Tokyo: Unique Sights and/or Urban Exploration
Richy
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So my best friend and I are probably going to Tokyo for two weeks in July. We're going through Trip Adviser and picking out popular attractions that look cool. That's easy enough to do.
What I'm here wondering about are uncommon, unpopular sites. The sort of things travel agencies do not include on their routes and tourists do not flock to and take millions of identical pictures of. Something that would make our trip to Tokyo unique and different from the millions of tourists who go there every year. Things like:
- Interesting local markets
- Amazing small local restaurants
- Great parks, ruins, views, etc., that most people ignore in favour of the main tourist spots
As the thread title says, I'm also a fan of urban exploring. If anyone can give me some locations that are great to see and easy of access, that would be awesome. I've seen a lot of info about abandoned attraction parks in Japan, but none seem to be near Tokyo unfortunately.
To answer the two questions that are sure to come up:
1. We haven't selected which hotel we'll be staying in yet, so I cannot tell you where we'll be more precisely than "Tokyo" for now.
2. We are willing to take day trips out of town. We already have one to Mount Fuji and one to Kyoto agreed to.
What I'm here wondering about are uncommon, unpopular sites. The sort of things travel agencies do not include on their routes and tourists do not flock to and take millions of identical pictures of. Something that would make our trip to Tokyo unique and different from the millions of tourists who go there every year. Things like:
- Interesting local markets
- Amazing small local restaurants
- Great parks, ruins, views, etc., that most people ignore in favour of the main tourist spots
As the thread title says, I'm also a fan of urban exploring. If anyone can give me some locations that are great to see and easy of access, that would be awesome. I've seen a lot of info about abandoned attraction parks in Japan, but none seem to be near Tokyo unfortunately.
To answer the two questions that are sure to come up:
1. We haven't selected which hotel we'll be staying in yet, so I cannot tell you where we'll be more precisely than "Tokyo" for now.
2. We are willing to take day trips out of town. We already have one to Mount Fuji and one to Kyoto agreed to.
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http://www.shinjuku-robot.com/pc/
Almost every time I go to Tokyo I spend at least one night in Kabukicho (around Shinjuku). Lots of good food to be had, karaoke, arcades... for me, Kabukicho is definitely an experience that I've only had in Tokyo.
I strongly recommend a good hot spring (onsen) if you've never been to one before. I don't know of any good ones in Tokyo proper, but there are certainly some nice ones in Kyoto and around Fuji-san.
EDIT:
July is climbing season for Mt. Fuji! It will take at bare minimum 7 or so hours (although I don't recommend doing it that fast. It's good to rest as much as possible because the thin air near the top is a real problem), but if you're into that kind of thing, it's a very nice Japanese experience.
Hiking could be fun, though a 7-hour-long one will eat up the entire day... that's the entire trip up and down, right?
1.Enter a changeroom, where you take off all your clothes and put them in a locker. You keep with you your locker key and a small towel for use in the baths.
2. Enter the bathing area. Start by washing yourself down at the individual stations.
3. Enter the hot springs. Most places will have several different kinds to try out. They can have waterjets, be different depths, indoor or outdoor, different temperatures, different minerals in the water, there are even some that have a very tiny electrical current flowing through them.
My favorite onsen ever is one that I went to in a town called Arima (about an hour's train ride away from Kyoto) where the minerals in the water produced a silver-colored bath, and a gold-colored bath. There is one near where I live now that has solid-black water.
I can't recommend visiting an onsen enough. So many of my friends and relatives who have come to Japan are wary of the experience (often because it involves being naked around a bunch of strangers), but everyone who I know who has tried it agrees that it is a fantastically relaxing time. Plus there's something about sitting in an outdoor bath, looking at the beautiful Japanese gardens that usually surround the baths, that feels very traditionally Japanese.
As for Mt. Fuji, yes. I did the whole thing in about 7 hours. I started around 10:30pm, got to the peak around 4am to watch the sunrise, and was back at the base around 6am. Like I said though, that was pretty tough. I'm no experienced climber, but I'm also fairly fit and used to heavy exercise. I still wish I'd left earlier and taken it a little slower. Another point about the Mt. Fuji experience is that it will likely be crowded by both tourists and Japanese folks alike. The climbing season is short (July/August) and everyone tries to take advantage of it. You will most likely meet some friendly people along the way!
It is a quirky French restaurant run by a chef who trained in France in the country style food rather than the Parisan French cuisine.
Dinner for one person, the prices are 3800 Yen per person for an appetizer, entree, and desert + coffee/tea (there's a choice of about 10 different appeitizers, 10 entrees, and about 4 desserts.)
Lunch for one person, is 1100 Yen per person for Course A (Daily special entree + soup + coffee/tea) or 1600 Yen per person for Course B (Appeitizer, entree, desert, and coffee/tea.
They also have a decent wine selection at reasonable prices.
At least one of the servers speaks enough English to carry on a moderate-level conversation. The place only has three tables, and is the type of place where once someone sits down for dinner there is no pressure to finish your meal. The evening I was there, the three tables filled up quickly and basically stayed full until the end of the evening with the same groups of people. They do a pretty brisk business of take-out and seem to have a lot of regulars, so it might be a good idea to get there a bit earlier in the evening. It's a short walk from the Ichigaya Station and is great for a meal with conversation/relaxing.
There were 5 of us so we got the group room and it worked out to be pretty cheap. It was definitely kinda small, but we spent the majority of our time down in the lounge or out doing stuff so that didn't matter. It was a super short walk to the metro where we were able to go to any other part of Tokyo with ease. They cleaned your room/made your beds every day had umbrellas (I went in June or July and it sprinkled quite often) and just an awesome staff. There was a convenient store around the corner, all the people we met were super nice, I couldn't recommend it enough. They're a chain and I'd imagine the rest of their locations are probably just as good.
As for onsens I second that recommendation too. As some one who is pretty much a prude about that sort of thing, I enjoyed it regardless. The one I went to was in Hakone, which was a sort of rural mountainish area that was supposed to give us a view of Mt. Fuji (it was too cloudy unfortunately) but involved a bit of a tourist attraction that had us going across a lake on a pirate ship looking boat (kinda weird but definitely fun), riding a skyrail over some volcanic area, and then riding a pretty cool train/trolly thing to get back to point A. On the way we stopped at a hotspring, which I unfortunately don't remember the name of but it was late in the day when we got there and nestled in some mountains and just a fantastic experience. We were the last people in and out besides a few Japanese people. I'd recommend checking out Hakone if you have the time, it did seem pretty touristy but it was just really beautiful.
In the city itself we just sort of checked out most of the districts and didn't plan much. It was probably the best trip of my life but I do have a few regrets of not really getting more out of the culture in terms of interacting with people since we had a fair sized group of 5-6 of us and sorta kept to ourselves.
There was some monkey bar we heard about, where a monkey serves you drinks that we wanted to check out but from Jimbocho it was a pretty expensive trip so we didn't do it =P
There was also about a 5 story porn shop in one district, that might fall under you interesting markets category =P
Seconding the Sakura Hostel. I stayed at one at Asakusa and It was super cheap. The room was nothing fancy, and the bathroom was in a common area, but it was an incredible place with super friendly staff.
And I've got to say, spa are not really up my usual alley, but you guys have me sold on going to an onsen!
Supposedly this is their official site http://kayabukimonkey.blog5.fc2.com/blog-category-5.html
Sorry I don't really have much information on it though, it was sorta just a thing we heard about while there but when we looked it up I think it was almost going to be like $100 trip just to get out and back from where we were staying as it's located in Utsunomiya which is a ways out of Tokyo and you need to grab a train. Those links say they only have the monkeys work 2 hours a day due to animal rights.
One word, my friend - Yokohama. One of the most beautiful and interesting cities I've ever been to. Great restaurants, lovely scenery (it's a bay city; think a Japanese version of Seattle or San Francisco), a few cool tourist attractions like Cosmo World and a huge shopping center. And plenty of Japan's famous arcades. There's also a US navy base nearby, and most of the locals I encountered spoke pretty good English.
It's been over ten years now since I was there, but a quick search for some of the more notable sights will probably get you some better, more detailed (and up to date) information.
Scribe. Purveyor of Logic. Player of Video Games.
Their English website is: http://backpackersjapan.co.jp/english/
@Caedwyr: So, how and where would we buy one?
Another hint for using public transit/trains is to get a copy of the subway/train line map in English and in Japanese. Most things are written in English, but invariably station names are written in kanji (Chinese characters). That way if you have to ask for directions, it is easier to translate back and forth. Weirdly enough, train station names are pretty much the only time you run across a sign without an English subtitle on it as well (Tokyo may be better about this, but in Fukuoka on Kyuushu, train stations almost never had English subtitles.)
Also, a good phrasebook to have on hand if you don't have someone with decent Japanese is the following The Original Point and Speak Phrasebook. You don't necessarily have to order it online, and the bookstores at the Narita airport will carry a copy for about 1000 Yen or less if I remember correctly. Amazon should also carry a copy for cheaper.
Parasite museum. A museum showing off gross parasites.
Ghibli museum if you like the films
Bike tours. You can rent a bike and ride around the area.
Aokigahara the haunted suicide forest.
Gas Panic - A club filled with foreigners and drunk ass sloppy motherfuckers
Nakano Broadway is the best place in the world for weird anime stuff, rare electronics, video games, books, and shit. Way better than akihabara for shopping imo.
And I'll agree about Akihabara being a disappointment. I was expecting an electronics mecha and what I ended up finding was a bunch of cheap Chinese knock-offs, sex stores, and exploitative anime paraphernalia stores that were hard to distinguish from the sex stores.