It’s not everyday that you get to live out a childhood dream. I’m not sure if it’s the history, the food, the pop culture, or the fact that Nintendo helped raise me, but for whatever reason, Japan has captured my heart and imagination for as long as I can remember.

So what do you do when you find yourself with three weeks to spend in a place you’ve always wanted to visit? You explore the hell out of it… and for us that meant spending several days in Tokyo before heading south on a path that would take us through the cities of Kyoto, Osaka, Nara and Hiroshima. There was no time to waste, so we hit the ground running.

Tokyo Skytree: The main observation deck of this massive tower has a capacity of 2000 people, which meant that we only had to wait in line for about 15 minutes before heading up. Depending on your budget, getting up here can be a little pricey, but it’s well worth it if you want to get a true sense of the vastness that is the Tokyo metropolis. It’s also a great place to come if you’re a science fiction movie fan, since the views of the city will remind you of every sci-fi movie you’ve ever loved simultaneously—which will likely cause your brain to overload as you bombard your significant other with an endless stream of Blade Runner and Akira references

Print Club: YES! I was so excited to finally cheese it up at a purikura, or puri for short. A puri is a japanese photo booth that lets you turn your photos into overly processed bug-eyed sticker keepsakes. Since their debut in 1995, they’ve become a super-popular activity for lots of young people in Japan, especially high school girls... which basically guarantees that Noah was the first bearded old guy to step through these doors. At any rate, it was so much fun dragging him all over Akihabara as I indulged in all the Japanese pop culture I could handle. This is what love looks like.