12 Days in Tokyo

Hi all,

Me and a friend from work are looking to go to Tokyo in February 2012 for 12 days.
We are looking to stay in hostels (this is partly to break me in for my RTW travels and partly to save money)

I was just wondering if anyone could offer me advice on things to do and how much i will expect to spend.

Thanks,
Adam.

Japan is NOT cheap, so its gonna cost alot. Id want a minimum of 1k for 12 days. I did 14 days in 2009 on 1k for two people but i had to eat spaghetti 6 nights on the bounce.

I agree with James re costs. Myself and other half were paying an average of £80 a day for food and accommodation (in dorms 95% of the time) - we had already paid for a railpass so transport was covered.

Thanks guys thats a big help, i think i will have to up my savings a little.

Is there any must see’s that i should not miss out on?

Thanks.

Hi Adam,

I’m currently living in Japan and as the other posters have said, yes it can be very expensive. Last month I travelled for three weeks and I budgeted Y10,000 a day (yen) - which is about 70-80 pounds. Expect to be paying a minimum of Y2500 for accommodation each night, if you stay in a dorm. If you want to stay somewhere nicer and more traditionally Japanese, I’d say it would be worth splurging on a ryokan for one night (a type of traditional inn where you sleep on futons on a tatami floor; the price usually includes a meal).

If you are wanting to be reeeeally cheap with accommodation, there are 24 hour manga (Japanese comic books) / internet cafes in all the big cities ... these usually have packages, so you pay a certain amount and get 2, 4, 6 etc. hours at the cafe. You can pay to get your own little booth, it will have a computer and a big comfy reclining chair, and you can either shut a door or pull a curtain across so it’s pretty much private. These are great to sleep at - just push your chair back and take a nap! They even provide blankets, plus you have unlimited access to soft drinks, and most of them also do food. It can work out cheaper than staying in a hostel, if you’re willing to not have a proper bed but instead sleep on a (very comfy!) chair.

It’s possible to eat cheaply if you buy combini (convenience store) food for lunch (I wouldn’t recommend eating it everyday for each of your meals, however!). A meal in a cheap restaurant (for example, a bowl of ramen - noodles in broth) will maybe be around Y800-1000, depending on what you buy. There are also lots of fast food places if you are really on a budget, and I don’t just mean McDonalds - there are Japanese chains such as Sukiya, where you can get cheap meals. If you go to an izakaya (a Japanese-style ‘pub’, apparently, although they are very different to pubs in the UK!), see if they have a tabehoudai menu - all you can eat! If you want to drink you can also get nomihoudai, which is awesome.  :lol:

I haven’t spent a lot of time in Tokyo but I’ve passed through a couple of times. For me personally I’d say that 12 days is a long time to spend just in one place. As you’ll be coming in on a tourist visa, have you thought about buying the Japan Rail Pass? This gives unlimited travel on most public train in Japan, and is a really good deal as transport here is ridiculously expensive. As I’m on a working visa I can’t use this offer, so I usually take night buses when I travel. Unlike in other countries, the night buses here aren’t that much of a bargain (it’s just that they are usually cheaper than the normal train fare) and so I would recommend getting a Rail Pass rather than using buses if you do plan to travel outside of Tokyo.

A typical route for the time you have would be Tokyo - Osaka - Kyoto - Nara. Unless you are totally set on staying just in Tokyo, I’d suggest looking into this as it would allow you to see a lot more - Kyoto in particular is beautiful and if you have the chance it’s somewhere not to be missed. If you got the Rail Pass you could travel very quickly between these places - I think from Tokyo to Osaka it is about three and a half hours on the Shinkansen, which is the fastest train here. Osaka to Kyoto is very quick, about 45 minutes or so, and the journey time to Nara is similar. Visiting these places would give you a wider experience of Japan than if you stayed just in Tokyo.

Some things that I recommend to do whilst in Japan (not Tokyo-specific though) are:

- Visit an onsen. These are public baths. Sometimes the water is from a natural hot spring and you can sit outside in rock pools, whilst others are more like indoor spas with various different pools and saunas. Japanese people LOVE onsening - it’s like a national pastime. The thing that lots of tourists find strange is that ... you have to be naked when you use an onsen. So yeah, you end up sitting in a scalding hot pool surrounded by lots of Japanese people, all of you completely starkers. Once you get over this initial weirdness, you will hopefully discover how amazing onsens are and grow to love them. They usually have single sex pools, although there are some mixed sex onsens (I have yet to visit though!). You can find onsen in pretty much every town in Japan.
- In Kyoto: there are so many temples that it can be overwhelming, but there’s a reason this is the number one visitor destination in Japan ... it’s truly beautiful and it’s impossible to see everything. If you do come here, I’d particularly recommend the Ginkakuji (silver) Pavilion, and the Kinkakuji (golden) pavilion. These are pretty much the most famous ones there, and whilst they do get incredibly busy, they are both must-sees. Also visit some of the smaller temples and Zen gardens - despite the crowds, they can be so peaceful and relaxing.
- Do something outdoorsy. You’ll be in Japan in February ... I don’t know if you’re aware of this (I wasn’t til I got here) but Japan is HUGE for winter sports. If you have the Rail Pass, from Tokyo you will only be a couple of hours from places such as Nagano, which have some awesome opportunities for skiing and snowboarding. Nagano was the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics, and it’s beautiful. You can hire all the equipment you need, including clothing, and a one-day lift pass is about Y5000 at the big resorts. Alternatively, this weekend I went to Gunma prefecture, which is 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, and has loads of adventure activities such as caving, canyoning and bungee jumping. You could do something like this as a day trip.
- Eat and drink lots. Try and experience as many different foods as you can manage. There are some weird-looking items on the menu, but take the plunge and just randomly point ... or you could ask the person serving you osusume? which means - what do you recommend?
- In Tokyo: if you are looking for a very strange Japanese experience, you could always visit a maid cafe ... these might not be to everyone’s taste but they are pretty unique to Japan and show a more bizarre side of its culture. Google to find out more (they aren’t dodgy so don’t worry!). There are also cat and dog cafes, where you pay to play with cats and dogs whilst enjoying a coffee ...
- Purikura. Japanese teenagers LOVE purikura, and they are a really fun and cheap souvenir ... you pay a couple of hundred yen, go into a photo booth, and then you can choose different backgrounds and stuff and have your picture taken. The machine airbrushes you so you end up looking like a completely different person, with huuuuge eyes - then you go round the other side and on a screen you are able to decorate your pictures, so add writing / cute images etc. to them. Then they print them out as a strip of stickers, and voila!

Hope this helps and gives you some ideas of things to do!

^ Wow, what a great post this is. Nice work Amber!  :D

That tip about sleeping in the net cafe is genius. Wish I’d have thought of that when I was there!

I have to agree about Kyoto too… an incredible city. I would definitely also say DO NOT spend 12 days in Tokyo, but see gems like Kyoto and Osaka also…

Not much really to add to that post!

As for money, I spent around 600 quid in 12 days there. But that was back in 2003, so probably would be a couple of hundred more these days.

Amber’s post sums it up nicely but to try to add to that.

-Definitely go to a neko café if you can (cat cafe) assuming you like cats. It’s so much fun to hang out with the kitties and look at the crazy outfits and wigs they put on them. Hehe. Check out my fiancé‘s video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALSDJ237F88. They’re mostly based around Ikebukuro. We went to http://www.nekorobi.jp/english

-Take a walk to Tokyo Tower (Tokyo’s answer to Eiffel tower). You can go up to the top but it costs a lot if I remember rightly.

-For AMAZING views of the city, get on the overground train towards Odaiba (on the New Transit Yurikamome line). Best to do this at night as it passes by rainbow bridge and you basically go on a massive loop around Tokyo which is simply stunning (see video above 1:40, 2:38, 3:10). Stop off at Aomi station for ‘Palette Town’ for a ride on the Hello Kitty ferris wheel for even higher views, and lots of shopping!

-For free city views, head over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and go up to the 45th floor. (see video 2:16). They had an incredible pianist there playing at the restaurant on that floor so it was lovely.

-If you like Miyazaki, you have to head out for a day trip to the Ghibli museum where you can see loads of cool exhibits and memorabilia. To buy tickets, just go into a Lawson store and use the automated machine to pick a date and time. The machine is all in Japanese so you will probably need to ask a member of staff to help you. http://www.lawson.co.jp/ghibli/museum/ticket/english.html

-Go shopping in Ueno.
-Visit Harajuku to spot the cosplay girls and boys
-Go to Shinjuku to look out for drag queens and other ‘unique’ characters
-Eat at Lotteria for the most incredible fast food burgers in the WORLD
-Eat at Yoshinoya for very cheap Japanese fast food (300 Yen for a dish!)
-Visit a Lawson 100 store - everything is 100 yen!
-Go to Asakusa for shopping, temples, to spot the Asahi & carrot building, for sex shops, porn theatres (yes, really), the best sushi in Japan (the one just across from the red bridge on the right hand side as you have the Asahi building behind you - this yellow building here) and the chance to spot celebrities. We spotted Marlon Wayans.

I’ll update if I can think of anything else.

-Eat at Lotteria for the most incredible fast food burgers in the WORLD

Gonna have to disgree with that. Lotteria is crap!

Argh I just realised ... in my list of recommended things to do I FORGOT TO PUT KARAOKE!!!!!

You MUST do this. It’s amazing fun, and you can always order nomihoudai whilst karaoke-ing ... all you can drink for two hours + hundreds of songs to shriek out at the top of your voice = best combination EVER.

:lol:  :lol:  :lol:

Argh I just realised ... in my list of recommended things to do I FORGOT TO PUT KARAOKE!!!!!

You MUST do this. It’s amazing fun, and you can always order nomihoudai whilst karaoke-ing ... all you can drink for two hours + hundreds of songs to shriek out at the top of your voice = best combination EVER.

:lol:  :lol:  :lol:

how did you get your job there?

would love to work in Japan at some point.

-Eat at Lotteria for the most incredible fast food burgers in the WORLD

Gonna have to disgree with that. Lotteria is crap!

I strongly disagree but would be willing to hear your opinion on what is better than Lotteria. :D

Thank you so much everyone,

This has been a huge help, i think i will be looking into going to other places and be trying as many of these experiences as possible (Karaoke is already on my must do although people will need earplugs when they hear my melodic voice   :lol: ).
I will keep you updated on my plans and will no doubt be asking for more advice :D

I strongly disagree but would be willing to hear your opinion on what is better than Lotteria. :D

Lotteria is Korean, where’s your J-pride?. ;)

if you search around tokyo you can find cheap hotel!
www.rurubu.com/