April 10-21, 2025: Well, that’s a wrap for Japan as a whole! Some final thoughts here, a few which are mentioned in previous posts, and a few not!
1. Not one picture I took seems to have captured the magnitude and sheer volume of people on the streets, shops, and pretty much everywhere around Japan, or at least the areas I visited. Even the videos I captured don’t do it justice. I don’t know how else to describe HOW MANY PEOPLE there were, and at all hours of the day and night. Life is very active and vibrant here!
2. Got my steps in! My Fitbit steps the week of Mon Apr 14th – Sun Apr 20th: 142,433! The weekly report is for seven days, so it’s missing Osaka and Hiroshima, but it captures the rest of my Japan adventures including Universal Studios, Tokyo, and Star Wars Celebration. If the missing days were to be included, I got probably close to 200,000 steps total! This is over three times what I would normally do, and that’s IF I was doing 10,000 steps a day, which I’m not! I think this is a very good reason to travel more!
3. Despite the language barrier, there was English available in many places where it was needed most, such as airports, train stations, restaurants, pharmacies (sort of!), the Star Wars Celebration convention, and more. For everything else, I think Google Translate did a pretty good job. Lots of restaurants had bilingual signage and menus for example, there’s only one word I needed to know in this sign to get what I wanted:
4. Pay attention and be mindful when walking the streets, and watch out for bicycles! Sooooo many bicycles!
5. Contrary to all the naysayers and old schoolers and people I know who have visited Japan, I did not need one single cent of cold hard cash on me. EVERYTHING I ever needed or wanted was payable on card or machine. Suica was amazing. I’d love to see something like that worldwide!
6. Japan does not do gluten-free. Everywhere we went to eat, there was not a single gluten free option to be found. Someone prove me wrong! It’s not that there were no gluten-free foods, we did find that. But with no specifically gluten-free menu items, we had to pay much closer attention to what we were ordering.
7. While I didn’t need a power adapter for Japan since the plugs were mostly the same as North America (as long as your cord is 2-prong only), I noticed the hotel in Tokyo and even our Airbnb in Osaka had power outlet ‘stations’ installed by the beds, complete with USB-C and USB-A ports. So you don’t even need a plug or an adapter if you’re only charging your devices like phones, tablets, e-book reader, power banks, earbuds, etc! I am only presuming most hotel and other accommodations are like this in Japan nowadays. Suddenly the world has become much more universal which is definitely convenient and a good thing!
8. Learn about drying clothes ahead of time, and be prepared! Bring a travel clothesline if possible, and allow time for it! Don’t let this 2-in-1 BEAST of a machine defeat you:
9. Would I go back? Probably. I did go there specifically for Star Wars Celebration rather than a full-on cultural experience, and had other travel plans immediately afterward (stay tuned for New Zealand!)
If I were to visit Japan again, I think I would buy a 7 or 14 day rail pass and see other parts of the country… Travel to some of the more rural areas, chill at some breweries and coffee shops, and see some of those shrines and temples that my other pals visited. Go somewhere peaceful. Somewhere less populated, if that’s possible!
Thank you Japan. I had a great time visiting, and am glad to have had the experience!
