Japan Kids Review: Japan From A Child's Perspective (9-year-old)

We asked our 9-year-old daughter to review our two weeks in Japan when we visited Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. These are her thoughts.

(note – this is an edited transcript of a recording – easier to produce than having a 9-year old type)

Ninjas, Queues at the SkyTree, Awesome Character stores, Claw machines and crazy bowing deer

We went in March and it was COLD but like… not bad cold. It was FRESH CRISP COLD! Not super cold, just the kind where you want to run around outside!

The Ninja Samurai Museum in Tokyo was soooo cool! There was this funny guy there doing the tour who was doing funny things. Anyway he was really hilarious! The whole museum was awesome.

OMG THE SKYTREE IS MASSIVE!! It’s like the biggest tower EVER. But here’s the thing… the QUEUE was SO BAD 😭😭 It took like AN HOUR just to get up there and then we only stayed for 10-20 minutes! Then we had to queue AGAIN to go down. There was even someone helping us in the lift but it still took forever. Still cool though!

I LOVE THE CHARACTER STORES!!! 🎮

Pokemon Store – It was HUGE and SO BUSY. Like literally packed with people!
Sylvanian Family Store – They had SO MUCH stuff. I bought 2 things!
Totoro stuff – I saw Totoro merchandise everywhere in the Ghibi stores!
Kirby Cafes – They looked really cool but honestly… kinda bad. Not my thing, more my brothers.

Osaka was SUPER BUSY but we played these games called “UFO catchers” – wait, that’s what THEY call them, no, claw machines! We tried SO MANY TIMES but we NEVER got anything. The whole point of them I guess 😂

Then there was NARA PARK WITH THE DEER! 🦌

THIS WAS THE BEST PART OF THE ENTIRE TRIP!!

There are like 1000 deer roaming around and they’re SO GOOD. Here’s the crazy thing – when you BOW your head, THEY BOW BACK!! 🙇‍♂️ Like how do they even know?! They must be half-tamed from all the tourists I think.

At first I was a bit scared of them like “ooh” but then we got used to them!

You have to buy these crackers (they’re like biscuit things) and feed them. But you have to STUFF THEM IN YOUR POCKET otherwise they’ll CHASE YOU FOR MORE! 😱 To show them you don’t have any you lift up your hands and they’re like “okay walk away” and then you’re safe.

Orange gates, bamboo forest, a great waterfall, crazy trains, language barrier and so-so food

The big orange gates (Fushimi Inari) in Kyoto were alright I guess. Just a lot of orange gates going up a mountain. Temples are kinda boring tbh, not my fave.

But the Bamboo Forest – IF YOU LOOK UP IT LOOKS LIKE A MAGICAL WORLD OF GREEN!! 🟢 This was actually my favourite temple area. It was really long and so cool!

There was this waterfall near Osaka, called Min00 waterfall. We did these beautiful walks and it was really long but the waterfall was nice and breezy. Mum made us stop at some temples along the way but whatever, it was still nice!

Getting around cities was hard work. THE TRAINS WERE HORRIBLE!! You just have to keep getting ON AND OFF and SWITCH and blah blah blah SO MUCH. I don’t like them at all. Also EVERYWHERE IS SUPER BUSY. My brother kind of freaks out in crowds lol.

Japanese people are good! Even though they don’t speak English, they were kind and friendly. No problems there!

There were some weird rule though. NO BINS ANYWHERE** – you have to carry ALL your rubbish home and put it in a bin at home!

And you CAN’T EAT WHILE WALKING – literally. For kids that’s trouble! Why not???

I liked some food. Japan is supposed to be THE country for sushi right? But we couldn’t find much. I had noodles, tried Ramen but we ended up in 7-Eleven a lot which was good.