Robot Restaurant is a crazy show in Tokyo, Japan’s Shinjuku district with dancers, lasers, monsters, samurai & more. This review shares how to buy discount tickets, whether it’s worth the money, what you should expect, and photos from our experiences. (Updated September 5, 2024.) The bad news: Robot Restaurant has now been temporarily closed since early […]
TeamLab Planets and Borderless are interactive digital art museums in Tokyo Japan that offer galleries of immersive and Instagrammable surreal installations. This review explains what that actually means, shares photos from inside the exhibits and covers whether it’s worth the time, money & effort to visit, plus tips for buying tickets. teamLab offers a number of temporary exhibitions […]
There are two things you’ll see at Christmas in Japan that might make you do a double-take: Colonel Sanders as Santa and gorgeous cakes at convenience stores. This post discusses unique traditions started by KFC, 7-Eleven and Disney, and shares our experiences spending the holiday season in Kyoto and Tokyo. Let’s start with how Christmas […]
Japan’s tourism ministry has released guidelines for tourists and travel agencies that will run monitored tours as part of the country’s very limited resumption of group tourism. This post will cover the preposterous proposals, and offer commentary about what’s motivating these rules. First, basic background about the monitored tours that’ll begin on June 10, 2022 […]
Nara, Japan is an excellent place to visit, and a big part of this is the wild deer that roam the city. If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “gee, I really want to go to a park where I can interact with and feed over one thousand deer” then it’s time to book your trip […]
The Last Bookstore is an iconic location in Downtown Los Angeles, transcending its place as California’s largest seller of new, used, and rare books into a quasi art installation. It’s also a cultural touchstone connecting the Age of Literacy to the Post-Information Age. This post share photos from inside, info and tips for visiting, and […]
Kibune is a mountain town located a short train ride north of Kyoto, and is a great place for escaping the city’s summer heat, humidity, and peak season crowds. In this post, we’ll offer dining recommendations for kawadoko, which are patios built over the river by restaurants in this rural village. This is something of […]
When traveling in Japan, there’s one place that will save your day, bring great comfort, and fill you with joy: 7-11. No, we’re not kidding. We visit 7-Eleven more than anywhere else in Tokyo or Kyoto, and say that with absolutely zero shame. (To the contrary, we’re quite proud of it.) Drop your preconceptions and forget everything […]
Nakano Broadway is a shopping complex in Tokyo, Japan famous for its many stores selling Disney collectibles, used anime, video games, toys, books, souvenirs, antiques, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. In this shopping guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know before heading to Nakano Broadway. We first visited Nakano Broadway several […]
I am obsessed with bizarre vending machine drinks in Japan. I’m also a huge fan of novelty Coca-Cola and Pepsi packaging. Put those two things together, and it’s a recipe for me to do some serious “soda stalking” as we travel around Tokyo and Kyoto on a veritable tour of 7-11 and Lawson stores. In […]