Going to Tokyo this weekend and would like to get some advice from anyone who has been there before (I have only been in the airport).
I realize the size and scope of the city are insane, but if you could recommend:
-some good places to go (off the tourist track is very welcome)
-some good restaurants, cheap one would be good (of course), but I’d also like to go swanky once while I am there, I realize it might be super pricey but I would like to have one really good meal at a nice place (under 300 USD for two would be ideal. I set this figure high based on Tokyo’s rep, but if you know better for cheaper, I am all ears).
-some cool places to ‘guangjie’
I’d also appreciate any general heads up about the city, like how to get around, what to do and what not to get suckered into.
DD, if you want “new” Tokyo, on a weekend, simply hang out around Shibuya and Harajuku. Very trendy, lots of cosplay, and in Harajuku you can retreat into the Meiji Jingu shrine. The best food for the money is “picnic” style, buy okazu (side dishes, since rice is THE dish) in the B1 food courts of department stores, and carry it out to parks, or since you’re gaijin, sit in the outdoor area (WX permitting) of a coffee shop where you can order a cheap NT150 latte (Y500), and nibble from your cache.
If you want old Japan, take the train from Asakusa ( not Akasaka) to Nikko, the mausoleum town of the Tokugawas. Temples, ambience. Sat. would be better than Sun., slightly less crowded. Visit Asakusa temple before or after the train trip.
For that special meal, make it Japanese, since all non-JP food is warped in Japan. Rather than try to name a restaurant that requires navigation, cruise the food court floors of the largest depatos (department stores) in Shinjuku and Shibuya. There are all ranges of prices and views.
For curiosity, find an “old style” coffee shop that uses the Chinese characters for KA FEI, and it won’t have espresso, but some interesting regulars, ambience, Beatles on the sound system, and the alchemical approach to drip coffee using… gasp … foreign beans. About 6 p.m. these old style coffee shops typically turn into soju parlors. The counterhelp even change clothes to reflect the transformation. There will be some regulars who speak English who will become chatty during the soju phase. BTW, these old style coffee shops are one of the best venues for language exchange in Nippon. Classier than a bar, no airheads, almost a salon.
The last time we were there, Asakusa temple was being renovated. The entire outside was covered up. I believe the signs said that it would be under construction until December.
thanks for the great advice guys!!! If we had a rep system I’d pump you all up (but then again if we had a rep system I may well end up bottom of the barrel )
Inside Tsukiji market there are bare bones, as no decor (but full of decorum among the heavy galoshes clad crowd), restaurants for the workers. Those restaurants serve some of the best sushi in the world. Being from the 'wan, you won’t notice the (lack of) decor.
I felt kind of bad about being there when we visited. The actual fish market isn’t really set up to be a tourist attraction and I just felt like the tourists were getting in the way of these people trying to get their jobs done. (We still took the obligatory pictures, but we decided that we wouldn’t return unless we were actually buying a lot of fish.)
We didn’t feel like waiting in line for hours to go to one of the famous sushi restaurants, so we just walked a little bit further and had a great sushi breakfast without the wait. The long lines seemed to be full of Taiwanese and Chinese tourists who all must have read the same magazines.
Well…if it’s sushi you want you can get just as good and much cheaper in Taiwan! If I was Japanese I’d come to Taiwan to eat sushi. But it’s nice to say you had sushi in Tokyo I guess.
I stayed in the Hotel Otani, overlooking the imperial gardens, recently. Now THAT was a view. Pity you can’t actually go into the gardens as they are the royal residence.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]Well…if it’s sushi you want you can get just as good and much cheaper in Taiwan! If I was Japanese I’d come to Taiwan to eat sushi. But it’s nice to say you had sushi in Tokyo I guess.
I stayed in the Hotel Otani, overlooking the imperial gardens, recently. Now THAT was a view. Pity you can’t actually go into the gardens as they are the royal residence.[/quote]
The Otani’s where they filmed You Only Live Twice…I’d love to stay there too if I could afford it.
Biz trip…the hotel is nice in a Japanese way, it has japanese gardens out back and a mini-waterfall (I think at one stage it was the most expensive piece of real estate in the world?)…but the view is certainly the best in Tokyo, and it was the cherry flower season!
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