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May is a tricky month to read. Golden Week front-loads the demand, then the calendar exhales. Whether that mid-month exhale shows up in your calendar — or only in the national headline — tells you a lot about how well your listing is positioned. Here’s what JNTO’s May 2026 numbers show, and what I’d actually do with them.
I moved to Japan in my twenties. That was over twenty years ago. In that time I’ve run a guesthouse, bought and operated property in Japan, built software, had kids, dealt with immigration bureaucracy more times than I can count, and had roughly ten thousand conversations with people who want to know what it’s really like to live here. This is my honest answer.
The short version: Japan is an extraordinary place to live, and also a deeply frustrating one. Both of those things are true at the same time, and neither cancels the other out.
The Hamamatsucho–Shimbashi corridor is one of the most underrated drinking neighborhoods in Tokyo. Most visitors head straight to Shibuya or Shinjuku, which is fine — but if you’re into craft beer specifically, this stretch of Minato-ku has a quietly excellent scene. It’s where I drink most often, partly because I live and work in the area, and partly because the bars here tend to attract people who actually care about what’s in their glass.
Here are the spots I keep going back to.