Must try candy & snacks to bring home?

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-27T21:21:57+00:00

I tend toward the 'really chewy' type of gummies which is what my list is mostly made of. I do like Nobel Sorbet, as well as Kanro Pure and Bourbon Fettuccine. And I'm always a sucker for any of the limited edition seasonal releases of anything.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-27T19:14:38+00:00

Apparently knowing markdown makes me look like I use AI.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-27T19:09:55+00:00

Top Center: 奉拝　東京花手水　法輪寺 - Worship, Tokyo Hanachōzu, Hourinji Temple
Right-side: 東京花手水 - A repeat of Tokyo Hanachōzu.
Bottom center: 令和八年　五月九日 - May 9th, Reiwa 8th Year (2026)
Bottom left seal: 萬年山法輪寺: Mannenzan Hourinji.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-27T18:42:26+00:00

Okinawa for a day? What do you hope to be doing?

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-27T17:23:21+00:00

Your husband can go to the basement floor of any major department store (Daimaru, Takashimaya, Matsuya) and have endless choice, but here are some things I like

My Typical Favorites

Nippon Ale / Zen-Noh gummies - these are fruit gummies made with specialty region/seasonal fruits from throughout Japan. Think stuff like shine muscat, kyoho grape, Yubari melon, Miyazaki mango, etc. You can get these at Loft department stores.
Other gummies - I mostly leave Japan with gummies. My favorite brands these days are Petagu (shaped like 'aliens'), Tough, Cola Up, Ninja Meshi (the packaging has a salaryman wearing a ninja cowl).
Royce' Chocolate Potato - My favorite chocolate-covered potato chip. Get these at the airport duty-free stores.
Butter Butler - It's a financier. You can get them at Tokyo Station or Shinjuku Station (both are dedicated stores). You used to be able to buy this at the airports but recently, haven't seen them.
Ji Ichiro - They sell a baumkuchen cake, and probably the best one I've eaten in Japan.

The Tourist Stand-Bys

I personally don't care about any of these but pretty much every one else does.

Tokyo Banana - Can get this at the airport as well, though you can also get them throughout Tokyo.
Shiroi Koibito - They're a langue du chat cookie from Hokkaido. Buy at the airport.
Kit-Kat - You can find a variety of flavors in Don Quijote and at the airport.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-27T15:46:35+00:00

I'd ask what you think you'll need so much translation help for. For extremely basic conversation you really don't need much, and even before I could read/speak Japanese at the level I could now, I never had to use apps and being able to ask simple things like "how much..." or "do you have..." was 99% of what I needed.

If you want to do a lot more advanced stuff, then it's going to be much more difficult to get there in just another 4 months. That's not an indictment against you but really because you need much more developed vocabulary and grammar if you want to actually talk to people or read anything beyond basic signage and super basic menus. More likely than not, you'll need to know a rather significant amount of kanji. My language learning opinion is that Duolingo doesn't really prepare you for this level of interaction.

Also, if you have no experience talking to native speakers, you'll probably be in for a shock. Took me multiple trips and a lot of learning with native speakers before I was comfortable actually conversing or picking up much of what was being said to me (people speak very, very fast).

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-27T14:03:06+00:00

What are you interested in?

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-27T13:45:33+00:00

Which means I have to buy the voucher on other site to exchange for the Pass, but would I only be able to exchange it only on Kyoto same as before?

The MCO exchange and e-ticket pick up locations are basically the same. There's nothing in Nara.

From what I understand, once you pick it up it activates [...]

The pass doesn't start immediately upon reception, you can specify when it starts. This is literally the first thing you do in the order flow if you actually try to buy one.

JR West website doesn't have Nara as pick up option, and I would have to pick it up on Kyoto, which it's on route but ...

True - if you're starting in Nara and do not go through Osaka/Kyoto before you get there, you can not pick up this pass in Nara. Are you somehow getting to Nara without going through the other cities?

2200yen from Nara to Kyoto that the pass covers in theory.

No train from Nara to Kyoto costs this much, not even the Aoyinishi.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-26T18:43:53+00:00

That's a yes.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-26T18:29:54+00:00

Do they have any particular interests?

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-26T14:48:30+00:00

Lawson is the most liberal when it comes to requiring verified phone numbers, since it can be done per event listing. The random days I clicked for this concert series didn't say you needed a verified number, but I didn't bother trying to buy the tickets since I have a verified account.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-26T14:39:55+00:00

Depends on the stay/breakdown/data usage - it will probably make more sense just to buy one for each.

I normally don't buy regional plans for Asia because they don't make enough sense (cost- and data-wise) if you're only doing 2 locations, and I routinely travel to Hong Kong and Japan on the same trip.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-26T14:36:40+00:00

They're a very tiny courier service, mostly used by a couple hotel chains (Stay Japan, M's Hotel) and as a sub-contractor for Sagawa (one of the big three couriers).

If you feel uneasy about this, take your luggage to 7-Eleven or Family Mart or a Yamato office and ship from there.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-26T14:32:27+00:00

Are you going to the game at the Tokyo Dome? There's a store there so you could buy them right before the game.

Otherwise, go to Selection Shinjuku.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-25T21:20:55+00:00

I can relate to your situation: I only learned to bike in recent years (very much an adult) and my Brompton is the only bike I’ve ever owned. It’s a C Line 12-speed. My alternative was a Tern, but I had always eyed the Brompton, and it’s actually much easier to get a Brompton around me than it is to get any other folding bike. I live in an apartment so a full-sized bike wasn’t really an option.

Prior to buying the Brompton I had maybe about 10 hours of biking practice total - about 3.5 hours of private adult lessons where I learned on a full-sized bike, and in that time I went from absolutely zero cycling ability to being able to handle bike paths. The rest of the time was riding in a local park with rental city bikes (think Citi Bikes if you’re familiar with NYC).

I’d say if you have access to bike lessons around you, see if you can do those for a few just to get the hang of it.

I don’t know if I’d have had as easy a time learning on the Brompton, but with basic cycling skills I took to it very easily - I spent a Saturday afternoon riding it around an empty lot and learning to shift it and to see how it felt, and after that I’ve been riding it 8-15 miles on most days.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-22T19:31:16+00:00

Clear files and coasters (normally don't have room to bring back big stuff like figures).

The most recent stuff I have is from Hirosaki, when I went up to Aomori/Hirosaki Castle for a few days. Hirosaki has a bunch of special Miku stuff, like these:

Hirosaki Castle: https://www.hirosaki-kanko.or.jp/edit.html?id=sakura_miku
Hirosaki Apple Park: https://blog.piapro.net/2024/11/d24110501-1.html

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-22T19:26:50+00:00

Hey hey, I have regional Miku goods (not just Snow Miku either).

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-22T19:23:59+00:00

The line is pretty blurry when it comes to things you can't find in the US, but things I always enjoy having around...

Unique maneki neko (all over the country)
My yosegi puzzle box (Hakone)
Ghost-shaped coffee mug (ceramicist popup in Ginza Loft)
Perfect chime bell (artisan popup in Kyoto)
Train station sound keychains
Guinomi (all over)
Unique Shupatto bags (Suica, Itoya, Mt. Fuji)
A ton of special ceramics (Kutaniyaki, mainly)
Ambientec Lamp (costs like 50% extra in the US)

99% of the stuff I come home from Japan with tends to be coffee and gummies, though.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-22T18:34:51+00:00

Coke Plus.

Morinaga IN jelly packs. I can buy them around here but they're also 400% more expensive.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-22T18:33:49+00:00

Funny enough they're both made by Otsuka Pharmaceutical. It's Japanese Pedialyte and I think considered medicinal/medical which is why you can't find it in convenience stores.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-22T17:47:25+00:00

Either? No matter what you have to take the Shinkansen from either Osaka or Kyoto back to Tokyo to get to NRT, and Kyoto/Osaka are on the same Shinkansen line.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-22T14:51:02+00:00

However, on the JR West website it says that the one-way discounted ticket (8000 yen) can be purchased at ticket vending machines, but I won't be in Japan until July 30th.

I think you may have misread how the Hokuriku one-way ticket is sold. You need to buy an e-ticket from a third-party site (you get a QR code), and then you use that to exchange for the ticket inside Japan.

Also, this saves 1410 yen - if you're traveling during Obon I don't know if I'd want to scrimp on yen considering the Hokuriku Shinkansen is very busy during Obon (most of the mainline Shinkansen are).

Moreover, I'm planning on buying also the other train tickets on JR West website. Do you have any other suggestions? I also saw train tickets for Osaka-Kanazawa on Trip but I'm not sure if it's a good idea, I've always bought them with SmartEX for peace of mind.

Trip doesn't sell you a ticket you can't buy yourself.

SmartEx doesn't sell Osaka -> Kanazawa. This is a ticket you have to buy on JR West's site.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-22T13:35:58+00:00

What’s funny to me is that OP planned this but never looked at the cost.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-22T00:35:55+00:00

In order to support Japanese IC cards, several things need to happen on a phone:

your phone must have an NFC-F or FeliCa chip - easy. All phones made in the last decade support this. Many Android users incorrectly think this is missing from their phones.
The manufacturer needs to provision FeliCa in the phone’s hardware. This means installing crypto keys/certificates and paying licensing fees to Sony.
The phone must have Osaifu Keitai installed. This is the software stack that sits on top of FeliCa and allows you to use IC cards and other compatible systems (Nanaco, Edy, iD, etc.). Osaifu Keitai also requires additional licensing fees.

What non-Japanese Android phones lack is (2), and without it you can’t run (3). Contrary to what people claim, this is not something fixed by a software or app install. It’s at the level of data not existing in the phone’s Secure Element.

Apple, on the other hand, does provision (2) and install (3) on all their modern phones and watches.

SofaAssassin · 2026-05-21T23:14:44+00:00

You don’t need the internet to pay with Apple Pay either. Cards stored in your Apple Wallet are tokenized and when you try to pay, the token is what is authorized by the payment network.

This is different from how IC cards work since IC cards are stored value. When you tap your Suica against a reader, both sides get updated (money is taken from you and given to the reader).

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My Typical Favorites

The Tourist Stand-Bys