skytree was completed in 2012. It is a functioning antenna for broadcasting, but there’s also an observation deck. Not far away is the beautiful Zōjō-ji Temple, with buildings from the 1600s! One of the things I love most about Japan is you’ll see something modern, but then next you’ll see something really old, and this mix of old and new is really cool. We walked around the area and saw this fancy shopping centre. In this area there are some people riding around in go-karts.

Fun Night Out: teamLab Planets

Our schedule was pretty much play it by ear except for two things: teamLab Planets and the Yakult Swallows vs Chunichi Dragons game. My brother is Gen Z and one thing that generation loves is TikTok and when doing research for the trip, my brother kept finding videos of people going to teamLab Planets and it looks incredible. It’s an interactive art installation. Because he’d already seen clips of the exhibit, he already knew about what was in store for us, but I personally wanted to go in blind and be surprised and I was really impressed! One thing that you’ll need to be aware of is you’ll want to wear shorts or a short skirt or dress with shorts underneath because there will be portions of the exhibit with water that is about knee deep or so. Of course, you’ll have to take your shoes off. But don’t worry, they have lockers in the building so your stuff will be safe. Spoilers ahead so if you don’t want to read, click the back button or scroll quickly to the next section.

One thing to be careful of is that in Tokyo there are multiple teamLab locations and they’re in different parts of the city. This exhibition is in Toyosu, which is a neighbourhood in Kōtō that was created on reclaimed land in the 1930s. Nearby there’s an above ground train, the Yurikamome line. We took a walk around the area and it looks kinda futuristic so I think that is a fitting location for an art exhibit of the future. This attraction is very popular and can book out really early, so make sure you plan in advance and buy your tickets ahead of time! We originally had a scheduling conflict, but thankfully we were able to change our ticket time. Make sure to get there on time! We were rushing and thankfully we got there in time. There’s a vegan ramen spot right next to teamLab Planets, but we decided to go to a vegan restaurant inside Tokyo Station called T’s TanTan. Food was great, but I wasn’t a big fan of the vegan cheese, but then again I’m really particular about vegan cheese.

When you go to teamLab Planets, expect it to be fun, interactive, and using all the senses! If you’re disabled, some of the installations will be either difficult to navigate, so there’s a bypass for a few of them if needed. All of the rooms are distinct and immersive. Some are dark and you’ll be relying more on feel and movement and other rooms are brighter and shinier. There are two sides: the garden, and the main section. The garden has these colourful, illuminated, sorta reflective rocks that you can push and they’ll wobble and the main attraction there is an area where you can lay down and these real flowers lower down and you’re surrounded by them. Sadly, this was quite short and rushed so it’ll be over before you know it. You’ll need to crawl to get in and out. In the main section of the exhibit there’s a lot of focus on light and water with the stars of the show being the glittery mirrored room with lots of LED lights (makes me think of that Taylor Swift song “Bejeweled”), a room that is a pool of knee deep water with interactive rainbow koi fish projections, a rainbow mirrored room with huge illuminated bouncy balls, and a rotating theatre with a perpetually changing video of flowers flying through the air while you lay down on the floor – you’ll never see the same show twice in there. My thoughts? If only cannabis or shrooms were legal in Japan because this would be even crazier while high. You’ll be able to get a lot of Instagram-worthy shots, but it’s crowded in there so there might be some people in the background. A bit pricey, but worth it!

Fun Night Out 2: Chunichi Dragons vs Yakult Swallows

Okay, I’ll get it out of the way, I kept dying laughing at the name of the Yakult Swallows and their cheer “Go! Go! Swallows!”. Come on! Someone at Yakult had to know what they were doing, peak r/theyknew material. Anyway, my dad is a huge baseball fan and on his bucket list was going to a baseball game in Japan. He’s been to baseball games in the US, Canada, and Venezuela. This is how I talked him into going to Japan. Admittedly, I’m not a baseball fan really, but I was really keen on going to a baseball game in Japan because my husband has never been to a baseball game and I wanted to see how the games were in Japan, and there are quite a few differences! I think it’s something everyone’s gotta experience, even if they’re not really into sports. Japan is usually quiet, except for pachinko parlours, arcades, and baseball games. Japanese baseball fans are so passionate and their love for the game is infectious so you’ll be trying to join in the chants and have a smile on your face the whole time. Both teams were actually at the bottom of the rankings, but it was still a blast!

Of course, to warm up before the baseball game, we went to batting cages in Shinjuku (pretty sure these were featured in a Yakuza game). My brother did really well, my dad did well, and Eoin did pretty well, especially considering it’s his first time. I don’t have good hand-eye co-ordination so I didn’t try but I had fun watching them. The batting cages come with an animation of a pitcher throwing the ball. A lot more human than the batting cages I’ve been to in America where it just has the machine spit out balls at you and that’s it.

Where to begin with the differences? As you can expect, with this being a Japanese baseball game, the team’s gonna have an anime character. A lot of the teams in Japan (and Korea too) are owned by a company, so Yakult own the Swallows and Chunichi are a newspaper company based in Nagoya, where the Dragons are from (oddly enough their mascot is not a dragon, but a koala). In North America there aren’t separate sections for fans of each team, you can just sit anywhere. But in Japan, it’s like a football match in England, fans of the home team sit on one side of the stadium and fans of the away team are on the other side. You can’t walk over to the other side and you can’t wear the other team’s colours, just to keep the peace – if you want to buy merch and you’re sitting on the away team side, it is available just outside the entrance. Because it was raining I got a Chunichi Dragons towel to cover my hair. There is no singing of the national anthem at the game (in general, I did not see a lot of flags in Japan, about as many times as I could count on one hand). The atmosphere is very positive and uplifting with no booing of the other team, but rather every time your side’s team are batting everyone gets up and starts chanting. So expect to stand and shot the word “Kattobase” a lot! If you’re a nerd like me, there’s an academic article all about Japanese baseball chants that is really interesting. If you’re more visual, there’s a YouTube channel full of Japanese baseball cheering songs and some of them have English translations. There are also cheerleaders and beer girls, who are young women who are aspiring idols and they walk around the stadium with a backpack holding a keg of beer. Overall, it’s a lot of fun and I would highly recommend catching a baseball game in Japan, if you can! It’s a totally different experience than one in America.

Overnight Trip: Ryokan

One of my bucket list items was going to a ryokan for that authentic Japanese experience. When I’m travelling such a long distance I want to try as many unique experiences as I can that I can’t usually experience closer to home.

A ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn that has rooms with a tatami mat where you can relax in your yukata and slippers and drink tea at a low table. One big appeal of the ryokan is that you can get meals brought to your room (if you’re vegetarian, you’re probably gonna do what we did and walk to the nearest Family Mart/7-Eleven/Lawson and make a meal from whatever you find there). Some rooms have western style beds, while others have futons that you can roll out on the tatami floor. The bathroom has a nice bathtub for relaxing and if you’d like you can go to the onsen, which is a public bath and relax in the hot water. Onsen are separated by gender. If you’re a hetero couple and you want to go to the onsen together, you can rent a private onsen. At the Ryokan we stayed at there was this really pleasant lullaby kinda music and one of the songs was a cover of “Take Me Home, Country Roads”.

After many days of walking 20,000+ steps my back, my knees, and my feet were killing me and this rest day was very much needed and oh boy did the onsen help a lot! Thank goodness I’m not chronically ill anymore, because I don’t know how I would have done it! After going to the Original Pancake House (pretty much the same as Chicagoland favourite Walker Brothers – famously mentioned in the movie Mean Girls), Eoin and I took the train from Shinjuku to Fujikawaguichiko, yes that Fujikawaguchiko with the Lawson that had the perfect view of Mt Fuji, when it’s not obscured by clouds, that tourists flocked to like moths to a flame. Oddly enough the train took a good bit longer than the bus, but it was a very scenic ride and we got to go on one of those themed trains. Thankfully, we learnt from our mistake and took the bus back to Tokyo. Sadly, we didn’t get a view of Mt Fuji while we were there, but we did get to see it on a clear day from the shinkansen and that was awesome!

Definitely an experience that was worth it. Personally, next time, I’d stay at a ryokan for two nights to not feel so rushed.

Stay tuned for the Osaka, Kyoto, and Seoul blog posts!

Liked this blog post and want to support my work and see more? Donate to The Diversity of Classic Rock on Patreon or Paypal or follow me on Facebook, Bluesky or Instagram, buy my book Crime of the Century, click the follow button on my website, leave a nice comment, send your music or classic rock related books for review, or donate your art and writing talents to the blog. Thank you for your support! If you donate any amount of money to my Patreon or PayPal, you’ll get a Crime of the Century ebook, so it’s basically pay what you can! The best deal you’ll get on the book and you won’t find this deal anywhere else! I just want to give back to my readers and say thank you for your support.