Tokyo

Both Cam and I had Tokyo on the top of our travel bucket list, and managed to squeeze in a trip during our leg of north east Asia. Let’s start by saying we spent 5 days in Tokyo and we felt like we’d only scratched the surface! A lot of our friends told us that we would need more time to truly understand Tokyo (let alone Japan) and well, they were totally right! Tokyo is HUGE, with so much to see and such a variety of modern and traditional sights. Luckily their transport system is super efficient and easy to use.

Transport

From the airport you can get three types of trains into Tokyo, the fastest of which is the Skyliner which takes around 30 mins and is around £16/2353yen. We used this as we arrived into Narita quite late, otherwise we’d have opted for the commuter train which takes about an hour but costs much less. Once in downtown Tokyo you can get everywhere via the Tokyo subway system, just be sure not to sit on the seats saved for elderly/disabled/pregnant women as it’s against the law here! You’re also not allowed to eat or drink on the trains so no snacking between stops! We’d advise you to buy an IC card when you get into Tokyo (like an Oyster card) as it makes travelling cheaper. You can also use it on buses which we found to be super cheap and hardly cost us anything! We also found that public WiFi was everywhere, and there was always a network we could join if we needed to check google maps.

Accommodation 

As we are budget travellers (and always leave booking accommodation to the last minute) staying in downtown Tokyo was a bit out of our price range, but we managed to find a guest house – Tokyo Guesthouse 2020 which was based two stops away from Nippori and had a subway station 3 minutes away. A perfect location if you like to be out of the thick of it but still close enough to get into town quickly. The rooms here are a bit on the small side and the bed is a mattress on the floor, this is the norm for most guest houses in Japan, but when you’re in a city like Tokyo, you’re hardly going to be spending your days in your hotel room! The room came with an absolutely spotless shared bathroom, and the showers were hot. There is also a shared kitchen and a rooftop area which has some great views of the city (a great place to eat your 7-11 noodle cup!)

Weather 

It was chilly when we were in Tokyo, we were told by locals that October is usually still very warm and that the cold temperatures were unusual for this time of year, so maybe we were just unlucky! It was around 19 degrees most days with a bit of rain so a jacket and umbrella was definitely required! However most days we had sunshine and the cooler temperatures made it much more comfortable than the humidity we were used to from south east Asia! 

Akihabara and Ueno

Our first trip into Tokyo we headed to the manga/anime/gaming district of Akihabara. Cam is a fan of the Japanese cartoons Naruto and games like Final Fantasy and Tekken so his inner child was desperate to visit! Walking into Akihabara is like stepping into a video game, the tall, colourful and blocky sega buildings make you feel like you’re in a game of sonic, and everywhere is covered with colourful neon flashing lights. There are plenty of arcades round here, with the toy grabbing claw cranes filling most of them, after a few games and a couple of prizes won, we kind of understood why they’re so popular! You can get free games in here, just approach one of the staff ringing a bell and they’ll give you tickets for free go’s. They have floors of video games, including the classic street fighters and Tekken (which I had to drag Cam away from!, you can also shop for gaming merchandise, manga comics as well as some more ‘adult’ items should you be so inclined… A word to the more prudish readers, this stuff is EVERYWHERE and certainly not hidden away, we walked into many seemingly innocent comic stores only to be slightly embarrassed at what was being shown on their TV screens.

You’ll also find the famous ‘maid cafes’ which as it sounds, is a cafe serving tea, coffee and cute deserts by young women dressed in maid outfits. The maids will also sit with you and keep you company should you be feeling lonely. The cafes are on the expensive side for a budget traveller, with a small desert costing around £12/ 1912yen. You’ll most likely see the maids hanging out outside the buildings trying to get people upstairs. Don’t try and photograph them as it’s not allowed, even if you’re sneaky, they’ll run away as soon as they have sight of a camera! 

We should note that everything here is ‘built up’ and on different floors, so one building may have 30 different businesses including bars, restaurants and shops all on different floors, everything can seem a bit hidden away at first so make sure you look up to find places and don’t be afraid to venture up to the different floors. Akihabara is also the place to go for electronics, with rows of shops selling phone accessories. 

We found a stall selling a ‘Magikarp’ (its a Pokemon!) version of Taiyaki, a fish shaped pastry desert that’s very popular in Japan. We had an apple and cream cheese flavour one and it was pretty delicious. We also had a huge mozzarella and potato stick from here (not very Japanese, we know), which was extremely moreish! 

Just a short walk from Akihabara is Ueno Park, a huge leafy public park which offers some relief from the busy city that surrounds it. We visited on a Sunday so it was on the busy side, but we still enjoyed a casual stroll seeing the autumnal golden leaves, and the street magicians. There’s also a boating lake here, many art museums, and a zoo.

The zoo is cheap at around £4.00/600yen and has some cool animals including Pandas! It was one of the pandas birthdays while we were there so the queues to see them was a 2hr wait! Which was just too long for us. After waking round the zoo we had our suspicions about how ethical it really was, most zoos which are run more for conservation reasons charge a lot more than £4, so we already felt uneasy about the quality of care these animals were receiving. Most of the habitats were on the small side with the polar bears pacing up and down their tiny, empty bland enclosure and a tiger seemingly going a bit mad trying to attack visitors through the glass! All in all it was ok, but they definitely have a lot to improve on. 

The park also holds the Ueno tosho-gu shrine which holds a flame taken from the ashes of the aftermath of Hiroshima, however no one is allowed as far in to see the flame. You can also find the goju shrine here (this is the one with the tunnel of red gates leading into it) which makes for a great photo.

Harajuku

Harajuku is a trendy buzzing street with boutiques and vintage clothes shops, cosplay/costume shops (we were there just before Halloween and some of the outfits were incredible), bright fun colourful candy shops (perfect for that Instagram shot) and cute cafes with bubble tea and cone waffles. This is also the place you can find those oh so instagrammable lightbulb cocktails. You’ll see the start of Takeshita Street as soon as you exit the station and you’ll notice the crowds of people all trying to get their photos of the bustling entrance. This street is a great place for people watching, as walking down the street you’ll see young people dressed as their favourite manga/anime characters and they certainly go all in with their costumes! There’s also plenty of high street shops round here, we hopped into H&M to buy jeans as we hadn’t packed any cold weather clothes and the rain was starting to come down heavily! 

Shinjuku

Shinjuku is the image of Tokyo that most people have in their minds. It’s streets are filled with bright neon signs as far as the eye can see, covering the tall buildings and skyscrapers. This busy district is full of high end designer shops, bars and restaurants. This is also the place to get Ramen in Tokyo, and with so many competing ramen restaurants it’s easy to find an excellent meal for a good price. We had pork and bone marrow ramen here for around £7/1029yen which was so tasty. 

Whilst in Shinjuku we got stopped by a Japanese film crew who asked us questions about why we decided to come to Japan etc and then tested us on our knowledge of Japanese writing! Showing us a Japanese character and then asking us to draw it from memory, we actually didn’t do too bad! Unfortunately there was no way we could watch the TV show ourselves as it wasn’t going online, just on a Japanese TV channel, but still cool we got our 15 minutes of Japanese fame!

Shinjuku is not all bright lights and modern buildings, it’s also home to the Hanazono Jonja shrine too, with its typically styled red arches, unfortunately for us there was conservation/building works around it whilst we were there so we didn’t quite get the full effect – maybe next time!

Shinjuku is also famous for its wild red light district, Kabukicho with its bars, hostess clubs, massage parlours and the famous ‘love hotels’ (hotels which charge by the hour, and it’s not for naps). There are also places here where men and women can hire a ‘companion’ for the evening. As to be expected, the clubs and bars here are expensive with most asking for a cover charge to just be on the premises. Most places here are owned and run by Japanese mafia, so be careful where you wander into! We came here a little too early to see the real madness though and we were told the night doesn’t really get started until around 9pm. You’ll also find the ‘Yokocho’ street ‘memory lane’ in Shinjuku, Yokocho refers to the alleyways of tightly packed bars which only fit around 3-5 people, and often serve traditional Japanese bar snacks too. This is where to go if you want an after work drink with the locals. 

Shibuya

Shibuya is famous for its mega busy crossing. You’ll be sure to recognise it as it’s been used in so many TV shows and movies. You’ll also see loads of people here with their cameras (like us!) all trying to get the best shot! It’s where you’ll see Tokyo’s young and trendy hipsters going drinking or heading into karaoke bars (karaoke is a serious past time here by the way), when we arrived here we walked out of the station into a DJ playing a pretty decent set in a glass box surrounded by hipsters! We also managed to catch some young, very cool and pretty impressive beat boxers performing just outside of the station. 

There are so many food places and bars here everywhere you look, we grabbed some fries smothered in butter and soy sauce (our new favourite combination) before heading to a bar we found called ‘music bar 45’. We really enjoyed the bar scene here, as like most businesses here, the bars are located in different floors of tall buildings, so you need to really look to find them. They have a culture of more intimate bars which seat maybe 10 people max (this is the reason they ask for a cover charge to ensure they make enough money, we paid about £3.40/500yen (and got a free bar snack). We really enjoyed this as it makes for a more comfortable experience plus it’s much easier to meet people and spark up conversation when everyone is in such close proximity. Although the locals didn’t seem too pleased that us foreigners were taking up the best seats! We ended up having a great chat with the bar tender who used to work for a record company so knows his music! As well as chatting to some guys from New York and Thailand. On the bar tenders recommendation we drank Japanese Soju, a rice wine that’s a bit easier to drink than Sake. After about 4 drinks we were obviously enjoying ourselves too much as we realised we had around 6 minutes to get the last train back to our guest house!

Asakusa

Asakusa is the most popular district for tourists in Tokyo for more traditional sights. Here you can find the Sensoji temple, the oldest temple in Tokyo at 1300 years old. The temple is also famous for the gate that guards it, which has a huge lantern in the centre. You can find the oldest shopping street here, called Nakamise Dori where you can buy traditional crafts and souvenirs including fans, beautiful geisha hair pins and other authentic gifts. There’s also plenty of Japanese snacks and street foods here. It’s quite nice to simply stroll through this area, we were offered a rickshaw tour around the different tourist spots for about £3/440 yen, but we had tickets to an exhibition so unfortunately didn’t have time to do it.

teamLab

Whilst researching stuff to do in Tokyo, we came across a pretty trippy looking exhibition called ‘planets’ by a “collaborative, interdisciplinary creative group” (try saying that after a few wines). The tickets cost £20/2935yen each which we bought online at Teamlab’s website, and the exhibition was held at the MORI digital art building, Tokyo’s newest museum dedicated to digital art. The museum is a 5-minute walk from Aomi Station on the Yurikamome Line and you’ll see it as soon as you leave the station. We booked our ticket the day before we visited, but we were lucky as we got the last remaining tickets, we’d advise you to be far more organised than us and pre-book them much sooner!

The exhibition was a dream like world of multi sensory rooms, all encouraging you to interact with what’s going on around you. Once we entered the museum, we walked through dark corridors which opened up into magical rooms filled with spectacular twinkly LED lights, (which you can control the colours of) holograms of coi carp and beautiful flowers flow across water (you will be up to your knees in one room, so wear trousers that you can roll up or bring a change of clothes) and 3D projections on a dome ceiling of multiple flower explosions with petals seemingly flying over your head. There were 5 rooms in total, each one as dreamlike and magical as the last. You’re not rushed round and you’re welcome to spend as much time as you like in each room. At the moment it seems to be a permanent exhibition with no plans to close but that may change so definitely check the Teamlab website. 

A need to return

Whilst we had a great time exploring Tokyo, and enjoyed the wackiness and novelty of the city, by the end of our 5 days we were ready to see more of Japan, more of the real japan. We will definitely come back here but our opinion from our time in Tokyo is that you need to see the whole country to get a real understanding of what Japan is about. Of course this is great for us as it gives us a reason to book another trip and have another Stirling adventure…