Eat, drink, travel Japan.
Sake gets a lot of hype, but this tour gives it a brain. You’ll start at the Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum and move into a tasting focused on how sake is made and why flavors land so differently in your glass. I like that you’re not stuck in vague sweet vs dry talk; you get … Read more
Tokyo nightlife can be a maze. This crawl turns it into a guided party route, built for meeting people fast while still hitting proper bars and a real club. You start in a relaxed spot, then the night gets louder and more physical, with hosts keeping the group moving and serving plenty of shots. Two … Read more
Shibuya at night goes fast. This 3.5-hour crawl is built for people who want the local way to do Shibuya: small bars you’re unlikely to spot on your own, a guide who steers you around, and food that keeps pace with the drinks. I especially like the mix of street-level Shibuya landmarks and then slipping … Read more
Snow monkeys. Sake. A temple. One long day. This 8-hour Nagano tour links three classic stops: Zenko-ji (a near-1400-year-old Buddhist site), a sake tasting at Nishimon Yoshinoya (a major brewing area), and the Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park for macaques in a snowy, hot-spring setting. You’ll go with an English-speaking guide plus transportation between each point, … Read more
Shinjuku feels different after dark. This guided night out threads through the lantern alleys of Omoide Yokocho, the neon maze of Kabukicho, and the door-to-door world of Golden Gai, with an English-speaking guide keeping you moving and ordering-friendly. You may even get a host like Nao, Kei, Yutaro, or Toshi, based on who’s running your … Read more
Shinjuku at night tastes like Tokyo. This izakaya food tour strings together multiple local stops so you can sample a wide range of comfort foods, sashimi-style bites, and grilled skewers while walking through Tokyo’s after-dark neighborhoods, including the neon-laced Shinjuku scene. It’s a simple plan with a big payoff: food plus atmosphere, without you having … Read more
Shinjuku gets easier when you have a local. This small-group Tokyo bar hopping tour takes you to three well-placed izakaya-style stops across Omoide Yokocho, Kabukicho, and Golden Gai (with a possible sake-b ar swap). You also get a guide who helps you avoid common etiquette slip-ups while you focus on eating, drinking, and walking. I … Read more
The smell hits first. Warm, yeasty, faintly sweet, like bread dough left to rise next to roasting sweet potatoes. Then the humidity, which clings to your shirt within seconds of walking in. Then the sound: the slow blub of moromi mash bubbling in clay pots the size of bathtubs, and somewhere behind a sliding door, … Read more
Ask anyone who knows a little about Japanese whisky to name a Hokkaido distillery and they’ll say Yoichi. Push them for a second one and most stop talking. Yet the island has at least four working whisky distilleries with visitor programmes, and the youngest of them sits in ski country running gin alongside its single … Read more
Hyogo and Kyoto produce more sake than the next eight prefectures combined. Two of Kansai’s six prefectures, side by side, brew over half of Japan’s nihonshu in any given year. Most travellers I’ve met think Niigata when they think sake. They’d be wrong about where the country actually makes the stuff. Kansai is the heartland. … Read more
The trip almost didn’t happen. I’d booked an Aomori brewery visit at the end of a rushed week, the second of three trains had run late out of Sendai, and I walked into the brick warehouse of Hachinohe Shuzo apologetic and damp, wanting only to nod my way through the tour and find a hotel. … Read more
The third nigiri at Sushi Sho in Yotsuya was where it landed for me. Hokkaido shima-aji, brushed with a single drop of soy, the rice still warm. The pour beside it was a junmai from Akita served at room temperature, almost room-cool, in a small ochoko cup. One bite, one sip. The fish stopped tasting … Read more
Smoke first, then sound. Charcoal smoke pushing out from under a corrugated awning, mixing with cooking-fat steam and someone’s cigarette. Then the noise: tongs clinking, a ten-second burst of laughter, the staticky beep of an order screen, a salaryman saying otsukaresama three times to someone he’s never met. I’m standing in Omoide Yokocho at 19:30 … Read more
Japan has roughly 56,000 convenience stores. That’s more outlets than McDonald’s has worldwide, and the country sells about a third of the world’s 7-Eleven coffees out of them. The drinks fridge in any one of them runs four metres long, stocks more than a hundred SKUs, and rotates seasonal flavours in and out about as … Read more
The first time I got a Japanese toast wrong, I was at a wedding reception in Yokohama. Ten of us at a round table, a glass of champagne in front of every plate, and a microphone open to a senior colleague who took ninety seconds to thank his hosts before raising his arm and saying … Read more