Tokyo: 🇯🇵, 💸, 🍣

The post I’ve been waiting all year to write: a trip to Japan! Originally I was hoping to spend two to three months in Japan but after looking at these expenses, maybe it’s good I was only there for thirty-five days. From the beginning of April till mid-May, I was frolicking in the urban beauty of Tokyo. How much did the most expensive month of my adult life cost?!? Let’s find out!

First there were the flights, of which there was only one. From Taipei to Tokyo it was $500 on China Air. That was easy. The housing was not. We literally moved every couple of days, and overall I stayed at ten AirBnbs, which was obviously not the most efficient way to do things but it turned out to be amazing because we got to explore many neighborhoods. For the first week we had three people splitting a place, two weeks with two of us, and then the final two weeks was just me.

My overall budget for housing was $100 a day and that just about worked out, to the tune of $108 per night. If I had stayed in a capsule hotel or opted for less fashionable digs -- we scoured for cool places to stay -- that price would have likely gone down a tad. As it was, I spent a total of $3,800 for housing. Pricey, I know. That number pushes up to over $4,000 if you include the $300 or so we spent transferring between AirBnbs via taxi. But I knew going in that housing costs was going to be expensive, and so it was.

After flights and housing, it was $4,600 total for expenses, of which the breakdown is (and I’ll tackle them in reverse order):

• Shopping: $1,800
• Food: $1,650
• Transportation: $720
• Play: $390
• Misc: $60

Miscellaneous ($60): You know that old adage “It costs money to spend money,” right? All of miscellaneous was ATM fees, which was a necessary evil. I went to the ATM five times and withdrew about $200 USD each, which cost about $11 per transaction.

Play ($390): A seemingly low amount, I know! But I didn’t really do that much, as far as traditional "play" is categorized. I mean, I went to four movies ($75), had one karaoke session ($40), barely drank as per usual ($35), and really the only other big things were $35 for Sanrioland admission, cover for an incredible dancing night at Sound Museum Vision ($45, of which I paid for others), and a few $5-13 museums, plus about $20 for Epson Aqua Park -- so like $1.50 per dolphin. Heck, I spent more at the arcades than I did doing most things. FYI: Most arcade games cost about 100 JP¥, or 1 USD.

Transportation ($720): It was $45 for two trips via Keisei Skyliner to/from the airport. $95 total for subway rides, of which I barely took any to be honest -- each ride was probably around $3. And then $15 for the bike share, which I used liberally for the first couple of weeks until it started raining a lot. Oh and I used about $30 for storage lockers in-between AirBnbs, which was very necessary.

Of course, taxis were a huge expense, totaling $525, but after taking off -$300 of that for Ubers between AirBnbs, plus maybe another -$100 for airport rides, it was only $125 or so for "regular" taxi rides. Don’t get me wrong, taxis in Tokyo are super expensive, like $12-20 dollars for even short distances. But I mostly avoided taxis and took maybe a dozen rides total, when it was late or I was in a rush. For the most part, when we were in a neighborhood, we never left it, moving out only to meet people or talking a bike/walk to get somewhere. Tokyo is an imminently walkable city, as advertised.

Keep in mind for transportation that we also didn't go to any other cities, which most people tend to do, using the Japan Rail Pass to get around the country. It sounded like a sweet deal but neither of us wanted to travel travel that much on this trip.

Food ($1,650): Shockingly, not my highest category! Food prices in Japan were wildly exaggerated I thought, as in it was much cheaper than I’d imagined. You could easily get a good meal for $10-15, which isn’t far from New York or San Francisco prices. Of course, you could scale up quickly but cheap meals were also easily had.

Overall I spent $950 for “dining out / shared” and $400 for “dining out,” the latter of which was just meals for me. The “shared” dining usually indicates that I paid for whoever I was eating with, and as usual it scaled about 2/3rd of my "dining out" bill. There was too much food to go into any detail but my highest individual eating session was $25 for a standing sushi spot and I basically thrived/lived on $9 bowls of ramen. So much ramen...

There was also $275 spent on snacks and $40 on groceries, which basically means drinks, cookies, coffee, sugar items, and bites in-between meals. At a mere $45 for food per day (on vacation), Japan wasn’t too bad right?

Shopping ($1,800): Let’s start with the wifi and data situation. Over-worried as I was about my access to the internet, I both pre-bought SIM cards and then had to get new ones as we figured out that there was a delay in activation with the ones I bought. Overall I spent a tad over $300 for wifi and that included two separate airport SIMs ($35 each) that lasted one week, a whole lot more spent on Mobal SIM and service ($140) for two weeks, and then about $110 on a Kyushu pocket wifi--for unlimited data and fast speeds. If I had been experienced, I would have worked it so that I had the Kyushu set up pre-trip and ready to go at the airport, thus eliminating the need for all the other solutions. Lesson learned! Next time I just go with the pocket wifi and don’t worry about SIM cards.

Off the top, I spent $450 on general shopping, $475 on clothing, $200 on household items, $190 on gift related things, bought one book (Wallpaper City Guide Tokyo), and dropped $80 at Sanrioland merchandise stores. I regret none of it. In fact, if I had more room to carry stuff I probably could have easily doubled this. Next time I go to Japan I’m gonna shorten the trip so I can just blow all the money on shopping. Consume, consume, consume! Seriously the amount of cute, cool, delightfully designed, beautiful items on sale here are just ridiculous. I went to Loft Shibuya near the end of my trip, and they literally closed down on me at 9PM, so I guess that means someone was watching over my bank account. Thank you shopping gods.

The two hundred dollars worth of household stuff I bought were simply a whole bunch of cute hand towels, wraps, various knick knacks for my home, a stand up rice scooper that I was very intrigued by, three special bird letter openers, and an entire matching set of bird inspired ceramic holder thingys. Like I said, I could have spent all my money shopping in Japan…

Given how little room I had in my traveling bag—and an unwillingness to have too much to carry in-between AirBnbs—I had to curb my buying to small items. Thus most of my gifts for others constituted stickers, baby socks, baby 20mL Tiger thermoses, and uh, more socks. Also I am bringing back an Afuri dry ramen because my friend was kind enough to take back all my housewares to San Diego. At the very end of the trip, I bought an extra roller suitcase, which didn’t hold much, but it was enough to get me over the hump.

I also collected quite a few totes, many Tanuki to Kitsune items (in fact I spent probably $100 on Tanku to Kitsune items once I realized I could only get them in Japan), and resisted just about every stationary item I wanted, save a few key items. Stationary alone could put a huge dent in any Tokyo visitor’s budget.

And then we get to it, $475 on clothes! Everyone in Tokyo dresses amazing. Literally, everyone. And part of the reason is because clothes shopping there is amazing. (Overall the shopping scene is great but the shopping for men's stuff is out of this world.) From American vintage to high end streetwear, to everything in-between, shopping in Tokyo is the absolute dream. Fortunately for my wallet, I couldn’t pull off the the Japanese worker style -- more swag needed--  and also didn’t have much room for extra clothes so everything I bought was (mostly) out of necessity.

Upon arriving, Tokyo was much colder than we thought, so an extra sweater was bought in Harajuku, as well as a denim linen jacket from Zara, and white shoes to replace the ugly orange New Balances that my friend insisted I toss. (Oh yeah, even the Zara in Tokyo is way better. I’ve never bought a single thing at Zara Stateside but immediately bought three must-have items in the Roppongi Hills Zara.)

I did cave and get a pair of linen jeans, denim shorts, and a shirt from the first store I walked into in Daikanyama (and eyed an amazingly looooong denim jacket), and then promptly left the area because I knew the shopping there was going to be great. And on my second-to-last day, my friend wanted to drop by a store and it just so happened to be one I had passed by weeks ago, filled with linen Tibetan type stuff and so of course I had to buy a few things there. In sum, the five hundred or so dollars I spent on clothes was a mere drop in the bucket. I’ll be back for you Daikanyama and all other shopping districts, I’ll be back!

Overall, thirty-five days in Tokyo cost nearly $9,000, which was more than I anticipated but also perhaps less? If I scaled way back on the housing, if I shopped a whole lot less, and took way fewer taxis between AirBnbs, I think it would have been possible to slash that number by half, easily.

If two weeks in Vietnam cost $1,800 and two weeks in Bali cost $1,350, Tokyo would have been about $3,300 for two weeks, all-in. And by living there the cost would be stretched much lower, as I had a friend who was living in Tokyo for about $1,500 monthly rent, in a great area, with a fantastic space. No way you could do that in NYC or SF. Tokyo is a very livable city, much more than advertised I think. Should I move there? Of course I should!

Next time in Japan: Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium and Naoshima!