Favourite things to do in Japan

So it’s been a while, but I’m glad you came back. 😉 I know the past months I haven’t been blogging that much. The reasons? Heat waves, an amazing trip to Japan with the boyf and life in general. The summer was filled with friends, sales shopping and the many amazing things we did in Japan. There are many things to do in Japan, but only some made it to our favourites list.

Japan is SUCH a diverse country. When we decided to go to Japan, we had some things in mind: sushi! tea! mount Fuji! are just some examples. To no one’s surprise we discovered Japan is so much more than that. Sometimes it was crazy, sometimes it was breathtakingly beautiful, and sometimes it was exactly as we pictured it would be. If you are curious about what Japan can offer, here are some of my favourite parts of our trip.

Sunrise on Mount Fuji

As soon as we decided to go to Japan, we knew we wanted to catch the sunrise from the top of Mount Fuji. When the day came, we decided to postpone our climb with a day. The weather forecast would be better the next day, and we didn’t feel like climbing in the rain. We could not have choosen a more perfect day to climb.

Going up the weather was cloudy, but warm and there were surprisingly cheap sushi burgers for sale. Halfway the way up we stopped to stay in a mountain hut, so we could catch a few hours of sleep before waking up at midnight to go to the top of the mountain. Even though we had brought some warm clothes, we were not 100% prepared for the cold. Of course it did not help that 1000 other persons were also climbing. We had to queue (!) for two and a half/three hours (!), in the ice cold (!), to get to the top.

We arrived at the top around 4 o’clock in the morning, just in time to see the sunrise. And that was the breathtakingly beautiful thing I was talking about earlier. Seeing the sun rise over the clouds I consider one of the best parts of the trip.

Naoshima art island

We haven’t visited much museums during our trip, but three of the ones we did visit were on the art island Naoshima. One typical thing you might know about it is Yayoi Kusama’s Yellow Pumpkin. We didn’t have to look far to find it because it was situated right next to the beach camping where we were staying in a yurt. Yep, we stayed in a yurt and woke up with the sound of the waves. And cicades, of course. So if you would ever stay in that yurt, which I can only recommend, bring ear plugs because those guys are loud.

The pumpkin is not the only work of art that you can see outside. There is a whole art route from our beach camping to the nearest museum, which was really fun! But inside there are also things to see. There are several cool museums where the experience also counted. In every one of the ones we visited it was prohibited to take pictures. If you want to know how it looks like, I would just recommend to go for yourself. 😉

Visiting Naoshima took place somewhere halfway our trip. Having a swim after ten days of sticky days because of the heat wave and general humit climate was super welcome! That and having one of our top three meals there might well also be some of the reasons we liked visiting this island so much.

Kawaii Monster Cafe

I really, really wanted to visit a themed cafe during our trip to Japan because how can you not?! The most well-known themed cafe in Tokyo would probably be the Robot Restaurant, but it seemed like a tourist trap to us. After some research online we chose the Kawaii Monster Cafe instead. It seemed so super colorful and over the top and I really wanted to try that one out.

You must have one dessert and one drink per person, but we already had had lunch when we arrived so we really didn’t feel like eating lunch again. Luckily we arrived there at ten to three and they already let us in to have the sweets menu that started at 3 o’clock.Think a lot of food coloring and food with faces on.

When the door opened and they showed us our places our mouth really fell open. This was SO over the top that it was amazing! All in all we stayed there for about an hour. The restaurant is made up of two rooms where the five different themes blend into each other. Every hour there is a small cabaret show, which was fun but not worth the wait.

If you’re more looking for a themed cafe that is less over the top, Tokyo also has an Alice in Wonderland cafe, a prison cafe and a vampire cafe.

Maricar (or driving the streets of Japan in a kart dressed up as Mario Kart)

The boyf’s brother and his girlfriend had visited Japan in January. When they showed us their pictures, one of them was from a guy riding a kart on the streets of Tokyo while wearing a Mario Kart costume. It sounded so cool that we just had to try it. It did not disappoint.

Driving the streets of the largest city of the world in a kart sounds dangerous, but it was surprisingly not. There are few cars driving the streets of the city centre and everyone is super respectful while driving. You can also choose to do this in a smaller city, such as Osaka.

These are just some of my favourite things to do in Japan. I selected some more, but this post would have gotten way to long, so I’m saving them up for another. By now I’ve also published the rest of my favorite things to do in Japan.

After our trip I had quite a jetlag, where I would be incredibly sleepy even though I slept a lot. The boyf of course was just fine, lucky him. Ever since I recovered I met up with some friends and went to a Britney Spears concert. Anyone noticed the hint in the beginning of the post? 😉

xo Noor