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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

TOKYO ✈︎ KYOTO ✈︎ OSAKA

By Tommy Nagle

PRE-OVERTURE

In case the photo story below is TL;DR*, please watch this video that I shot as a quick summation of the trip.

Have you got a spare 58 seconds? Great. Then lets begin.

*You don't know TL;DR? Alright, Grandpappy: Too Long; Didn't Read

PRELUDE

0. DEADPAN JAPAN

My wife had never seen me jump around in excitement after booking a flight before. I'd wanted to visit Japan for a long time, You can see one of my first photo stories for proof.

Ten years ago, I discovered that an acquaintance of mine, a guy who was employed by a company that made plastic things that go inside your arteries to stop them exploding, had been lucky enough to travel to Japan for work. Naturally, I was jealous. He had been to the Mystic East™! The land of the rising sun!

With my job, the most exotic thing I'd done was eat soggy fish and chips in remote Scottish towns and experience varying levels of B&B awfulness. Then I found out he hated sushi, and didn't like being taken out to dinner by his hosts because he had to eat it. Quickly, my jealousy turned to outrage.

I'm sorry? Pardon? WTF? PDQ? ASAP?

"DON'T GO THEN! Stop using up all of the precious Japan and think of the rest of us, you selfish tit!"

...my slightly irrational brain would say. Japan was wasted on him. I later discovered he didn't know what pesto was. No wonder sushi was a bridge too far.

But that was ten years ago. Fast forward to now: I was jumping around in our living room in Manila, only a four hour flight away from Japan. I was jumping around because I would finally get to go, even if it was only for four days.

We decided to spend three of those days in Kyoto, and the final day in Osaka. But first, we flew into...

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

SATURDAY

1. JAPANESE/GALLIC PARALLELS | 12:30 A.M.

We arrived past midnight, and on the journey aboard the last bus from the airport into the city, it surprised me how much Japan felt...sort of French. Narrow streets. No pavements or sidewalks, just tarmac that went straight up to the buildings. Only a white painted line gave you a general idea of where you shouldn't be if you're driving a car and didn't want to mow anyone down.

Of course, you wouldn't mistake Japan for France for many reasons, chief among them the innumerable vending machines dotted along the roadsides, neon beacons in the dark. But it was too late and we were too tired to take any photos. We left that for the morning.

2. RIGHT AWAY, HAJIME, SATURDAY | 9 A.M.

On a crisp, bright Tokyo morning, after a night in a grey, cramped and characterless hotel that made me somewhat sad, we took a train to meet Hajime, a former colleague of my wife and all-round lovely chap.

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

When she first moved to Atlanta, my wife began her job before she had time to research, find and buy a car.

Atlanta is a like most American cities, in that not owning a car is like not owning underwear, or a gun. Hajime heard about this new workmate in distress and was all like...

"Hey, don't worry! Borrow mine for a month!"

(his car, not his underwear) and just gave this random person his car.

What a guy.

⇣ Hajime. He's either very generous, very trusting, or a bit dim. ⇣

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

We only had a short time with Hajime, since he has a real job that requires him to keep unsociable hours, even for Japan. He showed us around Tokyo's Shinagawa station, and very generously bought us breakfast.

I had hoped we would end up going to some trendy, out of the way, super-secret, hole-in-the-wall, cool-kids-only breakfast place, where they served, oooh, I don't know, something all Japanese and unusual. Battered tentacles and green sushi rice in the shape of Godzilla. Turned out, the first thing I ate in Japan was Eggs Benedict from a French place called "Sarabeth's". C'est la vie.

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

He also helped us buy our tickets for the Shinkansen bullet train to Kyoto, and walked us through a pachinko bar, where you're not supposed to take photos, becos gamblin. So obviously, I tried to take video instead. It didn't work. Maybe next time.

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

3. CALLING ALL STATIONS | 12 P.M.

If you're visiting Japan and would like to know your location, or destination, you might reasonably think that, rather than buying a SIM card, you could just precache Google Maps on your phone, and then use coffee shop WiFi when you need. Well you can do the latter, but not the former.

For whatever reason, you can't download Japanese locations on Google Maps. So, if, like most of us, you have a phone that will only allow you to access mobile data abroad if you're willing to give T-Mobile your life savings and access to your future great-great-grandchildren's bank accounts, you have to find an alternative.

We ended up going with a WiFi hot-spot. We got ours from PuPuRu - the happy sticker on the pink package below is theirs - you pay in advance, they send the thingy to your hotel, you follow the instructions and bam, you're on the interhive superwebway. Then once you're done, seal it up into the pre-paid envelope and post it at the airport as you leave. Job done.

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

⇡ Mt Fuji from the window of the Shinkansen 'Bullet' train, en route to Kyoto. ⇡

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

We arrived in Kyoto late morning after a wonderfully smooth and on-time train journey, then followed my unnecessarily accurate paper map to our small but well-proportioned Airbnb, where we dumped our luggage and immediately left to explore Kyoto proper.

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

Kyoto is the former imperial capital of Japan, and was so for over a 1000 years, hence its nickname, The Thousand Year Capital.

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

It's packed with temples, shrines and palaces, narrow pathways through pristine historical neighbourhoods, fantastic food and boutique ryokan (traditional Japanese Inns), alongside all the modern conveniences and oddities you would expect in a Japanese city.

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4. LUNCH ON THE RUN | 2:30 P.M.

It was decided that we'd eat a snacky-tapas-type lunch at Nishiki Market in downtown Kyoto, a ten minute walk from our lodgings.

Nishiki Market is a long, covered alleyway bisected by several streets and lined with over 100 shops and restaurants, where you can buy all sorts of weird and wonderful things...

...some more appetising than others.

No idea. I think it smelled fishy. Did not eat. Obviously.

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I bit into this guy expecting a warm tender texture and a sweet, honey glazed flavour. It was not either. 2 out of 10, would not recommend.

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

5. DIGESTION SUGGESTION | 4 P.M.

After eating our fill, we just...walked.

As the light faded, we ambled through the streets of the ancient Gion district, admiring the ornate wooden buildings, the bamboo shades that waggled in the breeze, and the reflections on the slick, wet cobblestones.

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We experienced the tranquility of the Yasui Kompira-gu shrine, nestled away behind tall stone walls, where it was too dark to take a photo of the strange thing that we'd actually gone to look at. Intrigued? Here you go.

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I think this translates as 'Money'. Interestingly, the same character in Mandarin means 'gold'. That's what Google tells me anyway.

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

⇡ Moody statues at Yasui Kompira-gu ⇡

6. UNBELIEVABLE SEASONAL COMESTIBLES | 8 P.M.

'Kaiseki' are traditional Japanese multi-course dinners, a sequence of beautifully presented small dishes, from soups to sushi, flame-grilled meats to pickled vegetables. Clearly we had to experience one for ourselves, and since we were there for such a short time, it didn't make sense to do it by halves.

We were lucky enough to get a reservation at the wonderful Gion Nanba. a small, Michelin starred restaurant that sits only a handful of patrons, tucked away on a side street off one of Gion district's main drags.

Yes, it's stupidly expensive, we won't be doing it again in a rush, but it was a unique experience. In classic style, you get to watch the two chefs meticulously prepare seasonal ingredients and construct your dinner in front of you, and it was so good I didn't want to ruin the vibe by taking photographs.

But I snuck a few with my phone while their backs were turned...

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We had notified the restaurant when we made our reservation that Lucy is a pescatarian, and doesn't eat meat. So when it came to my flame grilled Wagyu beef course, we were intrigued as to what Lucy would be served.

The chef turned around after working at the hot plate and gently placed in front of her a small black plate with a white blob on it. Said blob was around three inches long, maybe an inch wide, and ever so-slightly seared brown on top, as if it had been put under a grill. It looked like a cross between a perfectly toasted marshmallow and a piece of mozzarella.

We both tried a bit. It was salty, and fishy, and unlike anything we'd tasted before. We asked the chef what it was. He reached for a shelf, where he took down a well-worn Japanese-to-English food dictionary, and thumbed through a few pages, before pointing at this entry:

Fugu Shirako: 'White Children'. Semen of the puffer fish.

Japanese delicacy.

Pufferfish spunk.

They fed us...

Pufferfish.

Spunk.

And no, I didn't get a photo.

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- • -

SUNDAY

π

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7. A MILLION CIVILIANS AT A VERMILLION PAVILLION | 6 A.M.

Fushimi Inari Taisha is the top rated activity in Kyoto on TripAdvisor, and with good reason. An important Shinto shrine, it's a vast, twisted web of pathways lined with orange (well, technically vermillion) wooden arches or gates called 'torii' that snake their way up the side of a densely forested mountain in southern Kyoto.

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Every single torii is sponsored by a Japanese firm, since the god Inari is traditionally worshipped by merchants and manufacturers as the patron of business.

To a gaijin such as myself, all the exotic black characters carved into the gates looked extremely romantic, however I'd imagine the magical ambiance fades somewhat if you can read the Japanese equivalent of 'Kevin Bloggs: Cesspit and Sewage Removal Ltd' etc.

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

If there's one thing that every blog, website and article says about Fushimi Inari Taisha, it is this:

GET.

THERE.

EARLY.

The crowds tend to arrive around 8:30am, so I forced myself and my long-suffering wife to rise and shine at an ungodly, jetlagged five o'clock in the morning, meaning we'd arrive around 6:30am and have the place to ourselves.

Even that early on a Saturday we weren't alone, there were other figures hidden among the orange...

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

...some joggers, some folks out for an early morning stroll, some fellow photographers...

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

...but for the most part it was just us. It was totally worth it.

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I had copied a piece of text from a blog I'd found and put it in our itinerary.

However, in my eagerness to see everything, I think I must have misread this:

"Save the shrine buildings themselves for last; make a bee-line right to the line of torii leading up the mountain. Then hit the shrines after finishing the loop."

as this:

"make a bee-line right to the top of the mountain"

So essentially we power walked to the top, stopping only briefly to take photographs and inspect the smaller shrines. Oops.

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

If anything, the torii get further apart and less impressive as you scale the mountain, so don't do what we did. Take your time...

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NB: If you do get to visit, and get to a section where the torii are packed tightly together and fork off down two separate paths, that's the famous bit.

Don't skip it, m'kay?

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

As we strolled leisurely down the mountain on our return, the bus-loads of people had indeed arrived. They swarmed over the pathways and robbed the place of its serenity entirely.

Which made it the perfect time to examine the lower shrines.

In several places you can buy wooden Ema (wishing plaques) in the stylised shape of a foxes head. Foxes (kitsune) are often found in Inari shrines, and are viewed as 'messengers'.

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The idea is that you write your wish or prayer on the back, then hang it on the hook. Some people take decorating the front to extremes...

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

We couldn't think of a suitable wish, so just put our Ema in my bag and brought it home.

Its function is now that of a particularly large and awkward Christmas tree decoration.

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⇡ Fushimi-Inari Station. Check out those vermillion lamp posts... ⇡

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

8. AGAIN? ZEN? OK THEN | 1 P.M.

In eastern Kyoto sits Nanzen-ji, one of Japan's most important Zen Buddhist temples. Surrounded by substantial grounds, it houses multiple temple buildings, rock gardens, tea rooms and exquisitely intricate paintings.

On arrival, the first thing you encounter is the huge Sanmon, or main gate, the size of which is an indicator of the temple's status. For a small fee you can climb up the stairs (no shoes allowed) and stand atop the balcony to look out over the treetops.

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Some parts of the temple grounds you can visit for free, others you have to pay to see, the Hojo being one of them. The former head priest's residence and Nanzen-ji's main hall, the Hojo's primary attraction is its rock garden.

In the brochure thing it says that the rocks remind people of tigers and their cubs crossing through water. I guess they have better imaginations than I.

Still, it's jolly relaxing.

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

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Again, no shoes allowed inside any of the temple buildings. Instead, you are provided some luxurious, faux leather peeptoe slippers to shuffle around in. There are even separate ones for the bathrooms.

Snazzy.

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Before dinner we explored more of Kyoto's back streets and innumerable vending machines. I mean, who labels their coffees 'The Hard' and 'The Creamy'?

Someone's having a laugh.

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

9. NOTHING REALLY RHYMES WITH SUSHI | 6 P.M.

We ate an amazing dinner of sushi at another small, intimate eatery called Matsudaya. Any time you rock up to a place and discover it only has six seats, you should probably call your credit card company in advance to warn them. Regardless, it was I-can't-remember-how-many-courses of wonderfully crafted fish and rice, accompanied by a giant bottle of fizzy saké.

That's the thing about small places like Matsudaya, the chef is inches away from you, and you really do get to appreciate how much of a craft, how much work and skill and training goes in to serving excellent food like this is. Again, it's not something we'll run back to in a hurry, but we were grateful for the experience.

At this place it was even harder to take photos. I felt like a tourist taking illicit photos in an ancient monastery. But I did get one. Of a large shrimp.

Later on, we found out it also has a Michelin star. Must stop having such expensive taste...

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MONDAY

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Get up early I said.

Let's beat the crowds I said.

Surprised as to the lack of people I was.

Until Lucy pointed out that it was a Monday.

Oh.

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10. WHISPERING TREES | 6 A.M.

Some call it a forest, but that's being a tad generous. Arashiyama Bamboo Grove is really not that large, and only takes a short while to walk around and experience, but an experience it is. If you get there as early as we did, you really are alone with the trees and the wind.

The sound as it presses the lofty trunks together, causing them to creak and knock into each other is spooky and ominous and relaxing all at the same time. Regardless, it's perhaps not worth it if you don't have the time.

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

11. TEMPLE TIME | 8 A.M.

Adjacent to the bamboo grove is the head temple of the Tenryū branch of Rinzai Zen Buddhism, Tenryū-ji. The grounds and temple buildings have been crafted in such a site-specific way that the surrounding mountains of Arashiyama combine with them perfectly, as if it was always this way. Thus Tenryū-ji is apparently one of the best examples of shakkei - 'borrowed scenery' in all of Japan. I didn't notice it at the time. I was too busy being, like, all zen and stuff.

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

It's also registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and makes a great relaxing double-bill with the bamboo grove next door.

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The tram on the Arashiyama line was great. Slightly rickety and very wooden (at least in appearance) it reminded me vaguely of the trains we used to ride at home when we were kids. The ones with the compartments, like on the Hogwarts Express.

I stood at the front and watched the driver do his thing, twiddling knobs and caressing levers like a pro, which I suppose he was.

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

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12. HOTEL MUME | 1 P.M.

Our Airbnb was fine, but it was cramped and dreary and smelled of damp. Actually, maybe it was crap. What a revelation. I take back that review! Either way, we had decided to treat ourselves to a fancy hotel for one night, and the fanciest one that wasn't exorbitantly expensive and actually had availability was Hotel Mume, in the heart of the Gion district.

Our room had the fanciest toilet that I'd ever used, with functions up the wazoo, if you'll pardon the pun (I'm still planning our bathroom remodel solely around the toilet) but the best feature was surely the seat warmer.

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The staff at Hotel Mume were helpful, knowledgeable and kind, if a little overbearing, but their skills at Christmas tree cookie ornament decoration were undeniably brilliant.

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

13. GION | 3 P.M.

Again, we took to the streets, taking in the sights and sounds of Japan.

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14. KILN RESTAURANT | 7 P.M.

After working up an appetite strolling the streets, we had dinner at Kiln, chosen specifically because it isn't sushi or kaiseki or traditional Japanese in any sense.

Naturally, I ordered an starter, a charcuterie selection with some paté. I thought it’d be a few slices of meat, just enough to whet the appetite. But it turned out to be a variety of meats, piled high and surrounding an entire slab of paté about the size of two slices of bread. And then I had a steak afterwards. Enough beef for the rest of the year, methinks.

15. JAZZ SPOT YAMATOYA | 10 P.M.

What better to wash down your metric-tonne of beef with than whisky? A place Ron Swanson would have to be torn away from, Jazz Spot Yamatoya is a homely bar where the owner selects from his 5000 Jazz records, playing them on a super fancy high-end stereo.

We were served by his daughter, who explained that the bar had surged in popularity since a New York Times article about Kyoto had mentioned it was the place to see and be seen. Thankfully it wasn't overly busy, so I could relax, digest my half a cow and bask in the sounds of Miles Davis.

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TUESDAY

Before catching a train to Osaka in the afternoon, we spent the morning taking in our final glimpses of Kyoto.

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16. KIYOMIZU-DERA | 12 P.M.

Meaning 'Pure water temple', this is another impressive collection of vermillion structures in eastern Kyoto. One of the notable facts about the buildings is that there isn't a single nail used in the entire structure. That's some next-level carpentry right there.

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We had already tried matcha tea earlier in the trip, but bitter tea tasting oddness is not really my thing, so I got strawberry.

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Osaka isn't called 'Japan's Kitchen' because of it's cuisine, but more because it performed the function of a kitchen - i.e. back in the day it became the place that ingredients and goods were shipped to and stored. Sort of like calling it "the nation's pantry".

Nevertheless Osaka is apparently famous for its octopus balls (takoyaki - chunks of octopus inside a flour batter ball) which you can find everywhere. We had some. They were gross.

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I don't recall ever seeing as ornate a manhole cover as the ones we saw in Osaka. While we’re at it, maybe we should rename 'manholes'. It’s a bit graphic of a graphic term. Please feel free to use the alternatives: utility hole | cable chamber (probably just as bad) | maintenance hole | inspection chamber | access chamber | sewer hole.

The Football World Club Cup was being held while we were there, and after dinner we happened upon some fans who had taken over a whole block down by the river. The police corralling them didn't stop their good-natured chanting, or their jumping and making the bridges bounce up and down.

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"Dedicated to the synthwave music scene, a revisionist 80s music style of synthesizers and pulsing beats, and the retrofuturist 80s aesthetic of fast cars, neon lights and chrome."

Seems like Osaka is the perfect place for an 'outrun' inspired film.

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They say never meet your heroes

They'll turn out to be boring, or rude, or pompous. Or maybe all three. Japan lived inside my head as a mystical land, a place (both literally and metaphorically) apart. A country that was essentially cut off from the rest of the world for 250 years, which to me meant that it had to be different and weird and amazing.

There was no other logical conclusion. A land packed so densely with people, they encourage idiot foreign tourists to pay real-life-actual-hard-earned money to sleep in stacked coffins, all the while calling them 'capsule hotels' and laughing behind their backs. A location where, in order to cram train carriages to their absolute maximum capacity, mosh-pit frequenters are employed to practice their people-shoving skills on a daily basis.

Home to Studio Ghibli. Seven Samurai. Geisha. Those Nissan cars that look like Postman Pat's van. Sushi. Akira. Hello Kitty. Ugh, Hello Kitty.

"Deep down I knew that Japan was probably just like everywhere else. It wouldn't be mystical because it'd have litter bins and shops selling cheap tat made in Taiwan, vandalised payphones and despicable politicians, bad graffiti and crap hotels."

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But I hoped.

I hoped that when I arrived, culture shock would be an actual thing.

I hoped that I'd have a mad grin on my face because I needed to get a bus to somewhere I couldn't pronounce, via a map I couldn't read, surrounded by people I couldn't talk to.

I craved it. I longed for the alien, the peculiar. But was the Japan we met a Vince Vaughn*, or a Mark Hamill**?

Tricky to say really. Maybe it's more of a Harrison Ford? We'll probably have to go back and meet them again...

-

* It is a generally accepted fact that Vince Vaughn is a bit of a douche.

** It is a generally accepted fact that Mark Hamill is awesome.

SUPPLEMENTAL

JAPANGLISH

It's funny cos they don't make sense.

But how good is your Japanese, huh? Exactly.

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50 WAKING HOURS IN JAPAN

Signs of the times

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Footnotes

All Photographs taken with Panasonic Lumix GH4, processed in Lightroom.

FootNotes

All Photographs taken with Panasonic Lumix GH4, processed in Lightroom.

© 2026 Tommy Nagle

THE WIRE PASS +BABY

The final part in a series about exploring the American West in an RV with an 8 week old baby

WHITE POCKET + BABY

Part 12 in a series about exploring the American West in an RV with an 8 week old baby

CORAL PINK SAND DUNES +BABY

Part 11 in a series about exploring the American West in an RV with an 8 week old baby

GRAND CANYON NORTH RIM

Part 10 in a series exploring the American West with an 8 week old baby

LAKE POWELL, ARIZONA +BABY

Part 9 in a series exploring the American West with an 8 week old baby - Canyon X and Horseshoe Bend

VALLEY OF THE GODS +BABY

Part 8 in a series about exploring the American West with an 8 week old baby

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