Big in Japan

-- If you are going to Kyoto, I’d recommend two nights (there is a lot of stuff to see), and trying to leave as early as possible to get there. And in this case, getting the pass is worth it. You can either activate it at the airport and then use it to take the Narita express to Tokyo station (which is where you will most likely transfer to a subway line to get to the Ginza) and then use it for a few days around Tokyo before going to Kyoto and back. (or you can activate it later, so that the last day falls on the day when you leave Japan and then you can also use it to take the Narita express back to Narita.) If you get the pass, I think it would really make the most of your money if you manage to use it to take the bullet train AND use it for one trip between Narita and Tokyo.

-- The Ghibli museum is cool; it won’t take up a whole day either (I think it’s about 30-40 minutes from Tokyo, maybe even less; you take a JR line there, so you could also use the pass for this). You’ll probably spend a few hours there; it’s not huge. You have to buy tickets BEFORE you show up. And you can only buy them at this convenience store called Lawson’s; there’s one in Shinjuku and other places though I can’t remember where. You can buy tickets here too, at the JTB office. Here is a website. I dunno if you saw the Pixar exhibit at the MoMA recently, but they totally stole some ideas from the Ghibli museum. The bad thing about the Ghibli museum is you can’t take photos inside (b/c of copyrights and stuff). But you can take a photo with a giant totoro inside a ticket window as you enter the museum. And you can take a photo with the robot from castle in the sky (on the roof). But you can’t play on the cat bus, b/c they only let the little kids do that. And you might see some Disney/Pixar stuff, since Disney distributes Miyazaki in the u.s. and the Pixar people LOVE Miyazaki. [If you are into totoro, I can recommend a good store in ikebukuro that sells a TON of totoro stuff, like towels, dishes, everything. I want totoro everything. I want to have a totoro house someday.]

-- In Tokyo, you must see two temples, meiji-jingu and senso-ji. Meiji-jingu is a Shinto shrine and it’s very beautiful. The fairly long walk to the temple is pretty and I recommend paying the 200 yen (or whatever it is) and visiting the garden that’s along the way. (You don’t have to pay to visit temples, but you do have to pay to visit their gardens, which can really be worth it as they’re really pretty.) And meiji-jingu is in harajuku, so then you can go shopping! Harajuku is sort of like the east village, I guess. It’s where a lot of young people who dress interestingly hang out. La foret is there; it’s sort of a shopping complex (no men’s clothes though) that’s got a lot of hip stuff that’s very expensive. Hysterical glamour is really expensive, but I got some HG stuff (which I actually thought was cooler than the current stuff they had at the HG shop) at a consignment shop called ragtag in harajuku on takeshita street—dori means street, so the sign’ll probably say takeshita-dori. Takeshita street is super cool; there are tons of shops and little places to eat along it. The shops here are sort of like the random no-name clothing shops you see on Broadway, but you would actually buy stuff here. On omotesando street/avenue, there is a cool toy store called kiddy land. For harajuku, I would recommend getting out of harajuku station at the meiji-jingu exit, then visiting meiji jingu. When you exit the park that meiji-jingu is in, walk back north (back toward the station) along the street that the train follows and you will see takeshita-dori on your right. Walk down that until it empties you onto the main street, which is meiji-dori. If you take a right you will find la foret. After la foret and whatever else is around you the nearest crossroads is meiji-dori and omotesando. Let’s say you’re walking on meiji-dori to omotesando, if you make a left onto omotesando, you will walk past a ton of shops and eventually see kiddy land on the right side of the street.

-- Senso-ji, in asakusa, has none of the serenity of meiji-jingu, but it’s still pretty cool. This one is a buddhist temple. On the way to the shrine is a street lined with a TON of shops. These shops have some pretty cool stuff and good ideas for gifts for people. There is a shop where you can buy all sorts of lucky cats (the fat cat that has one arm bobbing up and down). Closer to the temple is a shop that sells some really cool coral jewelry that’s pretty expensive, though the smaller items like pins and earrings can be affordable (considering how pricey coral is). Still it would be fun just to look at the coral necklaces and tortoise-shell combs in this shop. But everywhere along this street are a ton of gift shops and cool shops to buy candy and snacks. On the side streets are some good restaurants, and you can see one selling fugu. They have a huge tank in the window with lots of fugu swimming about. Also on one of these side streets is a cute shop selling cool dishes; I will try to mark that on a map in the guide book I’ll give you (in case you like cute dishes).

-- Visit all the 100-yen shops you see! There is a really cool one on takeshita-dori. These are like dollar stores here, but with actual cool stuff. These are also good places to get dishes and home doodads for people who will never know how much they cost.

-- Oh, I found this site, super future city that has maps of the shopping districts, not that all you’re going to do is shop but they are all cool places to walk around.

-- Roppongi hills are where all the foreigners hang out; not cool expats but rich businesspeople that want to hang out with other foreigners. It’s considered to be a hip place, but it seemed kind of yuppie to me. The Japanese like anything that’s western though, so you will find them here hanging out with foreigners. I went to a bar here called wall street that blasted hip hop; it was probably the loudest place I had ever visited in Japan. You know, America=loud.

-- Shibuya is a cool place to hang out, eat, visit bars, and shop (well you can shop anywhere in Tokyo as it’s pretty much the national pastime; it is amazing how crowded shopping areas get on the weekend). The multidirectional crossroads and giant starbucks window with a giant screen that was in lost in translation is here in shibuya (I mention all the lost in translation references just so it might be familiar to you, assuming you saw the movie).

-- Shinjuku is sort of like shibuya, but I think has a slightly older feel. I think hanging out in shibuya is more fun. But shinjuku has takashimaya times square, which is a huge department store that’s pretty different from the takashimaya here (less stuffy than here, no doorman, no triangular shopping bags). But there’s a lot of cool stuff to buy. And attached to the back of takashimaya times square is a supercool store called tokyu hands, which sells all sorts of knick-knacks and stuff for DIY projects. It’s sort of like an enormous five and dime from days of yore. My friend bought kits to make speakers there.

-- Aoyama is another upscale shopping area. Basically everything in Japan is expensive. Even coffee for some reason. You will pay at least 300 yen for a tiny cup of coffee (I once paid 750 yen for a small cup of coffee, in harajuku). So I recommend buying 120-yen can coffee from vending machines. You can get em hot or cold—from a vending machine! But it is good to sit in a cafe for as long as you want drinking coffee/tea and smoking (if you smoke) while you recharge from walking around so much. Oh but the cigarettes are cheap! And come from vending machines!

-- If you want to play arcade games, I recommend ikebukuro. They have a ton of arcades. (other places have arcades too, like shinjuku, but not as many as ikebukuro.) You will be amazed how good these kids are at video games. At ikebukuro station, if you take the exit for sunshine city alba (a shopping complex, which houses another tokyu hands and the super-awesome totoro shop I mentioned earlier—if you want the name of it, tell me and I will look for it), you will walk down a street (that leads to sunshine city alba) full of arcades and one very good sanrio shop.

-- Isetan is an upscale department store in shinjuku. I really liked the department store called marui; they have many branches throughout. For some reason, even though they’re called marui, they have signs that say “oi oi” or “oi oi city”. There was a line of cute stuff for women called pou dou dou, which they sell at marui, takeshimaya, and probably isetan. The department stores usually have a mix of stuff from middle of the road to very pricey.

-- As far as sights go, it could be cool to walk through the imperial palace park; you can look at the palace from a distance. The cherry blossoms should be coming out by then; they might not be in full bloom but enough to be pretty. You will see lots of people just standing and staring at them. The Tokyo national museum is cool if you like looking at really old stuff. (they have a special building full of stuff that the Japanese stole from Korea, China, and the rest of Asia, ha ha.) Oh, ueno koen is a huge park (koen means park) that is cool. The fish market is cool; make sure you don’t go when it’s closed. The schedule, I thought, was a little hard to figure out. Akihabara has a ton of electronics shops and it’s where all the otaku geeks hang out, if you are interested in seeing where otaku congregate.

-- I unfortunately have never been to kamakura, where there is a ginormous buddha. But I’ve been told it’s a very worthwhile day trip and not too far from Tokyo. There is a section on a day trip to kamakura in my book.

-- Matsumotokiyoshi (always a yellow sign with black letters) is the duane reade of Japan. But, maybe just b/c it’s Japanese, they actually have cool stuff to buy. So you might get a kick out of buying shampoo there.

-- I think it helps to save money by eating lunch at curry or ramen places, where they have counters and you usually buy a ticket and take it to the guy who gives you your food. Even fast food is better there; it doesn’t seem as gross as it is here (at least to me). I didn’t mind eating mcdonald’s or denny’s over there, though not all the time of course. You could get lunch for 600 yen or so at these places, which will help since you will probably spend at least three times that for dinner depending on where you go.

-- By the way, the reason I mention which exit to take at each station is b/c these stations are usually very big or long and in some cases humongous. So it helps to take the right exit to find where you want to go. Oh the trains are always crowded, even at like 11 pm. And the main stations (like shibuya, shinjuku, Tokyo) can be extremely crowded. I mean you can walk and stuff but you might think, as I did, where do all these people come from? I think it’s more crowded than nyc.

-- The people are very polite and civilized. Every body keeps to one side of the stairs. No one litters. There are ashtrays everywhere (you can smoke on train platforms in the smoking area). You might see street corners where hundreds of bicycles are standing with NO locks. So it’s really safe as well. I left my bag on a bench at the Ghibli museum and found it at lost & found and no one took anything, not my passport, wallet. The JR stations (big ones like shibuya, shinjuku, etc.) Have coin lockers. Very handy if you want to drop off some shopping bags and walks around some more.

-- Trains shut down around midnight. But it’s easy to find a bar/cafe/restaurant to hang out in if you want to wait until they start up again around 5 am.