Traveling to Japan with Kids: Our Ultimate Guide to the Land of the Rising Sun

In this Can We Start Over podcast episode, Lindsey & Britt share their experiences traveling with their three kids through Japan. From the incredible architecture to the fashion & attention to detail in everything from food preparation to playground design, the couple discusses the many things that stood out to them during their three-week adventure through Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo.

Get insider tips on why Japan is a fantastic choice for a family adventure. They also share information on traveling in Japan, including the importance of starting with a soft landing and using the JR Rail Pass to get around. And don't forget about the stylish fashion and the incredible Starbucks, & 7-11s.

Japan is perfect for a family vacation or a more extended travel experience.

Tune in to hear more about their journey and get inspired to plan your trip to Japan.

You can read the Japan blog post HERE for links to the places mentioned in the episode.

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We'd love to hear from you! What do you want to hear more about? What do you love? Have a topic request or a guest suggestion? Send us a DM on Instagram.

Britt's Photography
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Episode Transcript

Britt (00:15):
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Can We
Start Over podcast.

Lindsey (00:18):
My name is Brit.
And I'm Lindsay.
And if this is your first timelistening, welcome.
We're so glad you're here.
We are a married couple fromTexas that last year decided to
sell our home, sell most of ourbelongings, and go on an around
the world adventure with ourthree kids to find a new home.

(00:38):
When we decided this and put itinto motion, everything started
happening really fast from ideato leaving on a plane was four
months.
So we decided to start a podcastand talk about how this journey
happened so fast.
The places we were going to andto talk to amazing people that
we meet along the way that havealso started over.

(01:02):
And this

Britt (01:02):
week, we're talking about Japan,

Lindsey (01:04):
baby.
We were there for three weeks.
It was an incredible experience.
It was incredible with kids.
I will always recommend if youhave kids and you want to travel
out of the country, go to Japanbecause you'll have an amazing
time.
We sure did.
And so we're here to share itwith you today.
Okay.
Everything we did.

(01:24):
And all the fun we had, and allthe noodles we ate.
One thing that so many peopleask us about is, how do you
communicate?
How do you like stay connectedwhen you're traveling, when
you're with your kids all thetime, when you're starting over?
And man, we've been married for16 years and it has been a ride.
Like we started as completely,honestly, unconscious

(01:49):
partnership, wouldn't you say,Brit?
Like we got married young.
And we didn't know.
A lot of tools and along the 16years, somewhere along the way
we committed to, we have tochange and we have to
communicate.
And that's when we decided tocompletely shift into a
conscious partnership.
That decision is what helped usstart over so easily because

(02:13):
when we were ready.
We already knew how to talk, wealready knew how to hold space
for each other, and so wecreated a completely free guide,
the three steps that we use inour own relationship to stay
connected.
If you want to grab that guide,if you're in a relationship or
you're relationship curious andyou just want to know what do
people do after they've beenmarried a long ass time to still

(02:37):
feel like they're a unit.
Get the free guide.
You can find the link in theshow notes.
We hope it's helpful for you.
Let's get into the show.
All right, let's do it.

Britt (02:47):
I miss Japan.

Lindsey (02:51):
You do?
I do.
I kind of miss it too, actually.
It feels like we were there amillion years ago and it was
really just a few months ago andit was so much experience packed
into three weeks, a relativelyshort amount of time that It's
like you really need to be awayfrom it to process it all.

(03:12):
Yeah.
And just be like, whoa, look atall this stuff that we did.
Yeah.

Britt (03:17):
We experienced so much, but in the grand scheme of
things, it was so littlecompared to what you could do

Lindsey (03:22):
there, I think.
Right, right.
So that's important to say thatthis isn't, this is our ultimate
Japan guide, not the ultimateJapan guide, because.
We went there as tourists forthree weeks, not as people who
live there, so we just weresharing what our experience was
as a family of five traveling inJapan for three weeks.

(03:45):
There's so much to love.
Yeah.
What are like the main overallvibes of what's stood out to you
as special about Japan?

Britt (03:54):
Hmm.
Well, the first thing that Inoticed was the architecture.
The second you walk out into theworld there, everything looks
totally different than the U.
S.
Even the most simple buildings.
We're completely different thanwhat we're used to.
And from there, it goes intothese really intricate
buildings, just like crazytechnology.
There's video screens on the,like the whole size of the side

(04:18):
of a building that looks 3d.
It looks like there's, you know,like a Panda.
Stepping out of a building.
It's bonkers.
Uh, from there to like thehistoric buildings to the old
shrine stuff, that's likethousands of years old.
It was amazing.
Immediately you see all thatstuff and you're like,

Lindsey (04:36):
wow.
Every city that we went to, itwas this.
real mix of new, modern, andthen, like, old tradition,
historic.
And it really made me realizehow, even though I didn't think
I was, that I'm, like, prettyAmericanized.

(04:56):
To go somewhere else and, andjust notice, Oh, look, look at
these millions of people, like,living.
In this world that I just had noidea existed, you know, and how
like small our worldview can beeven as people who identify as
like open minded and open tocultures, you just really have

(05:21):
to go somewhere to feel that youare just a microscopic speck on
the world.
Yeah,

Britt (05:30):
it really does shine a light on how little we
experience, can experience inour lives, and never, and just
think about like You know, ourparents that, you know, never
left home, mind blowing to thinkabout everything that you
haven't seen.

Lindsey (05:43):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so like visually outside,you're right, Japan, what we saw
was amazing.
Huge buildings, huge cities, andthen this really historic,
special, preserved piece ofJapan.
That also coming from America,we can be like, this house was
built in 1790.

(06:04):
And like, that's wow, that'sreally old to us.
And then you go somewhere thatwas built like in...
Twelve.
Yeah, something like that.
Uh, I also really loved thatevery one is stylish.
Yeah.
And everything is stylish, butnot in a unapproachable way.

(06:26):
Just there's style everywhere.
Like everyone is oozing style,but also really covered up.
Not that you need to like exposeyour skin to be stylish, but
it's just a really.
Interesting way to see fashion,and I loved it.
Yeah,

Britt (06:41):
even the children and the elders were all, like, super
fashionable.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And there weren't, like, a lotof brands.
It wasn't, like, graphic tees oranything.
Like, here it can be prettyloud, you know?
And there it was all verysimple.
Muted colors.
And just very chic, it

Lindsey (06:58):
was.
Yeah, very chic, you're right,yeah.
I think there were a lot ofbrands, but that might have been
more stores.
And accessories, a lot of it wasaccessories.
Yeah, I've never been to a placewhere I noticed, like, how many,
uh, Chanel stores there were, orlike, Dolce stores, until I was
in Japan and I was like, Oh mygosh, there's, uh, luxury brand

(07:19):
stores in every city we went to.
There was multiple.
Yeah.
Luxury brand stores and beingfrom Fort Worth, Texas, where
they like, just got their firstluxury store two years ago or
something, um, again, it justshines a light on like the world
is going around you.

(07:40):
Yeah.

Britt (07:40):
Yeah.
Another cool thing that Inoticed was all the playgrounds
were amazing.
And I don't know if it's justthat they're different from what
I'm used to, but just the designthat goes into the playgrounds
there, a lot of them were older.
And, you know, a slide thatlooked like Godzilla, or just
these crazy pipes everywhere.

(08:00):
It's like, hard to even explainhow cool these playgrounds

Lindsey (08:04):
were.
It looks way different, you'reright, than the playgrounds we
see here, which are like a lotof plastic here.
In Japan, what I saw was thatthe playgrounds were like, made
of metal, or wood, and theslides would be like...
A story high, all of them, youknow, and there was all those
rollers, there's tons of rollerslides.
Yeah.
Just really fun.

(08:24):
I liked all the slides.
Yeah, they don't fuck aroundwith

Britt (08:26):
kiddie slides.
Yeah, yeah.
These are like slides an adultcould possibly get scared to go
down.
I remember shooting out of oneand landing three feet in front
of it.

Lindsey (08:35):
Yeah, that would make you think that, like, this is a
little off topic but on topic,but, like, kids are so well
cared for there to say that,like, oh, the playgrounds looked
like the slides were two storiestall or one story tall might
make you think, like, Oh, that'sdangerous, but it's not because
the kids are even so much morecared for there than here.

Britt (08:59):
Yeah, that, you know, I think that's kind of a theme
there that reminds me also withlike the food, like everything
is really fresh and really nice.
There's lots of raw meats.
And so anytime you're walkingpast like a.
a store on the street, all the,the faces of the store
completely open, and there'sjust meat sitting out, like not

(09:20):
cooled.
And in the United States, you'dget shut down immediately for
just having meat out of arefrigerator.
It was like most places there.

Lindsey (09:28):
And it's still like really clean.
Yeah.
So, man, this could be a wholeother episode, but what I am
noticing just in us talkingabout this is like there's
presence, so there doesn't needto necessarily be like hyper
safety on a playground.
Right.
Because kids are playing withtheir parents or they're playing
with other kids, there's likemore presence.

(09:51):
I think that's probably truewith food preparation there too,
is like, they're payingattention.
Right.
And with a level of attention,you're going to serve better
things and you're, Not gonna beserving spoiled meat.
And also, that

Britt (10:04):
also reminds me of yet another lair.
People weren't on their phonesas much as they are here.
I went to a punk rock show,right?
And not a single person, like itstarted exactly at 7.
The band that I wanted to seecame out on the dot at 7.
The crowd, it was like sold out.
It was just, everyone was upagainst each other.

(10:25):
Not a single person had a phoneout or a camera, except for me,
because I wanted to takepictures.
And it didn't bother anybodythat I had a camera.
But not a single person pulledout a cell phone.
No one was taking a video, noone was checking their Facebook,
or any of that.
Everyone was really polite, andclapped at the end, and then the
show was over exactly at 8.
And everyone filed out.

(10:46):
It was wild.
It's like, just, yeah.
The amount of attention peoplepay there to

Lindsey (10:53):
everyday things.
Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, and there's stillobviously, like, technology is
everywhere, and there's placesthat you order your food on a
screen, and, but there's stillthis quality of presence.
It's just ingrained in people sothey don't need to go on their
phones as much.

Britt (11:10):
Right.
Just in general, everyone seemedlike very quiet and reserved
there.
There wasn't a whole lot of eyecontact unless you were speaking
directly to somebody, which wassomething I had to get used to a
little bit, especially beingfrom the South where everybody's
like, Hey, how you doing?
Oh my, what, you know.
Nodding their head at you andstuff.
It wasn't like that there, butwhen you are engaged with

(11:32):
someone, they're super politeand to the point.
Yeah, and totally down to helpyou with whatever

Lindsey (11:37):
you need.
Right.
Everyone was incredibly kind.
Yeah, it just seemed well caredfor.
Even the kids, I'm rememberingthe kids all having these like
little purses.
Or they're like little packets,kind of like, looks like a
purse.
Every kid has one, and it'llhave like, a handkerchief in it.
And that's how they dry theirhands.
And after they wash their hands,it's just like, proper.

(12:01):
Yeah.
Proper.
But not in a stuffy way, not ina way where it felt overbearing.
I don't

Britt (12:10):
remember the name of this crosswalk, but there's a
crosswalk in Tokyo that's like,Where all of, it's called the,
something Scramble, right?
Yeah.
And it's like the biggestcrosswalk in the world, and it's
like five streets comingtogether and people walking in
every direction, CadillacCorner, and it's almost silent.

(12:30):
Yeah.
So there's like a thousandpeople in one crosswalk, walking
in different directions,everyone knows exactly which way
to go and not fall into the flowof another direction.
And it, it was crazy.
Yeah.
It was like a, a movie orsomething.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's hard, it's hard to wrap mybrain around.

Lindsey (12:48):
Yeah, yeah.
Controlled chaos.
I also loved, this is sospecific and feels very American
of me, that I really loved theStarbucks.
I had the 7 Elevens there, andlet me preface that by saying
that, like, Starbucks isn'tnecessarily my jam here.
I'll go sometimes.
I don't need to go.

(13:08):
Same with 7 Eleven.
Never need to go there unlessI'm getting gasoline or
something.
But there was something, it'sjust because it was, it's like
American, so you feel like,okay, I know what to expect
here.
And then it was a level ofservice, cleanliness, attention.
that was so far beyond what youwould get here.

(13:29):
Like the Starbucks, everyStarbucks we went to in Japan,
and we would kind of seek themout.
Also, our kids loved theStarbucks there, um, because of
donuts.
It was like what you think Thebusiness plan for Starbucks was
when they started it like acoffee shop in Seattle That
people want to actually spendtime at and here now.

(13:52):
It's just like KFC or somethingThere's KFC there too, and I
didn't go to one but it'sprobably great.
It's very

Britt (13:59):
big.
They love KFC there But yeah theStarbucks and they had lots of
options.
The menus were huge And for me,there were, I think, four vegan
sandwiches at any given time,there were vegan doughnuts.
That stuff we don't get here.
I think they tried veganbreakfast sandwiches for like a
month and then they were outYeah So

Lindsey (14:20):
it really just shows the difference between between
like the fast pace here versusfast pace there Right what that
means to people because fastpace here means like all your
food comes in a bag and like youeat it in Your car while you're
doing something else And there,even at Starbucks, your donut
comes on a real plate with areal fork and a wet nap.

(14:42):
And like, you do not walk aroundwith it.
You sit down, you eat yourdonut, you drink your coffee,
and then you go.
Another

Britt (14:51):
interesting part of the whole experience was you do not
tip in Japan.
It is rude to tip.
Honestly, until recently, Ididn't realize what the history
of tipping was in the UnitedStates.
And it's to, I guess, ensurethat you're going to get better
service next time you go there,right?
Oh, I don't exactly know.

(15:12):
See, there we go.
There's something we don't know.
Over there it's rude becauseit's like, well of course I'm
doing the best that I can.
Right.
And they're getting, they'regetting paid better over there
as well.
Right.
And they're doing it all out ofpride of doing a good job.
Yeah.
And so if you screw up and tryto tip, they're not going to
like that.
It's a very interesting culture.

(15:33):
Yeah.
And I love that they are makingenough to do what they do.
Without getting

Lindsey (15:38):
tips, right?
Yeah, it was really anotherinteresting thing to come as an
American and see especiallycoming from food and you know,
it's like Um, and because weknow that's what it takes to

(15:59):
survive as someone in foodservice, but it made Me, just
really think about the way thateven companies, especially in
America, like you, the way thatmoney is distributed, again,
that can be a whole otherepisode, but because everyone
has like a really high qualityof life in Japan, and I'm sure

(16:20):
all the corporations are stillmaking a ton of money there, but
the people are making a lot ofmoney too.
But there's like 300 homelesspeople in all of Japan in the
biggest cities in the world.

Britt (16:32):
Even the smallest cities in the U.
S.
have more than

Lindsey (16:36):
that.
Those are the kind of likerabbit holes I start going down
after I visit a place where I'mlike, wait, what are the like
the dynamics of how this placeworks?
And how can a place still reallycare for people and all the food
is affordable and you don't tip?
Which was another thing is itwas a lot more affordable than
we really thought it was goingto be.
We, every meal we were like, Ohmy gosh, that was great meal and

(17:00):
it was 30 for five of us.
For five of us.
That would be a fancy meal

Britt (17:05):
there.
Right, and we're used to payingprobably between 75 and 100.
Yeah.
Anywhere, just to get five of usfed.
So that was a real treat.

Lindsey (17:16):
Yeah.
So there's a lot to love inJapan, and those are honestly
just our like general bird's eyeview of what we loved.
And now we want to get into likewhat we loved in each city that
we went to.
What I do want to talk aboutfirst is getting there and just
funny story that we came fromHawaii to Japan.
So we essentially went from thelast time in the time zone slot

(17:42):
in Hawaii to the first.
So we lost, I don't, I don'teven know if that makes sense to
people.
Really, we traveled into thefuture.
Straight up.
In a DeLorean 1985, we traveledto the future.
It's a 19 hour time difference,so it's just especially huge to
go through that time difference,especially if you're like a

(18:02):
sensitive wuss like me.
I felt it.
Anyway, the whole reason I'mreally saying that at the top is
that No, when you're gettingthere, because we booked our
Airbnb for an entire day beforewe needed it.
Yeah.
And that was really funny whenthey sent me a message and they
were like, what time will you bechecking in?
And I was like, oh, the next dayis when I'll be checking in.

(18:27):
There's obviously a milliondifferent ways you can see
Japan.
Um, we went to three cities thatwe really wanted to go to,
Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo.
And we started in Osaka almoston accident.
I think the ticket price wasjust better, but I'm so glad
that we didn't start in Tokyo.
And we'll get into why as wekind of describe in the episode,

(18:50):
but Tokyo is just so beautiful.
Huge, and I've heard this fromother, from friends that went to
Japan after we went that it wasso overwhelming that it kind of
put a damper on their trip.
It could be also different ifyou're traveling solo or you're
like just going with one person,but when you're going with a
family, like you need to havekind of a smooth and soft

(19:12):
landing.
So I'm so glad we started inOsaka.
By the time we landed, wentthrough customs, all of that,
and then we're ready to leavethe airport, of course, there's
fantastic transportationeverywhere, like, there's a
train everywhere, but with fiveof us, three being kids, and
three suitcases, and three carryons, we were like, Let's just

(19:35):
get a cab.
And I'm so glad we did.
Because it's like an, even thedrive to where, from the airport
in Osaka to where we stayed inthe Kita ward was like an hour.
So if we had done all of thatmaneuvering by train, it might
have taken less time to getthere, but it wouldn't, would
not be worth it after.
A really long travel day, going19 hours in the future, and now

(19:56):
it's night and you're with three

Britt (19:57):
kids.
And actually that taxi ride towhere we were staying at
nighttime was my first glimpseinto seeing like how big cities
are.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like New York City is big here,but it's small.
It's very dense.
And it's huge, but you get tocities and other countries, and
even Osaka was enormous, which Iwasn't expecting.

(20:19):
We're driving for an hourthrough thick city, through a
whole city, and that's on ahighway.
That's not even like citytraffic.
You're just driving on a highwayright next to the giant city for
an hour.
So, taxis are a good way totravel there.
Another good way to travel is bytrain, like we said.
And, there's a pass, you can getthe JR Rail Pass.

(20:41):
And this is, if you startlooking it up, this is what's
gonna come up every time.
Cause the JR line owns a lot ofthe different railways.
Not all of them, but...
You can get around in prettymuch any major city there on a
J.
R.
rail plan pass.
You just have to I guess thebest way to do it is to download
an app that tells you whichlines of the J.
R.
lines so you know where to goand the J.

(21:04):
R.
rail pass will cover anythingfor the whole amount of time
that you're there.
I think we did a.
Maybe a 27 day or a 30 day 21day 21 day pass, right and for
us It was great because thatalso covers the sink engine
Bullet train from each of thosecities to the next so on its own

(21:25):
that would have cost youProbably half the price you're
gonna pay for the the rail passSo for five people since we knew
we were going all around Japan,that was the best way to go And
there were some, some pointswhere it would, it was a lot
quicker to take a differentline.
So we paid a few bucks a personto take a different line where
we were going and probably saved20 or 30

Lindsey (21:47):
minutes.
One thing that I remember aboutit, well, it was very easy for
me because you did all theresearch and you planned it and
you told me what line to get on,so thank you for that.
But I remember that it was achallenge to get it.
this pass while we were there.

Britt (22:05):
That's true.
You do have to, or well, youdon't have to, but the best way
to do it is to buy the passbefore you travel to Japan.
And it's kind of strange the wayit works.
You buy it online, they send youa voucher in the mail, like
overnight.
Usually, or within a coupledays, and so when you get to
Japan, you take it to the, Iguess, the guest services, and

(22:26):
they give you your actual passthere, and you're set, you're
ready to go.
That was something I overlooked.
So, because I think the wholetime I was like, is it, should
we get this pass, should we not,and we had so much to worry
about, I was just like, ah,we'll get it when we get there,
right?
So, when we got there, we didget it, but we had to go to a
specific rail station.

(22:46):
Stand in a long line to get it.
Yeah.
So that was a drawback.
I should have been a little moreprepared.
Another time that it got alittle hard was to get on that
bullet train from Kyoto.
To Tokyo, we had Otis whodoesn't need a ticket, right,
but for that train, it goes byseats.

(23:07):
So us having the JR Rail Pass ineveryday life was fine.
We didn't need anything extra.
But to get on that bullet train,which is covered, we did have to
buy an extra seat for Otis thebaby.

Lindsey (23:18):
So we had to go back to a second train station, go to a
second office.
Brit had to wait in an evenlonger line while me and Eli and
Otis and Jack just cruisedaround the train station, which
was honestly super fun.
I must say that was an amazingtrain station.
Even the train stations areamazing and we'll get into that
a little bit more.

(23:38):
Let's talk about what we lovedin Osaka.
So we stayed in the Kita Wardand it was awesome.
I loved that it was, it wasstill really welcoming, but it's
definitely.
a local's kind of place.

Britt (23:54):
Right.
We didn't run into that manytourists when we were there.
And the, kind of the vibe that Igot from Kita is it's kind of in
the middle of, say, Kyoto that'svery traditional and Tokyo that
is very futuristic.
Osaka's kind of in the middlethere.
It has a little bit of both ofthose things.
And in the Kita ward, where westayed, When you think about

(24:16):
Japan and you think about analley with a bunch of bright
lights and little shops andstuff, that's the spot.
Yeah.
It was amazing.
You could get lost in thosealleys and I tried multiple
times and I would just alwaysend up back somewhere where I
knew, somewhere that I hadpassed, but I had seen a million
new things.

(24:36):
It was, it was like magic.
It was crazy.

Lindsey (24:39):
Yeah, I loved exactly what you just said.
There's every, it's not even analley, they're streets.
It just feels like alleys.
Some of them are only forpedestrians, but a lot of it is
streets.
They're just very narrow.

Britt (24:52):
You could usually only fit one car down a lot of them.
And

Lindsey (24:55):
there's just tiny restaurant, tiny restaurant,
tiny shop, tiny restaurant.
Over and over and over again,but they're all so unique that
it feels like a completelydifferent world that we never,
we have never experienced.
Right, and I'm not

Britt (25:10):
exaggerating when I say this, but the house we were
staying in...
Within a 5 minute walk in anydirection, you would see
literally about 200 differentplaces you could eat.
It's true.
And some of them are tiny, couldfit two people in, some of them
are just a window where you grabsomething, and some of them were
big, where you could have aparty.
Yeah, yeah.
And they're all coexisting theretogether.

(25:31):
None of it was a chain, andespecially in that part of town.
Except for the KFC.
Except for the KFC.
They do love the KFC.
It was phenomenal.
And each night, not each night,but a few nights after the kids
went to bed, I would go out andtake pictures at night.
And I would just go in any placethat felt like maybe somebody

(25:51):
might want to talk to me there.
And I walked into a bar and Iwas like, Hey, let me have a,
uh, Sapporo or whatever.
And I look around and I realize,Oh, there's like reggae colors
everywhere.
What's going on?
And the owner started talking tome and let me, I'll say everyone
in Japan knows more English thanwe know Japanese.
So even when people speak verylittle English, it's way more

(26:14):
Japanese than I would have everheard.
So even though there was alanguage barrier there, we were
communicating really well and,you know, sometimes we would
type into our phones andtranslate and show each other,
but it turns out he was reallyinto reggae music and ska music,
particularly.
And I love reggae music.
So we immediately like hit itoff.

(26:35):
And then everyone that came inthat whole first night that I
was there was like his bestfriend, you know Like they came
in every night.
So I met like a master sushichef.
I met a college professorArtists all these people that
are just in there in their homeAnd they were all so nice and we
had a great time and everyonewas buying everybody drinks and

(26:59):
having the time of their life.
And so I went back there four orfive times.
It was awesome.
That's just the kind of place itis.
You just could find a tiny spotthat maybe n Another person
could be there for five yearsand never even see.
That's how many spots there are.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And every spot, even the bars,they all serve food.

(27:20):
Like, they'll be making sushi onjust a tiny table.
Like, you can't even fit fourpeople in there, but they're
making sushi while they'reserving drinks.
Like a

Lindsey (27:27):
real meal, yeah,

Britt (27:28):
yeah.
It was amazing.
Yeah.
The hospitality there.
Phenomenal.

Lindsey (27:33):
Yeah, that reminds me that Eli and Jack's favorite
restaurant in Nikita Ward iscalled Goofy's Pizza, which is
very funny.
It's like the Japanese take onlike, this is an American place.
So there was like Simpsons onthe wall.
all of this stuff, but theyloved the pizza there.
We went there a lot, andeveryone that worked there was

(27:55):
so nice.
One time, I was picking up apizza for the boys, and I think
I had Otis with me.
This place was probably like athree minute walk from our
house, and instead of when thepizza was ready, you know, I was
gonna like carry it and like...
Hold Otis, I don't really know,but the person that works there
was like, no, I'll carry it foryou.
Actually, they didn't say thatbecause I don't think they spoke

(28:16):
English, but we, I understoodthat they're going to carry it
for me.
So this guy just followed mewith my pizza.
It was like delivery times athousand because he walked it to
our door.
And then it was so nice, youknow, just the level of care
that people give there.

Britt (28:32):
Another cool thing that I noticed, and I guess this was
really all over Japan, like thelittle toy machines, little
quarter machines that you seeoutside of a grocery store, they
were everywhere.
There were even stores that werejust those.
It was like an arcade, but justfor those quarter machines.
They were everywhere.
And they had the craziest toys.
And I'm sure you probably knowthat if you know anything about

(28:54):
Japan, there are lots of toys.
They love their toys.
So

Lindsey (28:58):
cool.
The kids loved those.
There's also just vendingmachines everywhere.
So that's like, there's onestyle cause there's the coin
machines, but also we were likeeverywhere you could get a
water, get a coffee, get.
Food out of vending machines,which everyone already says that
about Japan, and it reallyactually is true.
Out of our non des rightdownstairs in our non descript

(29:20):
apartment, there was a vendingmachine just literally

Britt (29:24):
in an alley.
With like 20 or 30 options, too.
It wasn't just like the fourmajor Coke, uh, you know.
Coke Sprite, whatever.
That was really cool.
Yeah.
And you know what we did?
We touched on Starbucks, but wedidn't really get into 7 Eleven.
I will say 7 Eleven was great,especially for me.
The 7 Elevens there have so muchfood.

(29:44):
It was insane.
Again, meals.
Whole meals.
Fresh meals.
And

Lindsey (29:50):
so meals, you guys, I'm not talking about like the hot
dog that has the cheese bakedinto it.
I'm talking about rice,vegetables and a protein that
someone made that morning, notsix months ago, they made it
that morning.
And now it's in 7 11.
And again, you like you said,it's not even refrigerated.
Because you're expected thatthen you just take it and then

(30:12):
you eat it.

Britt (30:13):
Right.
And it was easy for me.
So if I was in a spot where itwas getting late, and I needed
some food, I just needed it tobe quick.
And I couldn't just pop into aplace and find out if something
was vegan, I could dang surefind a 7 Eleven on any street
corner.
And I knew if it's labeledthere, I know it was vegan and
there was plenty for me to eatat that time.

(30:33):
Yeah.

Lindsey (30:34):
One of my favorite foods in Osaka, or just a
memory, a really vivid memoryI'm having is drinking coffee in
our apartment and eating thosealmond cookies from 7 Eleven.
Oh yeah.
It's just a package with justthe right amount of cookies, so
it's not a giant package, it'sjust the right amount of cookies
for your coffee.
And I loved it.
It was like one of those, it's acore memory now.

(30:57):
Yeah.

Britt (30:58):
Beautiful.
There was another greatrestaurant in that neighborhood
that we went to as well calledAju.
And it was a vegan, traditionalJapanese spot with like two
tables.
And we got stuff to go fromthere.
One person working there, you goin, order it.
Hey, and you're gone, just likea restaurant, because that's how
restaurants work.
But, uh, Yeah.

(31:18):
There was also a sushi spot thatwas super tiny, what, we fit, I
think, four people at the bar,and then one tiny two

Lindsey (31:27):
seat table there.
Yeah, so our family being fivepeople.
Eating there, there was enoughroom for one other person to
eat.
That's what happened while wewere

Britt (31:35):
there.
Right.
And we went to this spot becauseI read they had vegan options,
right?
So we go in, ask the guy for thevegan options, and he is the
nicest guy.
Chats us up, asks like, whatdegree of vegan we want this
stuff, you know?
Um, do you eat this?
Do you eat that?
How can I, and he made it allright there for us while we
watched and chatted us up.

(31:57):
It

Lindsey (31:57):
was phenomenal.
So fun.
And the one other person we metwas from Australia.
Yeah.

Britt (32:02):
Where we ended up going at that point, we didn't even
know we were going to Australia.
That's

Lindsey (32:07):
true.

Britt (32:08):
Yeah.
But the, the name of that placewas Double Quotation Icky.
Yeah.
Spelled out double quotation.

Lindsey (32:17):
Thank you.
Our kids loved, loved, lovedthis huge play place that's
there called Kids Plaza Osaka,which is, was like a kids, like
a children's museum, but fourtimes as big.
It was like four stories and thewhole entire top story was all
science and then history andculture.

(32:39):
And then there was the, I'm sureparents are familiar with the
part of the kids museum that's.
Where kids pretend to, like,work in a grocery store.
There was all of that.
It was really fun.
The kids loved it so much.
Outside of there, there was anawesome playground.
Go to Kids Plaza Osaka.
We also, of course, went toOsaka Castle, which is probably

(33:02):
Everyone goes, if they go toOsaka.
Osaka Castle is obviously anenormous castle and it's
amazing.
We act, we didn't go inside.
A lot of people say don't goinside, but the park around it
is like the size of CentralPark.
It's enormous.

Britt (33:18):
Yeah.
And this is in the middle of thebig city too.
Yeah.
And it's cool to see such apiece of history right there in
the middle

Lindsey (33:24):
of the city where then they put a giant park around it.
Yeah, we, we ate food from thestreet vendors there.
We rode a mini train.
We went to the playground.
We ate at a restaurant.
I think the boys got snow cones.
Like, we did so much there andactually didn't go in Osaka
Castle, but we did take somepictures of it.
I don't think our kids wouldhave liked it.
That's like a little too museumy for them.

(33:46):
Right.

Britt (33:47):
Yeah, they're 8 and 2, so.
Another part of town that wewent to was called Americamura.
Right?
America mura.
I'm pretty sure that's right.
America mura.
Yeah, that feels right when Isay it.
And it is kind of their versionof a Little America city.
Yeah,

Lindsey (34:06):
but like,

Britt (34:06):
cool.
Yeah, it's cool.
There's like, music shops and

Lindsey (34:10):
all the vintage is.
Yeah, vintage clothes.
And all the vintage was like, tshirts, you know?
Lots of hip hop t shirts.
Yeah, so many hip hop t shirts,so many shoe stores that were
like, sneakers.
Where cool kids shop.
Yeah,

Britt (34:23):
it was rad.
Um, the day that we wentthere...
We went a little early, so wedidn't, I don't think we
experienced it as fully as wecould have, but it was pretty

Lindsey (34:33):
awesome.
Yeah, yeah, and it's reallyclose to Dotonbori, which is
like the major shopping touristpart of Osaka.
It's huge.
It's a little, it was a littleoverwhelming for me, especially
with kids who are over it prettyfast.
But, it was incredible to seejust the level of shopping.

(34:59):
Yeah.
That exists.
The level of shopping was socrazy.
And, you can find anythingthere.
I remember though that we did goto a really fun, uh, Kauai
restaurant.
Oh, yeah.
One of the cute restaurants.
And, the boys loved it.
It was so fun.
They like, Eight weird coloredmayonnaise.

(35:20):
I don't even remember what wedid

Britt (35:22):
there.
Rainbow mayonnaise, yeah.

Lindsey (35:24):
But the people were so nice.
Did we maybe get a latte orsomething?
No, lattes.
Oh, where they

Britt (35:30):
print a picture on top in foam.
Yeah.

Lindsey (35:34):
It was very cute and very kawaii.
And it's on a

Britt (35:37):
river, too.
It was beautiful.
Very cool.
A lot of people, though, and itwas raining a lot while we were
there, so that put a damper onit.

Lindsey (35:46):
Yeah.
You will need an umbrella ifyou're going to Japan, and
actually, umbrellas will beprovided for you, so you don't
actually need to bring one, but,like, you need to bring it with
you.
Yeah.
Because you're, it's probablygoing to rain most days.

Britt (35:57):
Yeah, or it's going to be real sunny, and maybe you want
it for sun.
Yeah.
Lots of people do.
There's all, you'll always seean umbrella everywhere you

Lindsey (36:04):
go, right?
Kind of the last major thingthat we did in Osaka was we went
to Universal studios becauseagain, we're traveling with
eight year old boys and that'sthe thing they want to do.
And it was so fun.
Um, Universal is less expensivein Japan than it is in the U S
kind of going back to that, howeverything was more affordable
than we thought it was going tobe, and we'd never been to

(36:27):
Universal.
So we got to go to Harry Potterworld.
and see all of this stuff, butin Japan, and it was so fun.
What was the funniest, not thefunniest, what was interesting
to me there, it was funny, waslike the American part of
Universal Studios in Japan isreally funny.

(36:50):
Like the Jaw Waterworld.
Waterworld and the Jaws ride,it's fun to ride rides.
That are based on these Americaniconic things and you like have
no idea what anyone's saying,but you get it.
The shark's coming.
You get it.
Water world shit is happening.
I don't even know what waterworld is about.
Flames and backflips.
Yeah.
You get it.
It's a jet ski.

(37:11):
Yeah.

Britt (37:12):
That was good.
And, uh, I guess that kind ofwraps up our time in Osaka.

Lindsey (37:17):
Loved it.
Osaka was amazing.
Yeah.
I think we were there a week andwe easily could have probably
doubled that.
There's still probably a bunchwe didn't see.
Not probably.
There was

Britt (37:27):
definitely a bunch we didn't see.

Lindsey (37:28):
Yeah.
So, that's Osaka, baby.
Baby.
From there, we took a train.
Not a bullet train, but a traintrain to Kyoto.

Britt (37:39):
Which is a very quick, what,

Lindsey (37:40):
was it 30 minutes?
I think it was 30 minutes.
Yeah.
It was easy.
But

Britt (37:44):
when you hop out of that train into Kyoto, you're in a
different

Lindsey (37:48):
world.
It's a completely differentworld.
But in Kyoto, we were like,we're doing this right.
We got like the best looking onewith like the most incredible
bath.
Over a hundred years old.
Beautiful outdoor space.
And it was in the HigashiyamaWard, which is like The
cultural, historic part ofKyoto.

(38:09):
The house, like Britt said, itwas over a hundred years old.

Britt (38:12):
It had like the screens everywhere, like bamboo floor in
some places.
It's exactly what you wouldthink of out of like An old
Japanese movie like from the1800s or something or even

Lindsey (38:25):
ancient what was the instrument that was there?

Britt (38:27):
Oh my gosh I don't remember what it was called, but
it was like six feet long astringed instrument And I think
you I don't know if you pluck itor it's like maybe like a
dulcimer that you hit withsomething But it was old too.
Like it had these like beautifulpearl inlays Amazing.
The whole place, it wasdefinitely the coolest place

(38:47):
I've ever stayed.

Lindsey (38:48):
Yeah, and the bathtub.
Both bathtubs, but especiallythe one bathtub.
Both bathtubs were amazing inthis Airbnb, but the main one
had a garden view in thebathtub.
You just look in these fullfloor to ceiling windows of this
beautiful Japanese garden.
And we'll post

Britt (39:06):
some, uh, pictures of this, too, so y'all

Lindsey (39:09):
can see.
Definitely.
It was lovely.
And from the balcony, we couldsee, like, all the pagodas, just
everything around.
We fully felt immersed in Kyoto.

Britt (39:20):
And while everything was easy walking distance, it wasn't
as packed in as it was in Osaka.
Mm hmm.
So we could walk to so manydifferent shrines, temples,
restaurants, but it felt...
Very easy to breathe.
There was lots of

Lindsey (39:36):
space.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It has a definitely much moreelement of nature included in
the city, and I'll probably saythat's true for the entire city
of Kyoto.
Like, nature is integrated.
In Higashiyama, where we stayed,you can step right out your door
and stumble upon the biggesttemples, shrines everywhere, go

(40:03):
to a tea service, like, it's allright there, and I'm so glad
that we were there because wedidn't have to go back and forth
between things that we wanted todo, and we didn't even really,
like, need a guidebook thatmuch.
We're like, let's just walkoutside and see what we want to
see.
And, um, One thing that waswalking distance was Yasaka

(40:24):
Street.
Yasaka Street is where HokanjiTemple is, which is a very
famous, huge pagoda.
And then you walk up this littlehill on this walking street
that, again, is just lined withshops, with Treats, any kind of
dessert you could want, buteverything is so immaculate.

Britt (40:47):
It looked like Diagon Alley from, uh, Harry Potter,
but an ancient Japanese version.
Yeah,

Lindsey (40:53):
yeah.
And clean.
I, I just loved that we werethere.
Because, again, if we wanted togo, you or I, we're gonna go by
ourselves in the evening, wewould go walk to the closest
temple, or in the morning, gofor a walk and you're just like
seeing history surrounding you.
And I'm really glad that ourboys got to see it too.

(41:15):
This

Britt (41:15):
reminds me of another, a little off topic, but something
we noticed all over Japan ispeople wake up a lot later
there.
So if you were going to a coffeeshop, it's probably not going to
be open until...
Maybe 10 a.
m.
or noon.

Lindsey (41:30):
Nah, I saw, I saw 9, but yeah, 10.
Yeah.

Britt (41:34):
Starbucks, however, is open by 8.
8, which is very early there.
So be prepared for that.
If you're an early riser, if youlike coffee...
Make it.
That's

Lindsey (41:43):
actually funny that I kind of didn't put those two and
two together right now because Idid mention that I'm not really
like a super Starbucks head, butI did go to Starbucks a lot in
Japan and it's probably justbecause like we're up early.
Yeah.
So we're already out of thehouse and then it's like, Oh,
what do we do?
I guess we'll go to Starbucksand the boys can have a donut
and then we'll decide what todo.
So, if you

Britt (42:04):
want to see everything and have it all to yourself, I
suggest getting up early in themorning to go see all of it.

Lindsey (42:10):
Yeah.
And for, especially good forphotos.

Britt (42:13):
Yeah.
Pro tip.
Go in the morning.
The only people you'll see outare other photographers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they'll stay out of your waybecause you're trying to stay
out of their way, too.
And it'll, it'll be easy.

Lindsey (42:22):
Yeah, again, it was just, was so perfect where we
were staying that we could dothat because you're right by
Gion district, right by wherethe geishas come out.
Britt, did you see a geisha?
I never saw a real geisha.
I

Britt (42:35):
saw maybe two of them right over there and let me
backtrack a little bit.
Once you get to Kyoto, Everyone,all the tourists dress like
geishas.
The coolest thing to do there isto go to a shop, get a, uh,
geisha outfit, paint your face,and walk around.
But you can tell who thosepeople are.
They still have a Chanel bag,you know?

(42:56):
Or, or they're, they're walkingfunny, you know?
Cause they're not used to the,the clothes.
When you see a real geisha, it'slike your, your jaw kinda drops.
Because they're just the mostproper...
I don't know if proper is eventhe word.
They just have a, a feel aboutthem that is just magical.
And you should look it up.
There's a, a amazing history ofwhat geishas even are that I

(43:19):
can't even tap into for you.
It's,

Lindsey (43:21):
yeah, it's incredibly...
Specific and like a highly,highly trained art form beyond
just any, whatever anyone's ideamight be, like that it's
dressing up and serving tea.
It's a highly regarded art formthat people study for years.
Yeah.

Britt (43:40):
There's even different levels of it.
Amazing.
But there is a certain part oftown that you go to where the
geishas come out like at acertain time each night to go
off to do wherever they're goingto work.
And that is called Hanami KojiDori, is the neighborhood there,
and it is situated between twolarger streets, so I would

(44:02):
suggest looking it up when youget there, because it could be
kind of hard to find, but it's awhole beautiful part of town,
there's a little river.
Running through it, smallerthan, I guess it's more of a
stream, but it crisscrossesthroughout the streets.
It is beautiful, and that'swhere the geishas come out, like
right before sunset.
And there's lots of bars,nightlife, food

Lindsey (44:23):
there.
That, so that's in the Giondistrict, which is basically
next door to the district wewere in.
It was all very walkable for us.
And the main river that runsthrough that part of Kyoto is
the Kamo River that has theselittle streams that come off

(44:44):
into the city.
And they'll just be surroundedby, there's just a little bridge
going, a little footbridge goingover them with, again, just
restaurants, bars.
Everything you could ever wantsurrounded by this little river.
The difference between what theriver looks like there, though,
is that the water is crystalclear everywhere.
All the little streams and themain river, the water is crystal

(45:07):
clear.
It was so beautiful.
There's not trash floating init.
No trash anywhere.

Britt (45:12):
Huge, uh, beautiful koi fish just out in the stream.
Yeah.
And people would line up thereevery night to watch the sun go
down and there would just bepeople sitting

Lindsey (45:21):
on the bank of the river.
Yeah.
So we were there in May.
Yeah.
And I think that's importantbecause it does like snow there
in the winter and probably notpeople lining the river.
But when we were there everysingle night, yeah, hundreds of
people just lining the river,eating their dinner, hanging out
with their friends.
The jasmine, the smell of thejasmine growing on this river

(45:42):
would like overtake me everytime I walked over this bridge.
I wanted to record the smell andsend it to my friends because it
was so amazing.
And then you walk over thisbridge, and then you're still in
the Guyon district, but it'slike more like a city, more
modern.
And

Britt (45:59):
from there, that was kind of a gateway to the other side
of town.
So there was the side of townthat we were on that was very
historic, and then You gothrough the middle of town,
which is all modern and it'swhere the big Kyoto station is
and larger hotels and more chainrestaurants and things like
that.
Then you get to the completeother side of town right before

(46:20):
the mountains.
This is, it's almost kind oflike a valley.
There are mountains or hills onour side.
And you go through and on theother side of town, there's more
hills.
And on that side, that's wherethe bamboo forest is and more
historic stuff.

Lindsey (46:33):
Yeah.
We didn't explore that muchother than going to the bamboo
forest and I kind of wish we hadhad the time to go over there
because there was anotherbeautiful part of the river
where one of our cab driverssaid, like, oh, people.
And then there's and they dowhatever they do in the water.
I guess they don't go swimmingreally, but something.

(46:54):
But the Bamboo Forest isprobably another, it's like
another iconic Japanese thingand there's bamboo forests
everywhere.
The one in Kyoto, when we wentthere, it was just really busy.
That was kind of like the, myleast favorite thing about
Kyoto.
We could have just gone atanother time and it would have
been perfect.

(47:15):
And

Britt (47:16):
here's a tip, it's always open.
It's not like something you payand go through a gate to see.
It's just off the road.
So it's easy to get to and ifyou go early in the morning,
there's not going to be anyoneout there and you can enjoy the
whole thing.
all by yourself.
And I'm sure it'd be a lotdifferent there.
Now, something that was reallycool there, there were lots of
little cafes and ice creamshops.

(47:37):
And we found this really coolpond and we heard what sounded
like a bull moaning, like, likea cow, so loud.
And we were like, what is that?
I don't see it anywhere.
Is something going to run at us?
What is this?
And we realized it was the bullfrogs.
In this pond, the loudest,deepest sound came out of these

(48:01):
bullfrogs.
It was

Lindsey (48:02):
bonkers.
Yeah, that was probably the bestpart of that little excursion
for any of us.
The bamboo forest was beautiful,and it was just a little
crowded.
Yeah.
A really fun thing that we did.
was we each took rickshaw rideswith one of the older boys
because it was a little toocrowded for little one to go on.

(48:22):
So I did, I think, 60 minuterickshaw ride with Jack and we,
it was a lot of the same streetswe'd already been walking down,
but to do it in a rickshaw andour rickshaw driver was a woman
and she was amazing.
That's she's very strong.

Britt (48:41):
And if you don't know what a rickshaw is, it's like a
horse drawn carriage drawn by asingle person, not a

Lindsey (48:47):
horse.
So you're just sitting backthere in your little carriage
while a person runs you throughthe streets of Kyoto.
And that's

Britt (48:56):
like.
Seeing it made me nervous beforewe got on.
I was like, Oh my God, why wouldyou do that to somebody?
And then when we did it, Irealized that these people are
in like peak performance modeand they love doing it Like this
is like their lifestyle.
It's like cyclists here, butthey're carrying people Yeah,
and they all of their calveswere enormous like Yeah, I know

(49:19):
when, when we went on it, theywere going, the driver was going
backwards up the side of amountain while talking to us,
telling us what was over hereand what was over there.
That's the mansion that the guythat started Sapporo Beer owned,
and now it's a hotel.
And

Lindsey (49:36):
it's a beautiful place, too.

Britt (49:39):
Yeah.
It was wild.
You should definitely do

Lindsey (49:41):
a rickshaw ride.
Yeah.
We mentioned earlier that we hadto go to the main train station
in Kyoto to get a ticket forOtis before we went to Tokyo.
That was like an entire dayexperience, because the train
station has everything you couldthink of.
It's like ten shopping mallsthat also just happens to have

(50:01):
trains.
There was one level of it thatwas like, like the makeup
section of a Macy's, except itwas sweets.
So there was a hundred differentcounters.
And they all had a differentkind of sweet.
It was insane.

Britt (50:20):
Yeah.
And all stuff you've never seenbefore.
Yeah.
They took the most care to makethese, these food pieces.

Lindsey (50:27):
Yeah.
And then the top level of thetrain station was 50
restaurants.
And then you could ride up a, anescalator, which is one of our
boys favorite thing to do.
That was, Four stories tall.
Oh much higher than that fiftythousand stories tall y'all
guaranteed look it up onWikipedia Yeah,

Britt (50:47):
it was you could ride for 15 minutes and not be at the top
It was

Lindsey (50:52):
beautiful but so the train station even if for some
reason you don't go to or fromanywhere on the Any of the
bullet trains, check out theKyoto train station because it
is a sight to behold.

Britt (51:05):
One thing about the train station was that we were hungry,
it was time to eat, and we'reused to just being able to pop
in somewhere, know what the foodis, get it, and go.
At the train station, atlunchtime, There were very long
waits for food.
It was also kind of hard to tellwhat was on each menu and how to

(51:25):
get to each of these restaurantsif you were to look them up,
which we did.
So, there was, there was somehanger going

Lindsey (51:33):
on.
Some hanger.
It turned in, it was like, Whoa,look at this train station.
This is amazing.
Very quickly, not very quickly,but relatively quickly was like,
Where the fuck is this place?

Britt (51:45):
Yeah.
And also, the boys can be, uh.
A little hard to please withfood, especially, yeah, yeah,
tofu is one of their favoritemeals, but if it's cooked in a
different way that they're notused to, they're probably not
going to touch it.
So, finding one of these placesand then just hoping that the
food comes out in a form thatthey will eat was a little

(52:08):
tough.
Luckily, they love

Lindsey (52:09):
rice, so.
Specifically there, it felt,this was probably level, layers
and layers of hanger, longlines, all of this.
And then it was difficult toknow if there was anything that
was vegan.
Right.
So when we finally did find avegan friendly place, it was
this very cute coffee shop.

(52:30):
It was so cute.
It actually was the only place Isaw that did have a tip jar.
Mm, right.
That's right.
And it wasn't really like lunchfood.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was an interestingexperience.
Started out amazing and thetrain station is amazing.
Eat before you go.
Now, actually y'all just go eatthere because you can just pick

(52:51):
anywhere.
But my favorite restaurant thatwe went to in All of Japan is
actually in Kyoto and it'scalled Chow Chow.
I'm pretty sure it might be likelegendary in Kyoto or people
that are visiting Japan becauseevery time we went, there was a
super long line for peoplewaiting to get inside.
That again is small.
It's basically the size of awaffle house.

(53:14):
Everyone, whenever, when we sayeveryone is nice in Japan, it's
so true.
And then everyone at Chow Chowis like a hundred levels up.
Like when you pay, they're like,yay.
Every

Britt (53:27):
person working in the restaurant says yay

Lindsey (53:30):
and When you leave, they're like, hey.
When you get there, they'relike, hello.
And when you get a beer or anykind of drink, they're like,
come by.
And then, and everyone says itthat works there.
Which is cheers.
Cheers.
It really, I loved it because ittasted amazing and the people
were so nice and being from afood service background, like,

(53:52):
you know, the feeling of thatkind of working in food service
where you're having fun.
And we went there three times, Ithink, because we were just
like, this place is fun andamazing.
And it was, And the boys likedit too.
And

Britt (54:08):
magically, we always got there right before the lines got
super long.
Yeah.
So we, we were hitting it

Lindsey (54:14):
perfectly.
Probably because we eat at like5 p.
m.
Yeah.
But, chow chow, it made me sohappy.
It like, tickled all of my old,uh, food service receptors.
Like, all the good things offood service.

Britt (54:32):
So that brings us back to Kyoto Station, where we took
the, uh, Shinkansen, believe I'msaying that right, bullet train,
to Tokyo.
That train was awesome.
It was like, plane seats,basically.
It was very comfortable.
It was very fast and you got tosee the whole countryside.
We actually went right by MountFuji, but it was a little too

Lindsey (54:54):
cloudy to see the mountain.
Really fun, easy experience.
The kids liked it.
Otis took a nap.
It was like for a three hourtrain ride or two hours.
Two or three.
It wasn't bad.
Really couldn't have beeneasier.
Once we got to the station inTokyo, that's when we were like,
Oh, we have to like get Out ofhere, and that's what was

(55:15):
challenging because once youtraveling with five people and a
lot of stuff since we weretraveling for a long time,
getting into and out of thetrain station was a lot.
Yeah, this

Britt (55:27):
is three big suitcases.
At least five backpacks.
Some other cases.
There's a lot.
Yeah.
It was a lot.
And I will say, there is a bigshock there because you're going
from two cities that are polaropposite.
Right.
You're going to, like, the mosttechnologically advanced city in
the world, maybe, from A placethat looks like you're in the

(55:50):
past.
Yeah,

Lindsey (55:51):
in a great way.
Yeah.
Tokyo is big.
Y'all Like I didn't know.
I had no idea that it was thelargest city in the world.
And I know that's gonna soundlike so white person, stupid,
but I just didn't know.
But it's the largest city in theworld.
When you haven't been everywherein the world, you might think,

(56:12):
Oh, largest city in the world,like New York?
No, like the largest city in theworld.
To have no idea, to have only alittle understanding of truly,
like, that Asia is huge and soadvanced and there's so much of
it, it's hard to wrap your headaround.
And you're just in one city.

(56:33):
It made New York

Britt (56:34):
City look like Branson.
It's true! Sorry, I love you,New York City.
I love you.

Lindsey (56:41):
I love you, New York.
But size wise.
But size wise, you might as wellbe Branson.
Yeah.
So getting to Tokyo, by thattime in the trip, I think we're
also, I was a little tired.
And so that part in Tokyo, Icould have used a little more
downtime, personally.
And, since Tokyo is, It's a hugecity.
It's the biggest city in theworld.

(57:03):
The Airbnbs, I mean, I'm surethey're just vastly different.
I'm sure you can get any kind ofstyle that you want, but
basically we were in a twobedroom apartment that was
pretty small, like New York.
So not a lot of space to kind ofrelax.
And

Britt (57:18):
something that I've failed to mention in all of this
is that the kitchen situations.
I mean, there's probably somebig ones, but they're pretty
much all small, so if you're thekind of family that cooks a lot,
I don't know, be prepared.
They might not be totallyequipped.

(57:40):
There might be one pan and arice cooker, you know, on a hot

Lindsey (57:43):
plate.
Right.
We saw that even in the place inKyoto, which was a really,
really nice house that was big.
The kitchen was small and therewas two pans.
Yeah.
Yeah, so that's just the wayit's, it's done.
You're not going to like stockup on a week's worth of
groceries.
You can't because yourrefrigerator is a dorm
refrigerator.

(58:03):
Where are you going to put it?
Yeah.
But Tokyo was, Tokyo was fun andthat's exactly why I'm glad we
ended there.
Even though we were tired.

Britt (58:15):
And we had some decision fatigue by that time, too.
We could have looked up more, Ithink we could have navigated it
better than we did, um, in adifferent situation.
Yeah.

Lindsey (58:25):
We also were only there for five minutes.
Five?
Six days?
Five days?
I think five.
But one of those days wasDisney.
So once you factor that in, it'slike that's a whole entire day
taken by Disney.
Yeah.
Some things that we did inTokyo, so we stayed in the
Shinjuku area.
And even Shinjuku is huge.

(58:45):
The part of Shinjuku we stayedin is like the adult part.
It's where there's love hotelsand nightclubs.
Everywhere.
And that was really funny, onlybecause we were with kids.
I don't even care.
But it was just funny.
Yeah.
It doesn't, didn't meananything.
Nothing, there's nothing bad.

(59:06):
Also, there can be love hotels.
There can be nightclubs forpeople to pay people to look at
their feet or whatever.
I don't know what kind of stuffis happening.
And it was just a funny place tobe like, I'm on vacation with my
kids here, hi! Yeah.
Cause everyone That also meansThere weren't a lot of

Britt (59:21):
families around.
That also means that there'sless amenities for kids.
There's not playgrounds.
Right.
And toy shops and stuff likethat.
Kids

Lindsey (59:29):
museums.
Right.
Right.
Good point.
Really good point.
It was

Britt (59:33):
the fuck palace.
And you don't, you don't want totake your kids into the fuck
palace, but you can walk pastit.
Yeah.
It's not a

Lindsey (59:38):
big deal.
And also you don't want to like,fight.
Fear it, right?
Because you don't wanna makethem have a hangup about the
fuck palace.
You just want them to like belike, okay, that's a cool thing
that can happen.
Mm-hmm.

Britt (59:48):
look over there, there's a God giant Godzilla head on
that building.
It was more like that.

Lindsey (59:54):
So that's where we stayed.
That's the part of town

Britt (59:56):
we stayed in And let, let me throw this in there.
All the boys.
Looked like dolls.
They just were like the mostperfect looking specimens of
people.
Do you say boys?
I don't know.
I couldn't tell.
They all looked like kids.
Because they're just like, haveperfect skin.
And are just like, yeah.
It was, it was crazy.
It was cool.

Lindsey (01:00:15):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was crazy sexy cool.
Crazy sexy cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was the vibe of the part oftown we, the part of Tokyo that
we stayed in.
Right.

Britt (01:00:25):
Like, I don't think any of them would want to be called
men.
That's how, like, you know whatI mean?
Like, they were just, yeah,like, uh, like, like BTS, you
know, like, no one ever calledthem men, I don't think.
Maybe, I don't know.
I'm going down a weird holehere.
Anyway, I'm going

Lindsey (01:00:44):
Going down their weird hole.
Respectfully.
Can we just, we don't need toedit it out.
We just need to say respect.
Respectfully,

Britt (01:00:52):
the boys were great looking.

Lindsey (01:00:54):
Next.
We went to a cat cafe, as somepeople do in Japan, and it was
just like a pet store.
There's really fancy cat cafesthat they don't allow kids in.
We didn't go to those because wehave kids, so we went to one
that does allow kids, and it waskind of just like a pet store.
Smelled like

Britt (01:01:12):
pee.
On the way out, you see the catsfor sale, and it was kind of sad
because they were like designercats, like the ones that are
bred to have tiny legs andgoogly eyes and their tongue
sticking out all the time.
It was like they were trying ashard as they could to breed cats
to look like Lil Bub, and thatmade me very sad.
That is sad.
Yeah, and they were like...

(01:01:32):
Three to five grand for these,like, poor little cats.
Yeah.
But I must say they were verycute.
They were very cute.
But, uh, I felt very bad foreven just being there looking at
them.

Lindsey (01:01:41):
Yeah.
There's other throughout Japan,that was the only, like, animal
experience we had.
Oh, and

Britt (01:01:48):
Otis got bit by one of the cats, and he still talks
about it.
Oh,

Lindsey (01:01:52):
yeah! The cat bit him.
I forgot.
Fuck

Britt (01:01:55):
that cat.
I mean, hey, I like I likeanimals,

Lindsey (01:01:59):
but fuck that cat.
But there's a lot of just kindof, like Not cool animal stuff
you can do in Japan.
Not cool to me.
Like, you can go to an owlmuseum, or not museum, an owl
cafe, a snake cafe, a

Britt (01:02:15):
bug cafe.
Let me say about the snake cafe,you can pet the snakes and also
eat the snakes on a skewer.

Lindsey (01:02:22):
It was fucked up.
It's just weird.
We shouldn't, maybe we shouldn'tsay fucked up because it's like,
that's their cultural...
It's just not for me.
Yeah.
And actually, I don't even thinkit's part of their culture, I
think it's just a tourist trap.
Right.

Britt (01:02:35):
I think that's what it is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I don't want to pet a snakeand then eat it off a stick.
Right.
Right.
Bottom line.
Right.
I'm gonna go a little Morrisseythere, not too, not too
Morrissey, but I'm not gonna eatthe snake off the stick, okay?

Lindsey (01:02:49):
We did, of course, go to Harajuku, which is pretty
much exactly what I thought itwould be.
There's neon and pink and...
Shit was cotton candy.
It was kawaii like how manycrepe places there are In a
three block radius that you canget, I don't know, peeps in or

(01:03:11):
just any kind of like candy oranything.
Every

Britt (01:03:14):
KitKat that was ever made.
Every KitKat that was ever made.
Catfish, KitKats, I mean, justlike any weird shit you'd ever
want.
Not weird, new.
Not

Lindsey (01:03:23):
even new, just, uh...
New

Britt (01:03:25):
to me.
New to me.
I've never seen catfish flavoredKitKats.

Lindsey (01:03:30):
But it was really, the boys really liked Harajuku.
The fashion there was just kindof...
Also, I didn't see anything thatwas like, Oh my gosh, that was
amazing.

Britt (01:03:39):
Yeah, we weren't there on a Sunday.
Sunday is when that happens,where everybody goes out dressed
in like anime.
Dang, we should have done that.
Yeah.
But I did go into like an urbanstreetwear store and talked to
the shopkeeper and had the besttime.
He was really into hip hop, sohe asked me like every hip hop
group that I've ever seen, everyrapper I've ever seen.

(01:04:01):
And still to this day, I keepthinking of new ones that I
wasn't, that I'd forgottenabout.
And I just want to like, callthem and be like, Oh no, no, no,
no, I did, you know, I did seemost deaf this time, or
whatever, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
I wish I was back.
I wish I was still there so Icould go back and talk more to
the guy.
I'm cool.
I'm cool.
Yeah,

Lindsey (01:04:18):
about hip hop.
I'm cool.
I saw most stuff, like, probablybefore you even knew who he was.
Probably before you were evenborn.
That's probably true.
It probably is true.
And around Harajuku, similar toOsaka, Every kind of luxury
store, like, times a thousand.
There's just shopping.

(01:04:39):
People be shopping.
Mm hmm.
Times a million thousandpercent.
That got a That got a littlewhere it was like, okay, I get
it.
This is the part of town wherepeople buy shit they don't need.
Right.
And it's fun to see.
And then I'm quickly, don'tcare, might be a different
experience if you weren'ttraveling for three months and

(01:05:00):
didn't really have room foranything in your suitcase.
If you're just going, thenyou'll probably be like, look at
all this stuff I can put in myhouse.
Yeah.
Or my closet.
Even the Disney day for us wasour highlight.
I'm sure for everyone in ourfamily.
For Tokyo.
For Tokyo.
Yes.
Because it was amazing.

(01:05:20):
It's a little bit out of town.
It took like 45 minutes in acab.
I don't know if you can getthere by train.
You probably can, but we weren'ttrying to do that.
So we took a cab and it was sofun.
We are all huge Disney fans,like to a dorky degree.

Britt (01:05:38):
Our kids can tell you every.
single thing about the HauntedMansion, who, which person
designed what, how each illusionis done.
It's insane.
They

Lindsey (01:05:48):
love Disney, and I also love Disney, but definitely
their love of Disney has rubbedoff on me.
Specifically Disney Parks iswhat we're talking about.
Yeah.
So we knew when we were going toTokyo that we would definitely
go to Disneyland.
And we did, it was super fun,the tickets are way less than
Disneyland here, like I think itwas maybe 50 or 60 bucks a

(01:06:10):
person, maybe 60 for adults and50 for kids, even though it's
just a full regular assDisneyland.
Yeah.
And not only is

Britt (01:06:20):
it a full regular ass Disneyland, all the rides that
we went on were better.
The tech was awesome.
Bonkers.
There was projection mappingthat looked so real, there were
holograms, like, everything, thejungle, okay, the jungle cruise,
I gotta say, that might be themost, it's a great ride, but it

(01:06:41):
might be the most boring ride,it's just these old ass
animatronics, right?
But...
In Japan, you go into a cavewhere there's this, like,
hologram of fire that shootsjust, like, bonkers shit that is
nothing like the one here.
There's the small

Lindsey (01:06:58):
things.
Yeah, yeah.
Anyone who's ever been toDisney, probably, maybe you've
used the app to, like, get onthe rides and stuff, and we did
that a little bit.
I think it was a little harderto navigate through their app,
but one thing we did do is wepaid the extra money to go on
the beauty and to do the fastpass for the Beauty and the
Beast ride.

(01:07:19):
And 1000% worth it because theline was probably like two hours
long.
We paid for the fast pass.
Absolutely.
It was so worth it because itwas the most incredible ride
I've ever been on.

Britt (01:07:33):
Yeah.
And I don't really even careabout Beauty and the Beast.
Persay, right.
But that ride was bonkers.
It was a trackless ride.
So you're in these teacups thatare just all over the place
Dancing around with otherteacups not on a track just out
in the yeah It's hard to evenexplain the line going up to at
the preshow was insane.

(01:07:53):
There's, like, 3D, theseholographic, uh, characters
dancing around.
It's It was so good.
You can probably I'm sure youcan look at a video if you want
to spoil it.
Or you can just go to Japan andsee it for yourself, okay?
Yeah.

Lindsey (01:08:08):
That even though that line was long, all the other
lines we were in weren't itwasn't as packed as Disneyland
here.
And maybe we just got lucky on agood day.
Also, the weather was great.
All day.
And that's really good becauseobviously, like we said, it can
rain a lot and it rains thereand they have some places that
are covered just because it doesrain a lot there, but man, it

(01:08:29):
was fun.
It was fun.
And we went on the HauntedMansion twice, which is our
boy's favorite.
It was Brit's favorite Disney.
He's, he said, absolutely.
And.
I can't wait till we go to allthe other Disneys in the whole
world.
We have to go to the two inChina at some point.
We're going to do it.
We'll get there.
Go just to go to Disney becauseit was a great, it was a great

(01:08:51):
day.
If anybody wants to

Britt (01:08:53):
hit our tip jar and get us to China.
Hit the tip jar.
Hit the tip jar.
On our website we have a tipjar.
Get us to China or Disney.

Lindsey (01:09:00):
We have plans to do an episode entirely about Disney
parks and how we do it withthree kids and like how we
actually enjoy it every timebecause sometimes you hear from
people that going to amusementparks sucks with their family.
It might just be our familystyle, but we love it.
We have fun every time and Ithink there's like a very
specific way that we do it thatmakes it fun.

(01:09:22):
Absolutely.
That was it.
That was Disney, baby.
As far as food in Tokyo, wereally just kind of ate whatever
was nearby.
We didn't, like, seek out a lotof great food.
We didn't have a lot of greatfood experiences, but we did
have a bad food experience.
Tell me about it, Karen.
It was us looking for a pizzaplace for our children.

(01:09:46):
It wasn't bad in the way a Karenwould say it was bad.
It was just surreal.
It was a surreal experience.
We found a pizza place.
In the lower level of a mallthat was called Shakey's Pizza.
That I think should have been ared flag.
It should have been a red flag.
And you, and we went in and itwas like if CeCe's Pizza was

(01:10:11):
owned by a weird clown, kind of.
Or something.
Again, it was just like thisweird, like, this is what the
Midwest is.
Anyway, all the pizza lookedvery weird.
There was like shrimp on it and,and it just looked very weird.
Our kids, I think they enjoyedit.
I ate some salad.

(01:10:31):
Did you even eat anything there,Brett?
Not a thing.
It was just one of those,another one of those times
similar to the Kyoto experiencewhere we were like, I think we
got into town, we put our stuffdown.
We're like, okay, now we gottaget these kids some food.
We walk out, we're like, pizza.
Okay, this place has pizza.
And then it was Shakey's Pizza.
And it was shaky AF.

(01:10:53):
Oh yeah.
It was a weird experience.
Would not do again.
Would not do again.
I never want to go back toShakey's Pizza, but it's burned
into my memory as a weird feverdream of a place.
Like, I think there was even,like, brick wallpaper.
Mm hmm.
Like, fake brick.
It's obviously wallpaper.
I feel like the guy was wearinga clown tie.

(01:11:13):
I could be making all of thisup.
Did the people have spinny topthings on their head?
I don't think they did.
I don't think they did.
And there's, like, shrimp on thepizza.
There was soup.
No, there was Curry.
Curry.
Curry.
Yeah.
Um, it was just very Pizza

Britt (01:11:29):
and curry, all you can eat, baby.

Lindsey (01:11:31):
And the boys got soda.
Why did we let them get soda?
Oh, and it was nasty.
It was green, like, thebrightest, most neon green I've
ever seen.
When I saw it, I thought, there,that's a disease on down the
line for them.
It's something that's comingback to haunt them 20 years

Britt (01:11:51):
from now.
It was also kind of flat andtasted like it had dirty lines,
too.
It was gross.
Yeah.

Lindsey (01:11:57):
Shakey's Pizza.
Five stars.
The one other thing I want tosay about, uh, leaving Tokyo or
kind of like tying up our tripis we flew out of Narita, as far
as hell, from Tokyo, and we hadno idea.
Or

Britt (01:12:11):
far from where we were staying.

Lindsey (01:12:13):
Yeah.
That might, I think it's allfar.
It was.
Yeah.
Almost.
It was at least an hour and ahalf in a cab.
It might have been two hours.
I think it was more like twohours.
Oh, and let

Britt (01:12:22):
me throw in there too.
I didn't think that we weregonna get a cab because they're
not trying to drive us out thatfar.
So I, I was, I was nefarioushere.
I hid the family behind sometrees, like some little shrubs
and all our bags.
And I just went out by thestreet and threw my hand up when
I saw a cab big enough for allof us.
And then he stopped and we alljust ran out and started

(01:12:43):
throwing our shit in the cabbecause I knew he wasn't.
and pick us up to take us outthere.
Yeah.

Lindsey (01:12:48):
Uh, yeah.
I, in Tokyo, we did experiencelike people just kind of cabs
kind of driving by us.
Yeah.
They weren't trying to deal withfive of us with three kids.
Even he was so nice and he waslike, Oh, you're going to
Narita.
Okay.
And at the end, he was like,thank you so much.

Britt (01:13:04):
Right.
And all the cab drivers, theypick up your stuff and put it in
the cab.
Like your, your huge bags,everything.
They are the nicest.

Lindsey (01:13:12):
I think you did tip him.
Oh yeah.
I think you gave him extra eventhough it's like not customary.
Right.
But he drove us a long way.
He deserved it.
Yeah, he deserved it.
If you're going to fly in andout of Tokyo, just know which,
which one you're going to fly inand out of.
There, of course, is a train ora Subway or bullet train that
will take you from Narita to, toTokyo.

(01:13:34):
And again, we just had too manymoving parts to do that with.
Kiddos.
Right.

Britt (01:13:39):
Alright, so here is our rapid fire version of, um,
things that we noticed, okay?
Random things that we noticed.
Number one, very few trash cansfor such a clean country.
It's hard to find a place to putyour trash.

Lindsey (01:13:54):
Number two, the grocery stores are small.
Like we said, you can get agreat meal in a 7 Eleven and in
the grocery store, but all thegrocery stores are small.
There's not a Sam's Club.
There's not an HEB.

Britt (01:14:09):
Number three.
There were very few napkins.
Sometimes you would find a boxof Kleenex to use as napkins,
but a lot of times there justweren't napkins.
Like we were saying earlier,some of the kids have little
purses where they carry theirown little handkerchief to use
as a napkin.

Lindsey (01:14:23):
We already mentioned this, but nothing really opens
early.
Even the coffee shop sh Specialby our apartment in Osaka.
It opened at 10 a.
m.
So at that point, we're likegoing for a second cup of
coffee.

Britt (01:14:39):
Everything there runs really well.
The train lines, therestaurants, we even didn't see
traffic.
There were no dents in cars.
Everyone's car looked totallygreat.

Lindsey (01:14:51):
I will say some restaurants are not into kids.
And we had a couple experienceswhere it was pretty obvious,
like, we should go somewhereelse.
Yeah,

Britt (01:14:59):
no one wears sleeveless shirts and everyone wears

Lindsey (01:15:02):
socks.
And we did the same while wewere there.
We wore sleeves, we wore socks.
It's a thing.
Even the mannequins in thefanciest department stores that
are wearing dresses, that has at shirt on underneath it.
So Britt, would you go back toJapan?
Absolutely.

Britt (01:15:19):
I would go back tomorrow if I had

Lindsey (01:15:20):
the chance.
Me too.
I will go back.
I think we all will go back.
For sure.
What will you do differentlynext time you go to Japan?

Britt (01:15:30):
Okay.
I will stay in a different partof Tokyo

Lindsey (01:15:33):
for sure.
Yeah.
The Love Hotel.
We'll find a different area.
Yeah.
I also, there are so manyamazing hotels in Tokyo that I
would, if I was going to be inTokyo specific, I would probably
stay in a hotel because there'slike some fancy, fancy bangers
there.

Britt (01:15:49):
Right.
And I would generally just.
explore Tokyo more.
Yeah.
We didn't really see that much.
Yeah.
We saw a lot, but like we said,it's the biggest city in the
world.
There's a lot to see there.
Another thing is Mount Fuji.
We went by it on a train, but wedidn't stop.
You can pretty easily get therefrom Tokyo.
It's just a few hour drive.

(01:16:09):
And what we didn't know when wewere there is that it's
actually, from what we've readnow, a pretty easy hike up.
And there's like little foodstands on the way up, and even
kids could go up there.
Yeah.
It's Mount Fuji.
We're doing it next time.
We're doing it next time.
Yeah.
Geez.
We should have done it.
Yeah, I'd also like to see moreof the smaller towns and beach
towns.

(01:16:30):
Okinawa, that would have beencool to see what beach life is
in

Lindsey (01:16:34):
Japan.
Yeah, we didn't see any beachand I definitely want to.
I even think that we got acouple signs to go to Okinawa
and we didn't go and that'sokay.
We'll go, we'll go next time.
The other thing that I would dodifferently.
And not everyone has theopportunity to do this, but I
would stay longer.
We were there for three weeks.
That's kind of a long time forsomeone to be on vacation.

(01:16:56):
And we could easily spend amonth there or six weeks and
really have the time to exploreit more and build in more rest
days, which I think is what madeTokyo feel like a drain at that
point.
We were like drained.

Britt (01:17:15):
Absolutely.
And this was a weird.
Thing that I hadn't felt whiletraveling before but after we
were out of Japan Maybe a weekor two.
I was like that was fuckingamazing Like everything about
Japan was amazing, and I wish Iwas still there and I loved it
while I was there But I thinkonce I had time to decompress

(01:17:39):
and I wasn't just like lookingaround like what do I do now?
How do I get on this train?
What do you know?
Is this okay to do whatever?
When I'm not thinking aboutthat, I'm just thinking fondly
of all the cool shit that I did.
So next time we go, we know whatwe're getting into.
And I think we're gonna be ableto be more present and be able
to enjoy it more than ever.

Lindsey (01:17:56):
Right.
And there's something to be saidabout traveling to a place a
second time because the placesthat we have fallen in love
with, some of them have been thesecond time around.
Like the parts of Mexico that welike really love.
It was like the second time thatwe were there.
Where were you like, Oh, this ismagical.
That's true.

(01:18:16):
Because there's this, yeah, it'sjust like a touch more
comfortable, but it's still sodifferent that your mind is open
and you can love it even more.
Yeah.
We hope this episode helped you.
We want to hear if you want togo to Japan now.
We want to hear if you went toJapan and there was something
that you loved.
We didn't mention, we wanna hearif you went to Japan and you

(01:18:39):
didn't like it.

Britt (01:18:41):
Do you have any questions for us that we didn't cover?
Is there anything shoulda havecovered?
I'd love to talk more about it.
I love thinking about Japan, sohelp me think about

Lindsey (01:18:48):
it more.
Yeah, again, we went there withthree kids and that's our
experience going there as afamily.

Britt (01:18:55):
Yeah.
Alright, hit us up on Instagramat, can we start over pod or
email us at Hello At, can westart over?
podcast.com.

Lindsey (01:19:05):
See you later.