There are several schools of thought about travel to Japan. Some people choose to visit Kyoto first, since its old parts instantly make you feel like you're in a foreign land. But I knew buzzy, futuristic Tokyo was the way to begin with my son, Lincoln. So on our first morning in Japan, we made a beeline to Harajuku, the neighborhood where trendsetting teenagers cluster on weekends.

A magnetic force drew us into SoftBank, where cell phone styles not even imagined yet in the U.S. are displayed like jewelry. "This is where I live," said Lincoln, doing the happy dance as his dad, Roger Sherman (a filmmaker and the photographer of this story), followed him like a paparazzo. Outside, Linc bought a black polyester kimono from a street-corner vendor because of its white crane design. "A symbol of longevity," he explained.

THINK OUTSIDE THE BENTO BOX Here's the photo reel from Dorothy Kalins's trip to Japan with her 15-year old son. • Launch the slide show RELATED ARTICLE • How-to Info

We moved on to the part of Omotesando Street that's lined with designer boutiques in buildings by the world's most renowned architects. But Linc didn't want architecture, not when there was Kiddy Land. He went slightly nuts in this palace of High Cute. Cell phone charms are an entire belief system there; half a floor is devoted to Hello Kitty. "Kiddy Land is a 5-year-old's dream," he said, though he nonetheless included it among his top 10 experiences in Japan (along with the heated toilet seats and the lovely gentleman at our hotel who graciously taught us that one does not tip in Japan).

Roger and I would have been delighted with the kind of aimless wandering any overprogrammed adult craves on vacation, but that wasn't a great idea for a kid who asks constantly where he's going next and how long it'll take to get there. (At one point during the trip, he actually said, "Why do we have to keep looking for the good tempura place? Can't we just go to any tempura place?") While splitting up would occasionally be an option—we knew there'd be nights when Linc's idea of heaven would be room service and TV, and ours would be anything but—the point of the trip was to experience Japan together. Relentless planning was the only solution.

Even people who've never been to Japan are aware that it can be hideously expensive. I researched our trip for months on end, searching for ways to save, only to watch the dollar's value drop 13 percent over three months. I felt queasy when I read the Wall Street Journal headline on the morning of our departure: "Japanese Economy Quakes Anew as Yen Soars Against Dollar," citing the lowest exchange rate (¥97 to the dollar) since 1995.

Our plan was to spend five days in Tokyo and five days in Kyoto, with shorter side trips in between. The biggest expense, after airfare, would be hotels. We needed the support only full-service hotels offer, because I knew from previous trips to Japan that despite its modernity, the country is challenging to navigate without knowing the language. But while our family's standard MO is a room with two double beds, there's evidently no such thing in Tokyo. Hotel websites kept suggesting a king-size bed for the three of us. If you have a somewhat smaller child than our 6'2" version, a rollaway is an easy fix. Eventually, I found a room with four (!) beds at the Keio Plaza Hotel Tokyo, conveniently located in Shinjuku, where we averaged $84 a night per person.

Tracking down food values is less difficult. Most hotels include breakfast; at the Keio Plaza, Lincoln regularly started his day with miso soup and chocolate cereal. For lunch, the spectacular food halls (depachika) at department stores like the lively Mitsukoshi in Ginza yield luscious prepared foods and bento boxes to go. Convenience stores (conbini) and train stations offer a traveler's dream: fresh, crustless egg-salad sandwiches and the addictively crispy, chocolate-covered cookie sticks called Pocky.

For dinner, it's so easy to find a generous bowl of rice (donburi, perhaps with chicken or grilled eel) or udon (hearty and filling wheat noodles) for $7 or so that naming specific restaurants is almost beside the point—and actually locating a specific one is beyond frustrating. Unlike Japanese restaurants in the U.S., restaurants in Japan tend to focus on one type of food: tempura, yakitori (skewered meat), soba, nabe (hot pot), tonkatsu (fried pork cutlets), izakaya (creative pub food), or ramen (whose rich flavor you smell as you walk in). In Tokyo, we had memorable meals at the Tsunahachi group of tempura restaurants, Iwasa Sushi in the famous Tsukiji fish market, and the 110-year-old Botan, home to a superb chicken sukiyaki. It was there that Linc suddenly remembered the word for water: "Mizu!"

Lincoln was a whiz at deciphering the complex fare diagrams in Tokyo subways. Yet we three tall foreigners were often so visibly confused as to attract attention. We'd be there still but for the kindness of strangers who, eager to practice their English, generously led us to the correct track or sometimes even exited the station to walk us to our destination.

We also had an official guide for a day. Through the Japanese National Tourist Organization (see "How-to Info" box), I had learned that it's possible to engage a regional volunteer guide in advance—you e-mail a query and then see who bites. Our Tokyo request was answered by a vivacious young illustrator named Nobuko Araki. Her student-guide group requests only that you pay the guide's subway and lunch expenses. Nobuko's first act of kindness was to escort us to the Japan Railways ticket office, where she helped us negotiate tickets we couldn't purchase in the States—a mind-boggling exercise that belies the trains' efficiency. (The Japan Rail Pass, which you must buy before leaving the U.S., offers unlimited travel, but you have to travel a lot for it to make sense.)

As Nobuko, map in hand, took us down the back alleys and up the winding stairways of Akihabara ("electric town"), Lincoln was wild-eyed throughout an assault of music and promotional advertising. Please do not make our mistake and take your child to Akihabara with no intention of buying one of the sev­eral million electronic devices that are sold there. Just buy the gadget: You'll pay one way or the other. As a refuge, I'd researched a lunch place, the 130-year-old Yabu Soba, on a corner only blocks away (though it felt like centuries). The restaurant was the perfect antidote, with bowls of pale green noodles and windows that open onto a garden. When the waitresses called out orders, it sounded like singsong poetry— which Nobuko attempted to translate for us. After lunch, she took us to Senso-ji, the Buddhist temple in Asakusa (photo); no one was surprised when the crowded shopping street leading up to Senso-ji engaged Lincoln more than the temple itself did. (photo)

In any event, we had already planned a pilgrimage to a different kind of temple. Lincoln grew up on the films of Hayao Miyazaki. My Neighbor Totoro was his Mickey Mouse; he still loves Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and Kiki's Delivery Service. (Roger and I do, too.) Visiting Ghibli Museum, the fun house of an animation museum, about a 20-minute train ride from central Tokyo, was a must. We thought we had to buy tickets in advance from the U.S., but we learned later that it's possible to purchase tickets at Lawson, a Japanese convenience store chain, too. Linc thought the museum—with its animation exhibits, films, and eccentric stairways and rooms, especially a re-creation of the master's book-and-drawing-packed studio—"was like being inside Miyazaki's head." Somehow, he resisted a $50 stuffed Totoro, round as a hug.