Visiting Tokyo in April (cherry blossom season) with my girlfriend. Any advice/tips on etiquette and sights to see?
Japan
- Thread starter fuzzywuzzy_sl
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Don't use your phone on the subway or bus. Hanami festival (blossom viewing) will be going on if you are there in early april; there is a nice one near roppongi district. Tokyo is good for food and shopping. Toro at tsukiji market (go at 6am after a night out to avoid crowd). Do yourself a favor and get some real japanese food - not just sushi all the time. Stuff like sukiyaki, yakiniku, tepanyaki, okonomiaki. Tons of awesome boutique bars and specialty shops in tokyo. Try the fruit if you can, its expensive but interesting. Japanese strawberries should be in season. shibuya for shopping obviously. Go to Gonpachi (kill bill restaurant) for romance/atmosphere but make a reservation many weeks in advance. If time permits, take the 2.5 hour shinkansen to kyoto, this is much more romantic than tokyo. spend 1 day in kyoto doing tourist stuff, i recommend the hike at fushimi inari & drinking from the spring at kiyomizudera, then stop at the little cafe and drink matcha and eat some glass noodle. Dinner in Gion.
Be warned, Japan is fucking expensive. You can blow through 5k USD with hardly any effort in a weekend.
Be warned, Japan is fucking expensive. You can blow through 5k USD with hardly any effort in a weekend.
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Etiquette... be wary of hand gestures and eye contact. Some gestures have very unanticipated meanings. I can't remember exactly what they all are and there are a good number of them. Check outthisguide. It's got a lot of silly things in it, but the basics are there (I can't understand you, thank you, excuse me, etc). The important part, really, is to realize that hand gestures we're used to over here can mean something completely different over there, although people will mostly realize that you're a tourist and will (hopefully) understand that you're not trying to offend.
Chysamere
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I've been living in Tokyo for two years, feel free to ask if you have any specific questions.
As a gamer I heavily suggest going to Akihabara and Sega Joypolis in Odaiba.
Asakusa if you aren't going to Kyoto to get a taste of Japanese culture. For Hanami, Yoyogi park can't be beaten, but will be crowded.
As a tourist no one will care if you are a little bit rude. People who live in Tokyo are very tolerant of gaijin. Stay out of Roppongi unless you like seedy bars, scams and nightclubs with loose women.
Tokyo is very doable on a budget (I only work part time and support myself just fine) but you can spend as much as you want really. For travel, hyperdia.com is your train information friend, in Tokyo everything important is in English so you will be fine. Grab a lonely planet guidebook for common phrases if you want backup but you shouldn't need it. Avoid taxis, take trains everywhere. Learn how to use hashi before you come (chopsticks) if you don't want people to giggle at you.
As a gamer I heavily suggest going to Akihabara and Sega Joypolis in Odaiba.
Asakusa if you aren't going to Kyoto to get a taste of Japanese culture. For Hanami, Yoyogi park can't be beaten, but will be crowded.
As a tourist no one will care if you are a little bit rude. People who live in Tokyo are very tolerant of gaijin. Stay out of Roppongi unless you like seedy bars, scams and nightclubs with loose women.
Tokyo is very doable on a budget (I only work part time and support myself just fine) but you can spend as much as you want really. For travel, hyperdia.com is your train information friend, in Tokyo everything important is in English so you will be fine. Grab a lonely planet guidebook for common phrases if you want backup but you shouldn't need it. Avoid taxis, take trains everywhere. Learn how to use hashi before you come (chopsticks) if you don't want people to giggle at you.
Just... no. Unless you are throwing money at stippers and eating Mishima steak 5 days a day or drinking $1000 bottles of wine, I'm not sure where you get this from. Even a top meal in the best restaurants in Ginza will only set you back $150-200 apiece. Most Japanese bars will have nomihoudai, which is all you can drink off a set menu for a set amount of time (usually 30 minutes to 2 hours) so even a night of drinking and eating at an izakaya or cheaper restaurant will cost you less than $100.
Chysamere
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Go to a bar in Roppongi. Pick a girl. The bar sluts are easy to single out. She'll take you home, wash you, fuck your brains out all night, let you sleep as long as you want, feed you breakfast, wash you again, then you will never see her again.
These kinds of girls are the only Japanese girls that groom their nether regions as well.
Ahhh such great memories, I fucking love Roppongi! Avoid the Nigerians and the Iranians and it's a super fun place.
Here is a breakdown of a weekend trip:
2 nights intercontinental Tokyo 500 USD / night
shinkansen roundtrip tickets for 2 to kyoto 600 USD
1 night at a kyoto Ryokan 1000 USD / night per couple (including Kaiseki)
Lodgings and train tickets alone come to 3200 USD
a night out drinking with friends at 3-4 places - 300 USD
a dinner at high end restaurant for 4 (treated 2 friends) with sake 600 USD
thats topping 4000
throw in some shopping, some tourist activities, a few more meals/drinking, you can see how it adds up.
Japan can be done cheaply, but you are right in that you can spend what you want.
2 nights intercontinental Tokyo 500 USD / night
shinkansen roundtrip tickets for 2 to kyoto 600 USD
1 night at a kyoto Ryokan 1000 USD / night per couple (including Kaiseki)
Lodgings and train tickets alone come to 3200 USD
a night out drinking with friends at 3-4 places - 300 USD
a dinner at high end restaurant for 4 (treated 2 friends) with sake 600 USD
thats topping 4000
throw in some shopping, some tourist activities, a few more meals/drinking, you can see how it adds up.
Japan can be done cheaply, but you are right in that you can spend what you want.
Here is a favorite hangout for drinks
Aoyama Bar Rage
http://www.mixologist.co.jp/bar_rage/oldtop.php?cont=9
Aoyama Bar Rage
http://www.mixologist.co.jp/bar_rage/oldtop.php?cont=9
Fuck, I live like the japanese working class when I go there, workers cafeterias for food 2 meals a day, buses and subways. Only difference is I splurge on a really fancy meals couple times a week, and go out drinking hard every night. I dropped maybe $6K in 3 months last time I was there. I was living cheaper there than I do here,
Chysamere
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Yikes ok, I amend, it's possible if you want to live like a rockstar. Who pays 1000 USD a night for a Ryokan or 500 USD a night for a hotel when you can get 80% of the quality for 25% of the price?
In my experience, in Japan you get what you pay for. Some people like better location/service/dining and others don't. The prices for hotels are similar to new york, so shouldn't be any shock there. Where are you staying for 100 per night that compares to a 5 star hotel? And what Ryokan/Onsen do you suggest for Kyoto?
Chysamere
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I've only ever gone through my work to book hotels but if I was staying in Tokyo, I would stay somewhere like here.adlts=2&hotel.type=keyword&hotel.chkin=16/01/13&hotel.chkout=17/01/13&search=Search&DCSext.tld=hotelclub.com&curr=JPY&locale=en_AU&lpid=plhothi&hsv.showDetails=true&hotel.hid=15331&hotel.hkey=15331_null_null_null_A2:0]Sheraton Grande
It's in Chiba, right near Tokyo Disneyland, about 30 minutes to Tokyo station via the Keiyo line. If you wanted to drop down to 3 star, I know half a dozen good hotels in the Otemachi/Kanda/Nihombashi area where you can get a room for $100-150 a night easily.
Ryokan would take more investigating, in Japanese, since I've never researched it before. If Fuzzy is really serious I'll check it out
It's in Chiba, right near Tokyo Disneyland, about 30 minutes to Tokyo station via the Keiyo line. If you wanted to drop down to 3 star, I know half a dozen good hotels in the Otemachi/Kanda/Nihombashi area where you can get a room for $100-150 a night easily.
Ryokan would take more investigating, in Japanese, since I've never researched it before. If Fuzzy is really serious I'll check it out
Lejina
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If you want to go all Ryokan/Onsen for a weekend, head over Kinosaki Onsen.
It's quite out of the way (on the shore of the sea of Japan), but if you want to mellow it out to the max, you will have a hard time to find better.
Very few gaijin to be seen there, 95% of the tourists are Japaneses escaping from the big cities for a few days.
shinkansen roundtrip tickets for 2 to kyoto 600 USD
Just throwing that out there: non residents can get a 7 days JRPass for $308 (or 21 days for $629), which is unlimited use for the duration.
http://www.jrpass.com/
It's quite out of the way (on the shore of the sea of Japan), but if you want to mellow it out to the max, you will have a hard time to find better.
Very few gaijin to be seen there, 95% of the tourists are Japaneses escaping from the big cities for a few days.
shinkansen roundtrip tickets for 2 to kyoto 600 USD
Just throwing that out there: non residents can get a 7 days JRPass for $308 (or 21 days for $629), which is unlimited use for the duration.
http://www.jrpass.com/
Cant see spending big coin on hotels in Tokyo, less time spent in your room the better. I can buy 2 large Kirin 100% malt beverage from a vending machine and lean up against the wall at any big crossing, people watch and be entertained for hours. I saw many a japanese Elvis wandering the streets, also the Beatles several times, a dude in a trench coat flashing people his fuzzy purple codpiece, drunken furries, Bosozoku gang kids racing stolen motorcycles down the center-line in rush hour traffic. All the new models of automobiles we wont see in the US for another 10 years. Not to mention all the Jumbo Tron screen everywhere showing all manner of bizarreness. It's Akira, Bladerunner & Johny Mnemonic as far as the eye can see.
Chysamere
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Got blasted by snow in Tokyo yesterday and I had to walk through it 3 times, then my student cancelled. Got paid anyway but couldn't you have fucking cancelled half an hour earlier?
Heavy snow in Tokyo injures 400, paralyses traffic
Heavy snow in Tokyo injures 400, paralyses traffic
I used to sit there in one of the schools I worked at, during a typhoon, watching the rain move sideways and bikes tumble down the block. My manager would still say "We can't close till we get confirmation from the head office" or some crap like that. It was pretty insane because some people actually came in that weather.
Chysamere
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Ha, my Eikaiwa closes if there's a stiff breeze. If the trains stop, we stop.
Noodleface
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