I Like Japan in June…
How about you?
Before I had children, my husband and I spent six months backpacking around Asia - scrappy, no real itinerary, meeting people and chasing visas, because some part of me knew that if I waited, I'd never get the chance to do it that way again. I didn’t want to start a family until I'd been to China; I've been obsessed with Chinese art, history, food - all of it, for as long as I can remember. I walked into the living room one day and declared to my husband, "We're going to Asia for 6 months, and before you say anything, I wanted to go for a year, so I've already compromised."
We did in fact spend 6 months in Asia, with 2 of those months in China. It’s where Watch Our Step was born - as the blog we wrote during that adventure.
Since that trip in 2011, I've been to almost every country in Asia, but somehow not Japan. I've always thought of China and Japan as the Rolling Stones and the Beatles: you can appreciate both, but you're probably a little more one than the other. I was always a China girl (and, for the record, a Stones girl). I kept saving Japan, filing it away for some future trip I'd take once I had kids.
This past February, a work trip to Japan came up, and that was all it took to pull the thread. It turns out I can love two bands at the same time. We were supposed to do a family road trip through Austria this summer, but only ten days after I returned from my work trip, I'd bought plane tickets for the family to Tokyo instead. I called my husband (poor guy, always getting these declarations) and said, "I bought us plane tickets to Japan for June. You have 24 hours to tell me to cancel them." Three days after school let out, we were on a plane, and my "someday" Japan family trip was now.
So here's my download from four weeks in Japan, two trips in four months: the moves I'd repeat, the places that surprised me, and a few things worth knowing before you book your own trip.
Austria is still sitting there, unbooked, and I regret nothing. Read on, and let me know what you want more of - the ryokan strategy, Kanazawa, or tips on giving your spouse 24 hours to talk you out of something you've already decided to do.
All the Right Moves: Start Your Japan Trip at a Ryokan
I wanted to visit a ryokan on my first trip in February, but because of scheduling, I had to go early and stay in one before the work trip began. I spent two nights at Asaba, on the Izu Peninsula (currently mid-renovation with its shared onsens closed until March; they were pretty glorious before, so I can only dream about what they’ll be like now). Landing there before Tokyo, sleeping off the flight, getting the otherworldly shiatsu massages (ask for Sakurai!), easing in somewhere quiet before the city hits you - I think this is the move if your routing allows it.
This summer we did the family version: two nights at a ryokan in an extremely cool part of Western Tokyo - on the recommendation of my friend and Japan guru Sophia Hatchitt. Onsen time, the best popsicles I've had in ages, vintage shopping and the zen vibes were the perfect soft landing before moving for five nights to the brand-new 1 Hotel (loved), and going into full-blown Tokyo mode: Pokémon-hunting, baseball games, sushi and Wagyu galore, TeamLab Planets, Disney Sea chaos, and all the Hi-Chew and Kit Kat we could manage.
The Most Interesting New Opening in Japan Right Now
Isn't in Tokyo, Kyoto, or Osaka
It's Azuma Farm Koiwai, a brand-new property from the founder of Aman, tucked into Iwate Prefecture, and it may have served the best food of the entire trip. The butter and yogurt at breakfast were so purely themselves that my 12 year old son accused me of eating five sticks of butter in one sitting - and he wasn't wrong to notice.
We took stargazing walks at night, my husband and 14 year old son did an e-bike ride with a local guide who took them to a secret Shinto shrine, and I bought half of the butter-based products at the dairy farm shop next door (they took up 1/4 of a full-sized suitcase; I regret nothing).
Every meal was a work of art: simple yet elevated, and rooted in nature. This is an unplugging moment. It’s so special that the 6.7 earthquake that happened while we were there was the least memorable thing about it!
Kanazawa Must Be What Kyoto Felt Like Before
I don't say that lightly. It's the kind of city I picture when clients tell me they want to go somewhere people actually live, not somewhere built for tourists.
The fish market there was phenomenal, smaller and far easier to actually dig into than Tsukiji. Kanazawa gifted us with some of the best meals of our whole trip, and we had an incredible afternoon of wandering and shopping with an incredible local guide. If you’re chasing that pre-crowds Kyoto feeling, Kanazawa is the answer (for now).
Hiroshima: History That Connects
We visited Hiroshima with our two boys, and it shifted something in both of them. We’re a Jewish family, and my grandparents were Holocaust survivors, so WWII has never been abstract to us. But the Japan side of it, the Pacific side, has always felt like a separate story, distant in a way the rest of it never was. Hiroshima closed that gap. The museum is powerful, and we had an incredible guide who showed us a school near the epicenter where only one young girl survived. My older son was more visibly shaken than my younger one at the museum, but they both left Hiroshima different than they arrived.
These are some of my favorite moments in travel, when history stops being abstract and starts being something you carry; where you fundamentally feel what you have in common with people and a place whose story you'd never thought to set beside your own.
Hotel Highlight
The Four Seasons Osaka is still among my favorite hotels anywhere (in possibly my favorite city in Japan).
One floor is entirely made up of Japanese-style rooms: tatami mats, raised futon beds, elevated ryokan-style bathroom, its own dedicated check-in area, complimentary afternoon tea and a daily craft sessions such as matcha making. I'd stayed in a wonderful Western-style room in February, but I left dreaming of these rooms - the perfect hybrid of Japanese simplicity and Four Seasons polish. We actually changed our entire trip around to spend our last night in Japan here, and I'd do it again. Well done me.
My kids were legitimately happier here than at any other hotel on the trip. The service is impeccable yet warm, the lobby is bright and airy, the spa is fantastic, and the breakfast is amazing (they serve a special breakfast in the tea room on the Japanese room floor, but I couldn't forego my favorite noodle soup bar at the main breakfast!). We had a luggage mix-up and I barely registered it, because the hotel had flagged and fixed it so quickly. When I think about hotels that feel like home, I think about the Four Seasons Osaka.
Want to plan Japan? While we consider ourselves miracle workers here over at Watch Our Step, Japan is a destination best planned with as much lead time as possible. Quality is Queen, and in service of that, things fill up fast, and when they’re full, they’re full. It is not a land of exceptions. The good news is you don't need it all figured out to start, you just need to start before Japan does, and you need to reach out to Gaby!
