Holidaying with a teen? You’ll love this country (we did)

When I became friends with Julia, I could never have imagined that 25 years later we’d sing ourselves hoarse at a shady fifth-floor karaoke bar in Osaka with our teenage sons. Actually, the karaoke bit I might have seen. One of the reasons Julia and I became friends was that we were often the last people to leave a dance floor. We spent many nights in our early 30s with arms around each other at sunrise, exhausted but thrillingly alive. I would look at her and think: you are glorious.

Japan, it turns out, is the ideal destination for teenage boys because it offers that most precious of commodities: freedom.Credit: Getty Images

Our lives changed rapidly after that. Marriage, kids, a stint overseas for her. Later, divorce for us both. We stayed friends through it all, great friends, and one of the most unexpected joys of our relationship was that our sons, born a month apart, also became great friends. They met when they were toddlers, and embraced being dressed up as fairies by their forceful older sisters with similar patience and good cheer. They would look at each other, lipstick smeared across their faces, and for reasons no-one else could fathom, start laughing uncontrollably.

This became the defining feature of their friendship: the two of them laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe, or talk, and very often fell over. They made plans for a YouTube channel called Stupid Stuff, developed a complicated handshake, and talked nonsense without pause, all of it making them laugh so hard they’d end up on the ground, eyes squeezed shut, banging the floor with one hand to make it stop but also to make it last forever. It was pure joy. Perhaps the Germans have a word for it, but witnessing such delight added a new valency to Julia’s and my friendship, an antic echo of all the fun we’d had.

So we were very excited when, in February 2020, we decided to take the boys to Japan for their 11th birthdays. And then very disappointed when the pandemic meant we weren’t going anywhere in 2020, nor 2021. We didn’t arrive in Tokyo until April 2023.

By then, things had changed. Instead of taking two sweet little boys we were taking two lanky 14-year-olds, unevenly buffeted by puberty, who hadn’t seen each other much in the preceding couple of years. My son, who has asked to be called S-Dog in this article, was into shadow boxing and rap, and in Japan bought himself $5 speed-dealer sunglasses.

Julia’s son, who for reasons that will become obvious I’ll call Karaage, was into boats and dogs. But on the subway that first morning, Karaage made a joke about a parent disciplining a child by taking colour away – I didn’t get it either – and soon he and S-Dog were laughing so hard they had to hang onto the overhead straps to stop from falling over. Julia and I caught each other’s eye: everything was going to be fine.

Japan, it turns out, is the ideal destination for teenage boys because it offers that most precious of commodities: freedom. Despite being home to 14 million people – nearly 40 million, if you count the greater metropolitan area – Tokyo is safe and easy to get around.

Japan’s 7-Eleven stores impressed our boys with its range of affordable meals.Credit: iStock

Every morning, after eating hash browns and karaage chicken from the closest Seven Eleven, the boys were off, carrying nothing but their suica train cards and a pocket Wi-Fi so they could access Google maps. They usually had a vague destination, perhaps Shinjuku or Shibuya, it didn’t really matter. The point was being loose in Tokyo on their own, going wherever they pleased, eating as much fried chicken as they could handle.

As they left the hotel, they breezily assured us we wouldn’t see them till dinner but we always met up at least once during the day. They often joined us at lunchtime, when they would rib us about lining up for $15 udon recommended by the Michelin Guide when we could have had $6 hash browns and fried chicken from the Seven Eleven with no line at all. “For reals, you guys are cray cray. This chicken is bussing,” said S-Dog.

“On God,” echoed Karaage, wiping grease on his tracksuit pants.

“Laters Mo-Dog!” Off they went again, leaving Julia and I free to explore the Tsukiji fish market, or buy vintage clothes in Harajuku, or do what the boys hated most: see art.

When we arrived in Kyoto, the boys’ freedom was ratcheted up again. The city is flat and, with a population of only 1.5 million people, comparatively small. While Julia and I searched for cherry blossoms and visited temples, the boys rented electric bikes and hooned from one side of town to the other.

It was impressive how fast they learned to navigate unfamiliar streets, their phones strapped to the front of their bikes. We took a train to meet them at the Bamboo Forest and they beat us there. They were firm about not going further with us though. “No temples bro. Temples are chat,” said S-Dog.

“On God,” said Karaage, as they sped away.

The part of the trip that Julia and I were most looking forward to, and the boys were least looking forward to, was visiting the tiny islands of Naoshima and Teshima. Teshima was almost ruined when toxic waste was dumped there throughout the 1970s, but it’s now cleaned up and is part of a cluster of small islands that have been revitalised through art and architecture.

Between sleepy fishing villages sit extraordinary buildings by Tadao Ando and other luminaries, and artworks by the likes of James Turrell, Claude Monet, Walter de Maria and Yayoi Kusama.

The Benesse Art Museum on Naoshima Island features art from the likes of Yayoi Kusama (pictured).

It was here that our freedoms most beautifully intertwined. On Naoshima the four of us rented electric bikes and flew out of the port on a pristine spring day, racing each other up the hills. The only thing that marred it, from the boys’ point of view, was that at the top Julia and I were making them come with us to the Benesse Art Museum.

As they rode at breakneck speed around hairpin bends, I called out to S-Dog to be careful. “I don’t care,” he yelled into the wind. “At least if I have an accident, I won’t have to see the art.” When we got to the museum, the boys laughed so loudly in the otherwise silent spaces that we gave up and let them go.

They tore off to the island’s only Seven Eleven, while Julia and I spent an afternoon in awe of how generously Ando’s building presented both the surrounding landscape and the shimmering art inside. When we met the boys again, in the late afternoon, we were all exhilarated. We looked out at the ribbon of islands rising from the Seto Inland Sea and S-Dog draped his arm around my shoulder.

“Views, amirite?”

Throughout the trip, Julia and I had asked the boys if they would do karaoke with us, and it’s a credit to them that they said they were tired rather than that they wouldn’t be caught dead singing with their middle-aged mothers. But the other freedom afforded by Japan is anonymity, and it can be especially liberating when you’re a teenager. On our last night in Osaka, they relented.

In downtown Dotonbori, a bored attendant waved us up to the fifth floor and we squeezed into a tiny room. We found extra mikes, ordered sake, and the first song we collectively lost our minds to was Eye of the Tiger. Julia belted the lyrics out with all the commitment she once brought to the dancefloor, and her son did her proud, singing with the same eyes-closed intensity.

S-Dog sang while jumping up and down on the banquette like an emcee, his arms pounding the air, charisma dripping off him. Of all the freedoms Japan afforded us, perhaps the most precious, to me, was the freedom to be with him like this. For two weeks, I didn’t hassle him to get up for school, or put his phone away, or walk the dog. Instead, I just hung out with him, and my great friend, and her kind and funny son.

We didn’t stay till sunrise, but when we left the karaoke bar Julia and I had our arms around each other once again, and the four of us were laughing so hard we almost fell over. For a brief moment that I will always remember, we were all glorious.