Ten Days in Japan: Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto

I went to Japan in October 2025 with a work reason attached: I was giving my first-ever IT talk at MCT Summit Japan. If you want that side of the story, I wrote about it separately over at sherifalghali.com. This is the other half of the trip: ten days across Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto with my girlfriend. It was her first time in Japan, but not mine. I had been to Tokyo before, in winter, when hotels are a lot cheaper. October is peak season, and the prices show it.

Tokyo, to start

We based ourselves at the ibis Styles Tokyo Ginza. Around the conference days we still made time to ride up the Tokyo Skytree, and of all things, we found an Oktoberfest running in the same building. It was a good introduction to how much Tokyo can surprise you.

My girlfriend loved the shopping, and she had a real eye for a deal. The twelve-story Uniqlo in Ginza was a highlight for her. We picked up makeup and sunscreen in Harajuku, and gifts for friends at Bic Camera in Shibuya. In between, we ate sushi more or less everywhere.

Osaka and the final day of the Expo

We took the Shinkansen from Tokyo Station down to Osaka Station, then the metro to the Holiday Inn Express Osaka City Centre, Midosuji. We had come straight off the conference weekend and were still shaking off the jet lag, so it was late afternoon by the time we dropped our bags and headed to Expo 2025.

It was the closing day, and it was the largest crowd I have ever stood in. Nearly 208,000 people came through the gates that day, one of the busiest days of a six-month event that drew more than 25 million visitors (The Japan Times).

Because we arrived late, many pavilions had already closed, and the lines on the ones still open were long, so we only made it into two: Spain and Colombia. I seem to have a habit of finding the Colombia pavilion. I visited it at Expo 2020 in Dubai as well, and Colombia has shown up on this blog before in my pieces on Bogotá.

The Expo closed with a spectacular fireworks show, and then came the part that stuck with me. The line for the train looked, to my American eyes, like it would take two hours. It did not. We were packed into a subway car like sardines within 30 minutes, on trains running about two minutes apart. Watching Japan move that many people out of one place, calmly and quickly, was its own kind of spectacle.

What I loved about Osaka was the contrast with Tokyo. It felt looser and friendlier. We walked the Shinsaibashi-Suji shopping street near our hotel and the Tombori River Walk along the Dotonbori canal, which had a fun, friendly energy with food everywhere you looked. We saw Osaka Castle, and we spent time at Universal CityWalk. We did not have time for the park itself, but we did eat at Bubba Gump Shrimp, which felt like the right amount of ridiculous.

Kyoto, in a single day

Kyoto was a day trip from Osaka. We got up early and made a full day of it. The train from Osaka Station took about an hour. We walked the torii gates at Fushimi Inari, went shopping for matcha, and tracked down a smash burger and a matcha shake that, as far as I can tell, you can only get in Kyoto. Sometimes the small, specific things are the ones you remember.

Back to Tokyo

For the last stretch of the trip we moved to the Villa Fontaine in Nihombashi. It is a business district, which means it goes quiet at night. Tokyo can be hectic, and there was something I really appreciated about being right in the heart of the city and still having it settle down after dark.

Getting around Japan

Two things made this trip noticeably easier, and I want you to have them.

• Suica in your iPhone. Open Apple Wallet, add a card, choose Transit Card, scroll to Japan, and pick Suica (or PASMO). I chose Suica, topped it up with Apple Pay, and tapped my phone at every gate. No paper card, no fumbling.
• smart-ex.jp for the Shinkansen. It is the official site. It looks intimidating at first, but once it clicks, it is easy, and you can link your Suica to your Shinkansen tickets so boarding is just a tap.

What it cost

I will keep this in dollars. Our three hotels came to about $1,775 for ten nights between the two of us:

• ibis Styles Tokyo Ginza, 3 nights: $607.06
• Holiday Inn Express Osaka City Centre, Midosuji, 3 nights: $488.29
• Villa Fontaine Nihombashi in Tokyo, 4 nights: $678.30

The rest, roughly, for two people: the Shinkansen ran a few hundred dollars round trip, Expo tickets were about $40 each, the Tokyo Skytree combo ticket was around $40 total, and we budgeted about $70 a day for food. All in, not counting flights, the trip came to somewhere in the $3,500 to $4,000 range for the two of us over ten days.

Here is the short version. The hotels were expensive, especially in October, but everything else felt like great value. The food, the trains, even the shopping deals my girlfriend kept finding. You spend on a place to sleep, and then the rest of Japan gives it back to you.

Taking it easy

I could frame our late arrival at the Expo as a miss, that we should have gone first thing and seen more. I do not see it that way. The conference came first, the jet lag was real, and this was simply when it made sense to go. Travel, for me, is not a checklist. It is about taking it easy and being kind to yourself. We caught two pavilions and a fireworks show at the close of a world's fair, and that was more than enough.

One practical note if you are planning your own trip: October is peak season in Japan, and hotel prices show it. If you can handle the cold, winter is meaningfully cheaper, which is when I visited the first time.

Bottom line

There is far more than I can fit into one post. It was a wonderful trip for both of us, the kind that is equal parts big moments and small, specific ones. If you want the professional side of the same trip, that is over at sherifalghali.com.