SF Japantown – Sept. 2026
Hello blog.
Went to the City (which is what everyone affectionately calls San Francisco) to go to Japantown for the first time in a very long time. I believe it’s been at least 10 years. Anyway, had to navigate the changes to BART (the transit system that serves most of the Bay Area). You don’t actually need a physical card to pay for your fare. For about a year now, you’re able to scan any contactless credit card/debit card directly at the fare gates (same with MUNI, the bus system in the city). Or you can still use Clipper, an app that allows you to pay for every Bay Area transit system from one central place. I opted for using the Clipper app on my phone because it was what I was used to and the iPhone can get set up so i didn’t even need to unlock it with FaceID or the passcode.
All I need to do was add enough to the app in order to travel on BART and MUNI to Japantown, tap the phone on the spot at the faregate and off I went. I used to work in the City, so I used to ride BART all the time. I didn’t mind it. It was a convenient way to get there, with no transfers. But the actual fare has risen so much since then (and I don’t have the convenience of commuter benefits from work anymore) it cost nearly $50 for both J and I to travel to Japantown. of course it’s more convenient that driving in, with the stress of having to cross the Bay Bridge and then the stress of finding parking in Japantown. It’s all paid parking lots, naturally. And only a select few places in Japantown actually validate. So it’s pricy no matter how you look at it. Alas.
But I wanted to go to Japantown since my plans to go to SacAnime summer fell through. But we’re going camping instead, which is another thing I wanted to do anyway. I took a week and a half off from work just to reset my brain from work mode all the time.
BART was fine. MUNI was fine. San Francisco is a city. There are unhoused on the streets. But there are also people on lunch breaks from work, and elderly Chinese folks taking the bus after a morning of shopping, and tourists from all over the world. I honestly realized that I had missed working in San Francisco because of all the hustle and the bustle. But I don’t miss the commute, particularly when BART was delayed. I have a 10 minute commute time now and that’s honestly why I stay at work.
But I digress.
Just seeing humans doing human things and being human is exciting to me. Not entirely sure why.
It’s always strange to see what has changed and what has stayed the same after over a decade away. A storied Japanese sweets shop is gone, its windows boarded up. But I did hear a saw and some hammering coming from inside, so there will be new life in the location, but it won’t be that particular manju/mochi shop from that particular family anymore.
Japantown is going through a revitalization of sorts. After the pandemic closures nearly shuttered many of the stores and restaurants, it looks like there’s a push to make it better. The big peace pagoda (a gift from the city of Osaka in Japan) is under reconstruction, as is the plaza around it. You can still walk from one side of the mall to the other, but everything else is blocked by fences and scrim.
We started our day with figuring out what to eat. J has been to Japantown more times than I have, so it’s interested to see things from his perspective too. We went down the small row of restaurants seeing out lunch, and settled on a small shop that advertised having donburi, curry, udon, etc. on their outside menu. (Oh, and i will say it was quite nice to notice that no signs anyway were made with a.i.) They also had the prerequisite plastic representations of meals on the outside.
After some deliberation and not wanting to eat something too heavy, I opted for the zaru soba with 2 pieces of shrimp tempura. J had the chicken katsu curry. I enjoyed mine. and J liked his but only wished for more pickles on the side.
They had these cute little art pieces featuring Pokemon at every table too. I’m unsure if they are always there or if they were put up because San Francisco just hosted the Pokemon World Championship. But they were adorable nonetheless.
After lunch we wandered the mall, stopping in at Kinokuniya Books first. This bookstore was my very first stop at my first visit to Japantown (where J’s mom bought me a book about Tamagotchi, of all things). They had a lot of cute things, tons of Ghibli merch, and an entire floor dedicated to manga and anime books, as well as some blind box merch. I ended up not buying anything as nothing really caught my eye and I knew there were other smaller shops that I wanted to visit.
But I had to take a picture of the elevators in the mall because they had Moomins on them!
I am always happy for any Moomin representation anywhere.
Ended up wandering a shop called Mai-do because they had the cutest things on display. Ended up with a frog wizard pin, and a few stickers:
J wanted to check out this tiny shop that had anime figs and scale models. It was cramped in there, and I ended up dealing with a little bit of anxiety (as a treat), but it was packed to the rafters with stuff.
The mall also had a place dedicated to gashapon, which I was kind of tempted to try out but I only saw a few machines that I actually wanted to pay for. There was a Katamari Damacy one with the Prince and 5 cousins, for instance. Also it was $3 a token, with the majority of machines wanting 2 or 3 tokens each, which meant that some of the more elaborate gacha machines would cost $9 for one pull. I decided not to try my luck.
Which was great because I ended up at a place called Animon, which was a store dedicated to merch from mobile games, aka, gacha games, aka the juggernaut that is Genshin Impact, aka the only game I’m playing right now.
My nemesis lol
I spent the majority of my time in that damn store, getting sucked into the aisles of merch. It was also quite stuffy and warm in there because of all the people, and J had to tap out and wait outside while I braved an onset of dizziness and warmth to feed my oshikatsu obsession. I just got another ita bag that is very cute and stylish but I wasn’t sure how I’d theme it and now I think it’ll be my Genshin bag.
Alas no merch of my main boy Bennett but yay for the characters I could find merch for! (Especially the Razor plushie. I was excited because there wasn’t much in the way of Monstadt based characters apart from Venti)
Afterwards I went ahead and got a strawberry matcha latte. It was really good and I was grateful for it after the heat of the gacha merch store. I brought my little Nagisa along but I had a hard time trying to find places for him to pop up in.
There were more anime-based stores at the mall area but I did so much damage to my wallet at Animon that I refused to go anywhere else but home heh. So the bus and then BART. However by the time we arrived back at the station near home, I had gotten severely motion sick. I think maybe my progressive glasses intensify my carsickness, so I’m not used to the motions anymore. Oh well. I ended up in bed trying to sleep off the worst of the dizziness and then trying to shock it out of my system by taking a cold shower. They sort of helped, so I was ok a few hours later for dinner. It’s strange how I always crave something salty and fatty after having to deal with so much nausea, so my dinner was a fried up can of vienna sausages, rice, and some kim chi.
All in all, I think my visit was worth it. and I discovered a new place to placate my Genshin Impact obsession. They have an online store, so I’m sure I will continue to frequent Animon a lot in the future. yay!
