Why We Chose Japan
Japan had been on our list for quite a while.
There was something about it that made us curious. The combination of old and new, the food, the culture, the scenery, the technology, and just the idea of experiencing everyday life somewhere so different from home.
And then there’s the anime.
We’re an anime-loving family, so naturally, that was part of the appeal too. 😂 Japan wasn’t just some random destination we picked out of a hat. There was already a little connection there for us through the shows and characters we enjoyed.
Of course, we knew that the Japan we would experience in real life wasn’t going to be exactly like the Japan we saw in anime. But there was something really exciting about finally getting to visit the country that had inspired so much of what we enjoyed watching.
We also wanted a trip that would be more than simply visiting places and taking pictures.
Our son is 10 years old at the time, and we wanted him to experience another culture while he was still young enough to be curious about everything.
We wanted our family to experience something different.
And Japan felt like one of those places where you could do that just by walking down the street.
Of course, we still wanted to see the famous sights. But we were just as interested in the little things—what people ate, how they got around, what stores were like, how the cities worked, and what daily life looked like.
That curiosity ended up being one of the best parts of the trip.
Planning the Trip
Planning our trip to Japan was exciting and overwhelming at the same time.
We’re a family of three, and our son was 10 years old at the time. We were planning to go during Spring Break so March – April.
We were also hoping to catch the cherry blossoms.
Well… let’s just say our timing wasn’t quite what we hoped for. 😂
But we’ll get to that later.
We knew we were going to fly into Tokyo, but we decided that our home base would be Osaka. We wanted to spend more time exploring Osaka and the surrounding area rather than constantly moving from one hotel to another.
Then came the hotel search.
Our requirements were pretty simple:
It needed to be close to a train station, and breakfast had to be included.
Simple, right?
Not exactly.
I searched.
And searched.
Then searched again.
And then searched some more.
I spent days looking at hotels online, comparing locations, reading reviews, checking how far they were from the stations, and trying to find something that would work for the three of us.
Eventually, I found one that was fairly close to Osaka Station and, most importantly, close enough that we could walk between the hotel and the station.
Perfect.
One thing checked off the list.
Now, we’re not the type of family who feels like we MUST see absolutely everything.
We’re not interested in waking up at some ungodly hour, racing from one attraction to another, and then crawling back into the hotel completely exhausted.
That’s just not how we like to travel.
We wanted to enjoy the trip.
We also didn’t book any tours. Budget was certainly part of the reason, but we also liked the freedom of figuring things out ourselves.
Instead, we made a list of the places we knew we wanted to see and went from there.
We knew we wanted to visit:
- Osaka Castle
- Universal Studios Japan
- Dotonbori
- Kyoto
And then we’d see what else happened along the way.
For Universal Studios, I purchased our tickets through Klook, which turned out to be a really useful travel app for the trip. I also rented a pocket Wi-Fi through Klook, which gave us internet access while we were out exploring.
At that point, the major pieces were starting to come together.
Flights? Check.
Hotel? Check.
Universal Studios? Check.
Pocket Wi-Fi? Check.
Places we wanted to see? Check.
Now we just had to actually get there.
And that’s when the excitement—and a little bit of nervousness—really started.
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