Travel Guide to Japan
This is a travel guide for those who are thinking about going to Japan. If you you are not too sure about whether to take the long-haul 11 hour flight (from London Heathrow), maybe this guide will be able to persuade you into it. I myself would highly recommend spending a couple of weeks there as it is definitely the most vibrant and exciting country I have ever been to. The fact that hardly anyone there speaks fluent English adds a completely new challengeordering food in restaurants. The aim of this guide is to help you make important decisions which will affect your whole visit to the country such as which areas of Japan you would like to visit and a few places to avoid.
Food
Japan has a huge variety of foods. When people think of Japan, they usually imagine fish. There is definitely a lot of fish in Japan but there are also at least six other styles of food, from fried pork cutlets to barbecued pork noodle soups
Tonkatsu: This form of Japanese cuisine is fried pork cutlet. Tender pork is fried in breadcrumbs in various forms, including: filled with spring onion, plain fried pork and filled with prawn.
Ramen: One of my favourite. Large bowls of tasty chicken, beef or vegetable stock (soup). These bowls are piled high with your choice of thick or thin noodles. The thick noodles are called udon and the thin vermicelli noodles are called ramen noodles. Thinly sliced barbecued pork, beef or chicken is added along with ginger, spring onions and sometimes chilli. Probably the most hunger satisfying dish, ramen is often served with duck, chicken or vegetable gyoza, which is a crescent shaped parcel, often steamed and soft at the top but crispy at the base. Eat these with chilli sauce for a spicy treat.
Kaiseki: Most common in traditional Japanese ryokans (inns), this type of mealis not hard to find in Tokyo but is invariably quite expensive. A many course traditional Japanese meal which consists of tiny plates with intricate designs of fish and vegetables. One may find, for example, a slice of salmon on a bed of Japanese pickle topped with salmon roe and fish sauce. Dishes are a lot more imaginative than this, but only true fish lovers and curious travellers should try this as a number of the courses can involve various fish parts, including heads, eyes and tails.
Sushi: Thinly sliced pieces of raw fish are either served alone or in seaweed parcels with rice. There are many combinations of sushi with odd ingredients such as fish eggs and sometimes sea urchin, a yellow paste. Sushi restaurants are very common in Tokyo.
Yakiktori: This type of cooking is where skewers of chicken or other meats are dipped in a thick sauce and grilled before being served. Sometimes the plain meat is put on skewers however more commonly used is the unwanted parts of the animal. Gizzards, wombs and cartilage are turned into a rich, saucy dish.
Tempura: Tempura is the name of the batter that various objects are deep-fried in. Despite the word Deep fried, the object is usually visible through the thin batter. Crunchy vegetables, fish and prawns are served with various sauces including sweet chilli or sesame.
Shabu-shabu: This style of cooking is exciting, healthy and a real experience in itself. Look at the section about Ginza for my favourite shabu-shabu restaurant. Named after the supposed sound the chopsticks make while swishing through the water during the meal, wafer thin raw meat is put on a plate, usually beef and pork. There is a pot of boiling water in front of you. After a piece of raw thin meat is put in, it cooks after about 20 seconds. The meat is then eaten while your designated waitress continuously offers free refills of iced tap water (Japan water is safe to drink and you will crave it after trawling the humid Tokyo streets in summer), rice, vegetables, delicious sesame sauce and chilli oil. By the end of the meal, you will always be filled to the brim Guaranteed! Oh, and when you have cooked all your spring onions, lettuce, mushrooms, noodles and meat the boiling water is seasoned with pepper and chilli oil before being poured into a bowl and drunk as a delic ious soup.
Teppan-yaki: If you like steak or seafood, this would be ideal. Although many teppan-yaki restaurants are expensive, there are a few well-priced ones, you have to find them first though. I recommend Pandoras steakhouse in Shinjuku, near the Main Post Office. You sit at the bar counter with a huge flat metalgrill in front of you. Sit and watch as master chefs prepare your food on the grill before your very eyes. Juicy steaks and garlic rice, chilli squid and bok choy. This is definitely worth trying.
Before you leave for Japan, you will obviously need to have decided where you will go. I suggest using Tokyo as a starting point, but you can use the rest of this guide to help you decide if you would like to start somewhere else. The reason I am going to start with Tokyo is because Narita is a major and easily accessible airport. I also assume that after the 11 hour flight (from London Heathrow), the last thing you will want to do is travel further. However Narita is still a 90 minute journey by either bus or train. There is a very convenient shuttle bus which will take you from Narita airport to various places around Tokyo, direct to your hotel. You can find out in more detail about the various routes the bus takes by asking your hotel concierge. There is also a train which leaves from Narita. Tickets are obtainable at the airport. Or you could buy Nex (Narita express) tickets using this combination whereby you can save money on both Narita express fares and the cost of a Suica card (please see next paragraph)
For a beginner in Tokyo, getting around can seem rather daunting. Another aim of this guide is to help you with general transport within Tokyo. One option is to simply take taxis around. However this is very costly and besides, wheres the fun in that? For a real adventure, I would highly recommend buying a Suica card. This is a multi-use pre-pay card which works in a similar way to a London Oyster card. Top-up this card with money and then scan it as you enter and as you leave stations. It can also be used in certain convenience stores in stations, as well as in some taxis. It is extremely useful and I would say a requirement for navigating around Tokyo painlessly. In the long run, it saves both money and time as it only takes two seconds to scan it each time and each journey costs 150-300 yen). For those with enough money to spare, buying a JR rail pass is suggested. There are two main rail services in Tokyo, just as there is the underground and national rail in London. J R rail passes are not expensive, and using the JR lines have many additional stations, including the extremely useful Yamanote line, which takes a large circle through many of the main places of interest in central Japan.
A couple of items which are really worth getting hold of: a Tokyo subway map, a JR rail map and a general map of Tokyo. Both Tokyo subway trains and JR rail trains leave often and one of the things I find most astonishing about Japan is how precise the timings are. You can be almost positive that the train will leave to the minute. On some occasions, I have even seen subway trains leave to the second! Check google images for Tokyo subway map and Tokyo JR rail map. Once you have all of the maps, you will find that navigating around one of the most densely populated cities in the world is easier than you think.
Shinjuku: This is my favourite area to explore i.e. walk around backstreets to find sleazy ramen restaurants (see food section). This area is home to the skyscraper district and also one of the best places for nightlife. Very easily accessible by subway and on the JR Yamanote line (see transport section) and central to Tokyo.
Ginza: This area is great for shopping, with an apple technology store and a major toy shop called Hakuhinkan. In the toy shops in Tokyo, the Japanese have turned the edimame bean into a cute, fluffy toy. Edimame towels, chopsticks, bouncy balls, stuffed dolls and other merchandise are a must-see. My favourite shabu-shabu restaurant (mentioned in the food section) can be found on the middle/upper floors of Ginza core, a minor shopping arcade near the main Ginza crossroads. I highly recommend walking up and down the main Ginza street a couple of times, although it is about a kilometre long.
Akihabara: This is the technology centre of Tokyo. Anyone who is interested in cameras, computers, gaming, music etc. should go here. There are many technology shops, technology markets with tiny stalls selling things which are not available in other countries. Akihabara also contains my favourite shop, Yodobashi camera. There are many branches of this shop, however out of the 5 that I have been to, this is the best one by far. Yodobashi is very near Akihabara station (see a subway map online), which is on the silver Hibiya line. This amazing shop has about seven floors of pure heaven in technology. One floor is dedicated to cameras, another to computers, another to CDs and DVDs, another to Televisions and the hidden surprise, there is a tower records on the top floor, a successful Japanese CD shop.
Omote sando and Takeshitadori: Omote sando is the fashion district of Tokyo. The main street here is filled with exciting Japanese brands. There is not much else I can say about this area because the best way to find out about this street is to walk up the main street. Takeshitadori is very close by. This is the main fashion street in Japan. It is where hundreds of teenagers hang out in their original outfits. All the wild and wacky fashion trends start here. Highly recommended because when you arrive there, you feel like you are on a completely different planet. When I was there, I walked up and down Takeshitadori three times. It takes roughly 10 minutes to walk up Takeshitadori, that is without stopping.
Shibuya: This is the shopping district in Tokyo. This is where you can find the Shibuya crossing, the worlds busiest zebra crossing. Photographers and interviewers can be seen talking to random people off the streets. Another tower records is situated nearby. This branch of tower records has eight floors. Numerous other shops include loft, a huge department store which has a vast range of stationery and toys. Always packed with people, Shibuya is one of the most vibrant and lively places to visit.
Roppongi: This is an interesting place to walk around. The restaurant Gonpachi inspired the creation of the gruesome scene in Kill Bill. Gonpachi is a nice restaurant near Roppongi which sells ramen and yakitori. Probably most famous is the shopping mall, Roppongi Hills. The grand Hyatt has a delicious, but extremely pricey teppanyaki restaurant. If you are not prepared to spend up to 100 per person, then dont go. However Roppongi Hills shopping centre has some very interesting shops and definitely worth going to.
Using the JR Rail pass to access other parts of Japan
If you buy a JR Rail pass, you will be able to access other parts of Tokyo using the shinkansen, in other words bullet train. There are three types of shinkansen: Kodama, Hikari and Nozomi. Kodama is the slowest and stops at all stations. Hikari is the medium-fast train which skips all minor stations and Nozomi is the fast one. As well as only stopping at the largest stations, the Nozomi also travels 10% faster, meaning that on the longest journey which is 6 hours, it saves about 40 minutes. The Nozomi cannot be used for free with a JR rail pass and extra fees must be paid, but the other two trains which travel at around 200kmph are included in the JR rail pass price. See the section on other locations for ideas about where to travel to in Japan.
Kyoto: This is an ideal place if you want to learn about Japanese culture. Kyoto is home to some of Japans most spectacular temples and pagodas. I suggest staying in a traditional Japanese ryokan here, for a Japanese village feel. A ryokan is a Japanese inn. There are no beds. Instead you sleep on matresses on tatami mats and paper windows. You are also given the opportunity in some ryokans to experience a Japanese hot bath or even an onsen, which is a hot springs pool. Kyoto is also a place where Geisha sightings are common. Go to Gion, where Japanese women in traditional dress and with completely white faces walk around together. Traditionally geishas were supposed to keep men happy by pouring their tea, bowing to them, dancing for them etc.
Nagoya: There are quite a few places to visit here like Nagoya castle. But by far the best time to go is when the national Sumo competition is held, which is every year in July. This is a fascinating experience where you can watch professional sumo wrestlers in the semi-finals or finals. You sit on purple mats in little square rings. This year it was held in a gym. Japanese culture in this way is completely different and you will be amazed by it. Something extraordinary happens at the end of a sumo competition, which I will leave for you to find out. Aside from the sumo, I suggest walking down the main streets in Nagoya: Hirokoji-dori (Hirokoji street) and Sakura-dori (Sakura street). Look in some of the shops at your leisure.
Hiroshima: This is where the first atomic bomb was used in the second world war. This bomb forced Japan to surrender after causing a horrifying amount of damage. I dont think you can truly understand how much pain and suffering this bomb caused until you visit the Hiroshima museum and memorial. This is a fascinating yet harrowing museum which teaches about atomic bombs, the type of damage caused and the plane that dropped it, the Enola Gay. Before going to this museum I did not know of such a thing as a fourth degree burn, not before seeing pictures of children with skin burned so much that it had actually charred and turned black. After the museum, visit the eternal flame, a flame which is constantly lit in memorial of the dead. There is an air of unrest and unease at the same time as peace when you stand and look at it.