Tokyo is constantly ranked among the top most expensive cities to live in the world. I never thought I would go to Tokyo until I booked Japan Airlines going to Kuala Lumpur. The airline offered a one night stay for free at Holiday Inn Airport,…Read More

Tokyo is constantly ranked among the top most expensive cities to live in the world. I never thought I would go to Tokyo until I booked Japan Airlines going to Kuala Lumpur. The airline offered a one night stay for free at Holiday Inn Airport, and I took the opportunity to visit the city. Unfortunately, I had only a few hours to enjoy Tokyo, one of the biggest cities and top destinations in the world. I chose to visit Shinjuku, a fascinating district in Tokyo, and it is the location of the world's busiest train station, Shinjuku Station. It cost $15 for a one way ticket from Narita International Airport to downtown Tokyo.

This is not the place you want to be during rush hour. As I exited from the train at Shinjuku at 7 pm, there were still a huge crowd (majority were in black, and in their long coats). Crowds of people rushed toward their trains in a timely manner intersecting one another as they hurried to their designated trains. Not knowing where I should go, I just followed the crowd, and looked for the bright neon lights. Shortly after, I came to Omoide Yokocho, a place known for its alleyways that are fill with small eateries serving ramen, soba, yakitori and kushiyaki. An interesting observation at some these small restaurants, menus were displayed out, and there was a button on each order for the customer to push in. Once ordered, you put the money in, and picked up the food at the counter. There were only a few seatings in many of these places.

Make sure you have cash as many these establishments do not accept credit card.

After dinner, I walked around the area, where I saw hundreds of neon lights at stores' front: some were displaying animate Japanese's characters while others were showing the newest gadgets in the market. Store employees trying to entice shoppers with offers and discounts, and video games arcades were wildly popular among young adults here.

Before I knew it was time to head back. At the train station, I realized I did not have anymore Japanese yen for my ride back to my hotel. But I was surprised that the courteous agent who was working at the station gave me a piece of note. He told me I could pay at the office in the airport train station the next day. I could not believed that.

This is a pleasant incident you will not find in America.

I paid the fare next day at the station in the airport. I saw the same agent (I was surprised to see him there although he said he would the previous night), and I thanked him. Spending that few hours in Tokyo will do not justice to this fascinating city. Therefore, I am planning to visit Tokyo again, and next time it will not be just a stopover.Close

Straddling the border of the Tokyo Metropolis and neighbouring Saitama Prefecture, the Oku-Tama region is one of the most easily visited sections of the Chichibu-Tama National Park, less than ninety minutes west of Shinjuku Station. The following hike begins and ends on the JR…Read More

Straddling the border of the Tokyo Metropolis and neighbouring Saitama Prefecture, the Oku-Tama region is one of the most easily visited sections of the Chichibu-Tama National Park, less than ninety minutes west of Shinjuku Station. The following hike begins and ends on the JR Ome Line and takes around four hours at a moderate pace.

When I woke up, the sky was grey and the clouds were threatening rain. Setting off shortly before noon, and changing at Tachikawa, I travelled north-west, out, always out, of the city. We terminated at Ome, where the train changed back into a Rapid, returning to Tokyo Station. I stood on the platform by a noodle shop, shivering into my jacket.

There were plenty of seats on the last stretch of the journey. Down the carriage, a man in a face mask sat flicking through a book, someone else stared at the writing on a carton of soy milk, a couple laughed over pictures on a mobile phone, and there was a woman with a bag that said It is very sad when nature becomes dirty and goes. There was a river somewhere below, houses dotted about a valley, trees as straight as matchsticks, and clouds that hung from mountains like breath on a winter's day. All around was green. And grey.

A small group got off with me at Mitake - a few hikers, soy milk woman, her carton now concealed inside a plastic bag, and a man with five umbrellas slung across his right arm - but once I took a left out of the station it was just me and the crows.

Over the train tracks, the path wound up and, very occasionally, down, though for every down there was an even bigger up. Trees lined the sides like spectators at a parade; their roots were as big as hockey sticks, veining the ground. Turning off at a yellow marker the path narrowed sharply, traversing a raised, sloping platform no wider than my feet. As I was mulling over the possibilty that I had, in fact, taken a wrong turning my foot slipped and I tumbled down ten metres of mud, rock and branches before I hit a dead tree and was able to haul myself back up. Gingerly retracing my steps, I followed a trail of blue string that had been tied to tree trunks - though for all I knew they could have been left there as a cruel joke on anyone daft enough to go hiking on a damp day without the aid of a proper map - up a slope that I thought stupidly steep until half an hour later, when I saw what was on the other side. At the top of Mount Sogaku I wiped myself off, ate lunch - tuna-flake riceball, dry bread bun and a swig of an Asahi Vitamin C drink - and rested with a chapter of Bruce Chatwin talking about a coup in Benin. The climb had taken an hour and a half.

With the clouds upon me - the shrine at the summit looked as ghostly as a haunted shack - and darkness and the rain both threatening to close in, I put my foot down, skipping the detour to the peak of Mount Iwatakeishi, and pushing straight on to Mount Takamizu, another forty-five minutes along the ridge. The directions I was following made much of the "sweeping view across to Mount Gozen". Not today, there wasn't. Shrouded in mist, all I could make out was the signpost for Ikusabata Station, the final stop on my walk. Another few hundred metres brought me to Jofuku Temple, with giant swords and an Imperial flag, and then, after a long, rocky, downhill stretch there were streetlights and a concrete road and the first unmistakeable signs of human habitation.

It was, I thought, time to go home. Close

I was last in Kawagoe five years ago. We'd come down on a National Holiday after a night of drinking in Tokyo, and stumbled, in the slow, desultory way that hungover people do, around all the sights. "Boring," we both agreed. "Nothing to see but…Read More

I was last in Kawagoe five years ago. We'd come down on a National Holiday after a night of drinking in Tokyo, and stumbled, in the slow, desultory way that hungover people do, around all the sights. "Boring," we both agreed. "Nothing to see but a few old buildings."

Sober, I liked it a whole lot better.

Just forty-minutes north of Tokyo's Ikebukero or Shinjuku stations, Kawagoe makes for a sedate daytrip from the capital, with a historical centre of centuries-old wooden buildings that provide its nickname of Little Edo.

I had missed the big October festival - when hordes of people parade parade with wooden floats along the main streets of the town - by a fortnight, and the only crowds were in Candy Lane. The whole place whiffed of aniseed, schoolchildren still in their uniforms - black for the boys, navy blue for the girls - were snapping up baguette-sized sweet bread, on offer at just 300 yen. The rest of the town passed in snapshots: a trio of middle-aged women tottering about in kimonos, a black-suited businessman slurping noodles in front of a temple bell, a man practising his golf swing in an alley, his umbrella standing in for a club.

In opposition to its bigger, flashier, full-tilt at the twenty-first century neighbours, Kawagoe is a city that makes a deliberate stab at nostalgia. Traditional Architecture Zones, sweet-potato beer, and runner-pulled rickshaw rides. "Welcome to Kawagoe. A City Where History Lives," said the sign at Kita-in Temple. Even the sightseeing bus looked as if it had been manufactured by British Leyland. But, this being Japan, traffic still ran both ways up Chuo-dori, right in front of the historic Edo warehouses, and every tour guide carried a megaphone as well as their flag.

This being Japan, the staid is also never far from the surreal. A few hundred metres past Honmaru Goten, the oldest building in Kawagoe, a front garden had been turned into a shrine to Christmas, painted snowmen hung alongside red paper lanterns, and a stepladder in the corner, next to the tree, had its top three rungs wrapped in tinsel. Around the next corner was a house with Junk Style Collection stencilled on its windowboxes and metal watering cans hanging from the door, and, nearer Candy Lane, an outdoor Garden Restaurant served meals from a VW Campervan, with seats laid out on wooden decking.Close

It's a perfect autumn morning and I'm on a train speeding north to Chichibu. Elderly couples dressed in running shoes and baseball caps are taking photos of each other across the bench seats. Through the window I look out on terraced squares planted with tea…Read More

It's a perfect autumn morning and I'm on a train speeding north to Chichibu. Elderly couples dressed in running shoes and baseball caps are taking photos of each other across the bench seats. Through the window I look out on terraced squares planted with tea bushes, a football pitch and baseball diamond side-by-side on levelled dirt, a half-timbered Swiss cottage on a bend in the river, villages made up of a few houses strung across a road, each one seemingly with its own lawn-sized field to the side, onion tops and cabbages sprouting from the soil.

'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas' was playing on a loop when I arrived at Seibu-Chichibu Station. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. The temperature was nudging sixty degrees. I walked as far as Chichibu Shrine before I found a map, bought sushi and a bar of white chocolate for lunch from a supermarket next door to Cafe Snob (closed, of course), then picked up the trail back at the station, past a Mister Donut and up into the hills.

Several consultations of the map and one two-minute conversation with an elderly Japanese man - of which the sum total of my comprehension was, "Turn right soon" - later, a marker on the ground pointed the way towards Hitsujiyama. A flock of sheep grazing in a pen (Hitsujiyama literally translates as Sheep Hill) qualified as a rare enough sight to have become a tourist attraction of sorts, mothers proudly snapping their children as they posed by the fence. From here the track quickly diminished into a dirt path, which twisted like a tree root through a forest before hitting tarmac and beginning the long, steep climb to a wooden pavilion at the top of a small peak.

A few hundred metres further, following a drop easily as sharp as anything on the other side, I clambered up a faded metal staircase and found myself staring across at a gravel-covered hillside and not, as I'd initially thought, the slate-grey roof of a giant temple. Smoke was belching from metal stacks, there were some cement-scarred rocks and a factory that looked like something from an early episode of Doctor Who. I pushed on, quickly.

Fortunately, a wing of En-yu Ji, the twenty-sixth of thirty-four temples dedicated to Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, in and around Chichibu, was just around the next corner, propped up on wooden pillars with its back to the rock. It was here I met Yukio, a Japanese who'd quit his estate agent's job eight years ago to travel around the world ("I went to Antarctica, Tahiti, India, Australia...") and now worked in internet security. We walked together as far as the pearl-white statue of Kannon which overlooked the Kagemori plain, then took the short slog down to Daienji (temple 27), where the sounds of the city once more began to intrude: an electrical generator, the smell of incense, children hitting a baseball, the urgent ring, ring, ring of a level-crossing bell, a puff of smoke from a steam train...

Over the tracks, we skirted the main road as far as temple twenty-eight, backed up against a sheer cliff face, red maple leaves overhanging the stairs. I skipped the cave, left Yukio paying his two-hundred yen, and backtracked to the concrete bridge and the narrow path to Urayamaguchi Station, on the Chichibu Main Line. It took me as far as the metal bridge in front of Urayamaguchi Dam, one-and-a-half kilometres further on, to reach the conclusion that I didn't have enough daylight left to make it to the lake. I took out my last piece of sushi, turned around, and walked the three stations back to town. Close

It was half past ten and fifteen degrees when I arrived in Kawaguchiko, and a steady stream of hikers had already started up the wide, paved path to Tenjoyama Park. Scrambling towards the top, the visibility was perfect in every direction but the one I…Read More

It was half past ten and fifteen degrees when I arrived in Kawaguchiko, and a steady stream of hikers had already started up the wide, paved path to Tenjoyama Park. Scrambling towards the top, the visibility was perfect in every direction but the one I was looking at, Fuji suddenly cut off at the shoulder by a sun-lit bank of cloud.

It took less than half an hour from the train station to the upper cable car terminus. The last of the autumn leaves were dying on the branch, hanging limply like banners at an abandoned parade. People queued at the viewfinders as if the clouds obscuring the mountain would magically disperse upon the insertion of a hundred yen coin. In front of the gift shop was a plastic model of a cartoon rabbit knocking the breath out of a beaver. Across the lake, you could just about make out the first snowcaps of the Japanese Alps. When I saw a second beaver trussed up and hanging from the ceiling outside the men's toilets, I decided it was probably best to leave. It was another ten minutes to the peak itself, a disappointing clearing in the pines, with stumps left for seating, a cairn-sized shrine and what would have been half a view of Fuji in a gap between the trees.

The mountain calm was shattered as soon as I hit the lakeshore. There was a Fancy Shop and J-pop ballads, duck boats and sightseeing buses, speedboat rides and coffee restaurants. I followed the waymarked path out of town to the westernmost edge of the lake, passing Omuro Sengen Shrine, the oldest of Fuji's shrines, rusting jet skis, a motorbike lying in the empty swimming of a bankrupt hotel, blue and yellow boats with their hulls facing up, piled by the water's edge, waveboard shops and little roadside cafes with Christmas trees out front. I stopped for lunch on a lawn by the water. The clouds were getting thicker all the while. Close

Along with Shinjuku's Kabuchiko, Roppongi is as close to a seedy underbelly as Tokyo ever gets. While the fashionable twenty-somethings hit Shibuya after an afternoon of shopping, Roppongi attracts a multi-national crowd of mainly thirty and over - and things rarely if ever get going…Read More

Along with Shinjuku's Kabuchiko, Roppongi is as close to a seedy underbelly as Tokyo ever gets. While the fashionable twenty-somethings hit Shibuya after an afternoon of shopping, Roppongi attracts a multi-national crowd of mainly thirty and over - and things rarely if ever get going until after the last train.

It's gone midnight by the time we leave the subway and Roppongi is just beginning to move. There are American GIs in baggy jeans and white t-shirts, groups of Japanese with dyed hair and boots that reach past their knees, a man curled up drunk on a patch of grass by a public toilet, so much neon you only know it's dark when you look up at the sky. Taxi doors open automatically like CD player draws, lights scroll, flash and flicker, Nigerians move through the streets handing out piles of 500 yen drink fliers. "Club New York, down here," "Essential, upstairs. Entrance over there," "Hey man, where you from? Looking for somewhere good?"

Wandering the streets with convenience store beer we end up in Gas Panic, where your feet stick to the metal floor and anyone caught momentarily without alcohol is likely to have a menu and torch shoved in their face. No drink, no entry. Tequila shots, 500 yen. Cans of Asahi, six. Rumcola, eight. "I got another year and a half here, man," says the soldier with the broken thumb, continuing a conversation I hoped had ended twenty minutes earlier, "then I'm opening a bar in Texas or California. My family are all teachers. Math, Geography, History..."

We leave the last bar at six o'clock. The sun is up. Bodies sprawl across the train station platform. Close

The Tokyo subway system might look intimidating, but it's very efficient and easy to use. The trick is taking a deep breath and finding the English map. When you approach the subway station, you will see the lines displayed above the machines from…Read More

The Tokyo subway system might look intimidating, but it's very efficient and easy to use. The trick is taking a deep breath and finding the English map.

When you approach the subway station, you will see the lines displayed above the machines from which you buy your tickets. What you need to do is count the stops you need to go. There will be a number circled above the stop. This is the fare required to travel to that station. For example, if you go from Shibuyu Station to Uneo Station, it costs 190 Yen. When you buy the ticket, you'll see this option displayed on the screen. You insert your money and press the 190 button. Easy peasy! Also, like when using the Underground in London, keep your ticket for entry into the subway and for exit out.

If you're going to use the subway a lot on any given day, choose an all day pass, which will set you back about $10. This can be a great deal. Keep in mind, you won't be able to use a subway pass on the JR line, but even if you have to purchase a JR ticket or two, you'll probably come out ahead.

On most trains, there are announcements in Japanese AND English. There are also either running digital displays that flash the names of the stops in Japanese pictographs PLUS English writing, OR there's a display of the line over the doors that will show you where you are by turning on a light beneath each stop as you arrive at it.

I met two New Yorkers during my travels, and we hung out for a few hours. They told me they thought the system was a little more complicated at first glance from the subways in New York City. However, we all agreed that once you got the hang of it, the Tokyo system is very robust and a great way to travel.

How about other options?

I will say I did not use the buses at all in Tokyo, but I did use them in Kyoto. I found them to be a much bigger challenge. Why? Announcements weren't in English. If there was a digital sign in the bus, it only flashed the Japanese pictographs, no English. I didn't have an English map at first, and this was a disaster. The Tokyo subway was definitely a lot easier to use than that!!! (Of course, if you go to Kyoto, just be smarter than me and get an English map from the get go.) I would assume the buses in Tokyo are similar to Kyoto. Anyway, I can't imagine you needing to catch a bus.

I never used a cab, but the aforementioned New Yorkers did. They said it was easy though---like in all big cities---a good deal more expensive than other transport. At certain times of day, you're paying for comfort. Beware, however. Cars don't always move faster than trains!!! If you DO take a taxi, the meter starts with a base rate around $7 and then ticks up according to distance traveled plus time sitting in traffic.

By far, the thing you'll do the MOST is WALK. While I also managed to get lost a few times on foot, I would always eventually run across a sign for a tourist attraction that had English writing as well as Japanese pictographs to point me back in the right direction. If I just stood there looking especially out of sorts, I found a kind Japanese person would inevitably stop and offer help in English.... normally businessmen in suits. In fact, whenever I asked anyone for help, they tried to oblige me even if there was a language barrier. Here my phrase book was handy. And I carried a pen and extra paper in my purse so that I could ask for a drawn map or a picture of the appropriate pictograph. This worked well.

I hope that I am as kind to and patient with foreigners as the people in Japan were to me. Close

The trains can be a pretty overwhelming experience for those that don’t speak Japanese. Heck, it can be pretty tough for those that do. The stations are clean, modern. The trains are quiet and on time.You can’t get anywhere in Tokyo without…Read More

The trains can be a pretty overwhelming experience for those that don’t speak Japanese. Heck, it can be pretty tough for those that do. The stations are clean, modern. The trains are quiet and on time.

You can’t get anywhere in Tokyo without using the trains.

Tickets are sold by the distance you travel. Which is unfortunate, since when I was in Chile I could travel the entirety of Santiago’s metro for about thirty cents. In Japan the shortest distance, from one station to another, cost two or three dollars. Transportation really adds up in Japan.

But, I really liked the trains, which was fortunate, since they are essential for moving around Tokyo. They are, as noted, very quiet, both inside and outside, because nobody speaks on their cell phones. It is an unwritten cultural rule to not talk on your cell phone as you travel in the train, so what you get is a bunch of people texting. If you forget this rule you may get stern looks.

So the trains are quiet because cell phones aren’t used, Japanese people really are in general quiet people, the trains are modern, and notably, it’s just so easy to fall asleep riding the thing. The seats on the JR are heated, a nice touch considering that Japan can get fairly cold. The natural rhythm and beat produced by the train casts a spell over the weary traveler, especially the one who has spent the day on the go in benchless Tokyo. Be careful not to miss your stop. There are electronic displays located above the door that indicate the route, which door will open, upcoming stations, both in Japanese and English. If you aren’t by the display you can just listen to the station annoucements that even say the Japanese name with an English accent.

When you get off you may be hungry. If you are hungry for ramen, then keep your eyes open for the ramen machine, in which you place your ramen order not with a human, but by pressing the slot of a dispensing like machine. Ramen does not tumble out, but your order does go to the kitchen located behind the bot. I always wanted to click it.

Comfortable as the trains are, you'll probably need actual lodging. Check out other Japanese vacation rentals over here.Close

Despite its reputation as one of the world's most expensive cities, there are lots of things you can do in Tokyo for free:A five-minute walk from the west entrance of Shinjuku Station, you can see as far as Fuji on a rare clear day from…Read More

Despite its reputation as one of the world's most expensive cities, there are lots of things you can do in Tokyo for free:

A five-minute walk from the west entrance of Shinjuku Station, you can see as far as Fuji on a rare clear day from the 45th floor viewpoints at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices. Back on the first floor, pick up a copy of the Tokyo Handy Guide from the Tokyo Information Centre for discount coupons to paid attractions.

The Tokyo Information Centre is also one of the best places to grab one of the city's free listings magazines (the best of which is Metropolis). You can also find free magazines in Tower Records, branches of HMV and the most popular foreigner hang-outs (Paddy Foley's, The Hub, etc).

When it's not in session, you can get a free tour of the Japanese parliament, the Diet. Call 55217445 to book.

Although most of Tokyo's best parks charge around 200 - 300 yen for admission, you can still visit the Imperial Palace East Gardens for free. Head to Yoyogi Park for weekend festivals, Japanese Elvis impersonators and the famous Harajuku Girls (Sundays only). Shrines and temples are always free - the best known are Senso-ji in Asakusa, Meiji-jingu (next to Harajuku JR) and Zojoji, on the edge of Roppongi. While you have to pay to get into its zoo or museums, there's always plenty of free entertainment in Ueno Park. Further out, you can easily spend a whole afternoon in Kichijoji's Inokashira Park.

Forget Akihabara and head to one of Tokyo's free showrooms for a view of cutting edge Japan. The Sony Showroom is in Ginza, while Toyota have a Mega Web in Odaiba (next to the Ferris wheel) and an Amlux next to Sunshine City in Ikebukero.

Don't miss the view of Shibuya Crossing from the Hachiko Exit of Shibuya Station. While the best bird's eye view is from the window of Starbucks, you can also look down on the street from the shopping mall between the JR station and the Keio Inokashira Station. Along with Ginza, Shibuya is also the best place for a bit of window shopping.

It gets mixed reviews nowadays, but an early morning visit to Tsukiji Market is still the best place to try fresh sushi.

Walk across Rainbow Bridge to Odaiba and watch the sunset from the island's artificial beach.

Take the train to Mount Takao or the Oku-Tama region for a day's hiking. On the way back, stop off in Fuchu for some free beer on the Suntory Brewery Tour.

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In addition to Disney Sea and the Vermeer exhibit at the Tokyo Met of Art, these are a few highlights in no particular order:1. People watching on Omotesando Hills. As an added bonus, one of the best toystores I have ever been to is…Read More

In addition to Disney Sea and the Vermeer exhibit at the Tokyo Met of Art, these are a few highlights in no particular order:

1. People watching on Omotesando Hills.

As an added bonus, one of the best toystores I have ever been to is here as well. Lots of cute accessories, games, Lego that I had never seen before.
Kiddyland
6-1-9 Jinjumae
TEL: 3409-3431

A great place to buy a couple of cool unusal toys for my adorable little nephew.

2. Our meal at Kaikaya in Shibuya. This restaurant was recommended to us by a serious food-lover who boldly proclaimed that it might be the "best restaurant in Tokyo". What makes the meal even more thrilling is that the restaurant happens to be very difficult to find. But have no fear, I have noted very specific directions below.

23-7 Maruyama-cho, Shibuyaku, Tokyo
tel: (03) 3770-0878
http://www.kaikaya.com/

It's not far from the teenage girls-haven, Shibuya 109. It’s tucked into a small street about a ten minute walk from the Shibuya station. They have excellent fish and beef dishes, especially, sashimi tuna spareribs and the wagyu beef sushi.

They have awesome ginger beer and a very large selection of unusual sake and beers. The menu is very seasonal as the chef makes things that are at its best and at its freshest. Just take a look at what some of the other customers are having and nicely point. That’s how we discovered some of our favorite items here. The owners and staff are very friendly and the menu is translated into English, so don’t be intimidated.

From Shibuya Station (the Hachiko Crossing), take the left fork at the 109 Building and walk up Dogenzaka to the large crossing by the entrance to Mark City. Take the next side street to the right (after the koban) and follow it down the hill. You will see Kaikaya's red awning on your right after about 300 meters.

3. Window shopping in Ginza
Do not miss:
Ito-ya, Ginza 2-17-15 T
The most fabulous stationary store you will ever encounter. Floors and floors of Japanese pens, papers, notebooks, office furniture and other great gift ideas.

Sony Building Ginza 5-3-1
Of course it was almost difficult to drag my husband away from here. But we both had a great time seeing the newest and latest Sony products and even having a chance to try them out. Very crowded on weekends though.

A total HO-HUM:
Tsukiji Market - The tuna auction which, once upon a time, was open to tourists is no longer open to the public. Also, it's not the only place to eat good sushi in Tokyo, not to it's mention extremely touristy and who wants to stand in line for 30 minutes to eat a very rushed sushi meal first thing in the morning. But if the idea of dodging carts of squid and watching enormous frozen tuna being sliced by a ban-saw appeals to you, this is your place!


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