So a few weeks ago I posted and asked for some advice on food for my honeymoon in Japan. We currently have some time to kill on a train from Kyoto to Hakone so I thought I'd put together a little trip report so far.

First is transportation. The wife and I are both into credit card churning and have been planning/savings points for this trip. We were able to nab enough points through chase cards to fly first class round trip on Korean air for surcharges only. This came out to roughly $162/person. One of our cards also gives us a $300 travel credit so our round trip flights from NYC to Tokyo ran us a tidy $24. A week before we left I tried to buy the tickets just to see. Below is what the tickets would have cost us.



I’ll spare everyone the pics and commentary of the flight itself unless people are interested, but needless to say it was incredible. Everything was top notch, from the food to the service to the seats that recline into beds. I travel a ton for work and this was a completely different animal. I don’t know if i’ll be able to look at long distance air travel the same way again.

As far as transport in japan, there are a bunch of different methods. Taxis are all over Tokyo, like most major cities, but are INSANELY expensive. We did take a few, but it was for short trips. Something like a taxi from the airport to our hotel in Shinjuku would have run about $250. The taxis we did take were all super clean and all of the drivers were incredibly friendly and helpful. They seemed to be a bit more affordable in Kyoto, but that city doesn’t have the public transit infrastructure of Tokyo.

Instead, our main mode of transportation was subway. We opted to purchase JR passes which are essentially subway tickets with unlimited usability for the duration you purchase them for. They’re only available BEFORE you get to Japan though. JR has local subway type lines as well as Amtrak (although not as ****ty) type lines that go long distances via bullet trains. JR doesn’t operate all the trains, but they seemed to operate enough in Tokyo to get us anywhere we needed to go. I’ll be honest, as someone who lived in NYC for 3 years and used their subway and train system everyday, the Japanese blow that **** out of the water.

The first thing that stuck out at both of us is just the crazy order and politeness on all of these trains. Everyone waits for people to exit trains before hopping on, nobody pushes, there’s no loud music and everyone is quiet and respectful. No one asking for money or sleeping in the cars. Side note: I learned the hard way that there are women only cars on the train during certain hours. Nobody made a fuss or anything, but we realized this was the case after like 10 minutes of me being the only guy in the car. Here’s what literally every subway car in Tokyo looked like.



You’ll notice everything is ****ing SPOTLESS too. That was a recurring theme. The Japanese don’t seem to **** around when it comes to cleanliness or personal appearances. We saw very little if any graffiti in Tokyo and no litter. Which is crazy because they also don’t seem to have trash cans anywhere in public. People gave up seats for elderly and someone even saw my wife sitting and just got up and walked away so I could sit next to her no questions asked. No big deal, just got up and walked away. Didn’t even acknowledge me. The subway and JR maps are slightly intimidating, as you can see:



One cool thing we liked about the long distance trains is how all the stations sell these little bento lunch box meals for the trips. They range from sushi to noodles, to tonkatsu. Here’s a pic of one Mrs. Gorg enjoyed on the way from Tokyo to Kyoto.



We also took the bus one day from Tokyo to Tokyo Disney Sea. I wish I had some cool exciting stuff to share with you about that but it was pretty unremarkable. Clean and quiet, like everything else. We also bought unlimited day bus passes when we went to Nara. That ran us like $5 each and was easily worth it. They have a special line that seemed to be set up just for tourists that hits all the major spots.

Anyway, that’s what we’ve got so far for transportation. We had sushi breakfast in the fish market, spent a day at Tokyo Disney Sea, ate some incredible ramen and gyoza, visited and owl cafe where i got **** on, fed tame deer in Nara and even had a dinner at Jiro’s in Roppongi. We have a few quiet days at a traditional japanese ryokan and a baseball game in Tokyo still on the docket. I’ll be happy to keep updating or answer questions if there’s any interest. Thanks again for everyone’s help and recommendations.

Gorg.

Let's try this again non-******edly:

Here's the cost of our flight had we not used points/miles:



Here's the subway car:


Here are the Tokyo subway and JR Rail Maps:



Here's the pic of the little bento box thing they sell at all the train stations:



There we go.

Will ask for your help on how to transfer chase points to Korean Air.

How long ahead of time did you book flights?

Happy to help. We booked the flight about 6 months out. The process wasn't as easy as a lot of other redemptions I've made, but certainly doable. Basically, you have to call up Korean air and talk them through the flights you want to book. You should look up the exact flight times and numbers beforehand so you can be as clear as possible on what you want.

Once you have identified the flight they will put it on hold for you. I think you have something like 2 weeks to pay the balance of points & surcharge fee. We just paid it all immediately since the chase transfer was instant and the remaining cost was like $24. The only note is that the wife and I each had to go through this process seperately while on the phone together since we weren't "technically" married yet in Korean air's view. Let me know if this helps.

That is very helpful. What was the total point total for 2 round trip first class tickets?

It was a total of 320,000 chase points for two round trip tickets. We each got the chase sapphire reserved for 100k points each and the preferred for another 50k each. The remaining 20k points was from manufactured spending visa gift cards and natural spend. We also stayed four nights at the park hyatt for free by each getting that card and we have 3 free nights at the Conrad Hilton on points too. Overall, the credit card companies have served us damn well on our honeymoon.

Park hyatt Tokyo, nice!

Hope you had fun at the ryokan too.

So you used 40k USD worth of points or the flights cost TONS less if you redeem in points?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I transferred 320,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to Korean Air and then used them for the free flight. Had I purchased the flight outright in cash, it would have cost just under $40k USD.

So i'm back stateside and thought I'd post some of the food we were lucky enough to try while we were traveling around.


While exploring the Tsukiji Fish Market, we had read about two places located inside the market where you can get a decent sushi breakfast. One is Sushi Dai, which had about a 2 hour wait when we arrived at 8:30am. The other was Daiwa Sushi. We waited about 45 minutes to get in. They offer a set menu option, but we were told that it wasn't really the greatest and should go a la carte instead. i think we each had 7-8 pieces of fish.

Hamachi


Chutoro


Scallop



Another item we were fond of was Tonkatsu, which is a breaded pork cutlet. It's traditionally served with shredded cabbage and different sauces depending on the region you're in. The cutlet you see here is covered in a red miso sauce which I believe is Nagoya style. Incredibly delicious. We almost went back for lunch on a second day. I think the place was located in Ginza.




We had also read about what were supposed to be the world's most perfect pancakes so we had to make a trip to give them a try. While the pancakes were good, I wouldn't recommend going out of your way for them as they are like $15 each and the wait is long (we arrived 14 minutes after opening and had to wait 45 minutes for a table). They are definitely photogenic though!




We also found the ice cream place in the basement of Nakano Broadway after a little wandering. Guess which one we went for?




we failed miserably...




I have a ton more food related stuff including a visit to Jiro, A5 Wagyu and a visit to a baseball game but at the risk of making the post too long I'll cut the food off here unless people are interested.

Food is top 5 subject of interest for sure, keep posting.

We need more food posts!

Japanese baseball games are off the chain, at least compared to the staid American versions. Did you go to a Swallows or a Giants game (or outside of Tokyo)?

As I mentioned up top, this trip was my honeymoon and we were lucky enough to have been gifted a Sushi dinner at Sukiyabashi Jiro. For those of you not familiar, there are two locations in Tokyo.

The first is in the Ginza train station and is run by Jiro himself. For those not familiar with the documentary, Jiro is a 91 year old sushi chef made famous by the documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" which documents his pursuit of sushi perfection. It's on netflix and a great watch, even if you aren't a huge sushi connoisseur. This location has 3 michelin stars.

The second location is run by his second son Takashi and is located in the Roppongi section of Tokyo which seemed to be a higher end part of town. This location has 2 michelin stars. We were able to score a 7pm reservation at this location. We were able to snag the reservation by utilizing our hotel concierge. We called to have them book it about a month before we left for Japan and gave them a window of 3 different days. They wrote us back within 24 hours and let us know they were able to secure the reservation. Everything we read said this was the best way to procure a spot if you were in a higher end hotel (we were in the Park Hyatt at the time, again, thanks to credit card points).

We arrived and were seated promptly. The restaurant is located on the second story of a nice shopping center type area. Here is the outside:



Aside from the movie, one of the reasons it's so hard to procure a reservation at these places is because they simply don't seat many people. Jiro's in Ginza seats (I believe) ten and Jiro's Roppongi seats 8.



I've mentioned a few times that I'm not generally a sushi fan. Because of this, I was a WRECK as we started our service. It's not every day that a michelin star chef is handing you his food and watching you eat it while staring at you from 2 feet away. Here's a shot of Takashi in the process of prepping our first bite. He had two helpers out front with him prepping the next courses and making sure our every whims were catered to. They literally were clearing single grains of rice from our plates if they dropped while eating the sushi.



So on to what everyone wants to see. Here is the sushi we were served in order. The two items that i didn't care for and almost gagged on in front of Takashi were predictably the Uni and the Ikura. Nevertheless, the went down and I avoided shaming my country by puking up some of the best sushi in the world in front of the chef who made it. In order of service:

Flounder


Squid


Giant Scallop


Lean Tuna


Medium Tuna


Fatty Tuna


Gizzard Shad


Little Clam


Horse Mackerel


Ikura(Salmon Roe)


Japanese Tiger Prawn (Head and Tail)


Geoduck (giant clam)


Uni (Sea Urchin)


Smoked Bonito


Hard Shell Clam


Mackerel


Small Scallops


Freshwater Eel


Tamago (Egg)




Takashi was very talkative and amiable throughout the whole service and answered our questions as he worked. He also took pictures with us at the end of the night. This is notable as it's been known that his dad is really cranky and prickly towards foreigners and doesn't generally like to take pictures.

Overall, it was a great experience. I've never had fish so tender and flavorful as the fatty tuna. It literally melts away in your mouth. If it weren't so rich, I would try to eat an entire slab. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about the visit. Other non sushi stuff to come next.

We went to a Swallows game. We were lucky in that they were playing the Hanshin Tigers. This Tigers are essentially the second most popular team in Japan behind the Giants. The stadium was PACKED since Hanshin has such a large following. It was probably a 50/50 split of Hanshin and Swallows fans. I'm in the pro sports industry and i've seen literally thousands of different events. This was BY FAR the weirdest and best time i've ever had at an event. It was just nuts on all accounts. I lost it when the cheerleaders came out and the giant swallow in a kabuki mask with a huge bottle of yogurt on his back started break dancing.

Awesome food pics Gorg, keep em coming! Looks like a great trip.

I went to a Swallows game last summer; agreed it was an awesome atmosphere and definitely different than American baseball. That was against Hiroshima; I think it was, like you said, pretty close to an even mix of fans. The Hirohima fans actually seemed more vocal. From what I remember (beer an inning type game) there is a clear division of home/away on the right/left sides and it seemed to be designed like that. I wonder if that's the case for all Japanese baseball.

The beer girls carrying the mini-kegs in backpacks was my favorite bit.

Great stuff. Was Jiro's a fixed menu or did you order what you wanted?

Jiro is a fixed menu. They go to the fish market every morning and base what they serve on what is fresh that day. It's very possible the menu would be completely different if were to go two days in a row.

Cool thanks for the info

Seems like there's some interest in the baseball game so i'll expand on that a bit.

We were lucky enough to snag tickets to see the Tokyo Yakult Swallows host the Hanshin Tigers. Tokyo has two teams, the Swallows who are traditionally not very good and the Giants, who are essentially the NY Yankees of Japanese Baseball. The Giants are extremely popular but they play in the very impersonal and cavernous tokyo dome. Knowing that, we opted to grab tickets to see the Yakult Swallows host the Hanshin Tigers at Meiji Jingu Stadium. The tigers are the second most popular team in Japan and are owned by a railway company. The Swallows are owned by a yogurt drink company. Here's a picture of our tickets. I believe they came to about $30 each. We were on the first base line about half way into the outfield. Interesting thing to note is that the Japanese don't mess around with any kind of ticketing fees. A $30 ticket is a $30 ticket.



As this was a weekend game and the opponents were the second most popular team in Japan, the stadium was packed. I'm told this isn't a common situation for the swallows. I would say the stadium was split about 50/50 if not 60/40 in favor of Hanshin. For those who don't know, Hanshin fans are famous for being lunatics. They've thrown batteries and pachinko balls at opponents and there's even a story of them allegedly HIJACKING A TRAIN when they finally won a championship. Here's a decent pano of the stadium. The entire first base side up through left field is all Hanshin fans.



One of the weirder things about attending a game in Japan is that they don't really cheer plays, they cheer the individual players. What I mean by this is that every team has a designated cheering squad and section. These are super loyal fans who go to all the team's games and create cheers for all of the players on the roster. Whenever a player comes up to bat the entire stadium starts singing an individualized cheer/song. Here's a video.

https://vid.me/J9tL

One of the Swallows traditions is to bring out an umbrella and dance whenever a run is scored. The fans take this very seriously as you can see.

https://vid.me/zKIt

The Japanese also have a weird way of selling beer at the stadium. They basically hire girls in their 20s to strap mini kegs to their backs and make their way through the sections.



In terms of food, it seemed like the menu items skewed more towards the savory side of things. There were standard things like ice cream and potato chips, but there was also Takoyaki which are battered octopus balls.



And for some reason, the longest lines BY FAR were for the very appropriately named Stadium Mix Weiner and Weiner Cup




My one regret is I didn't get a chance to try this pork belly on a stick.



Some other assorted pics: