How to Japan

General

  • This is not comprehensive, or intended to be.
  • If you need help or directions, look for groups of high school students. They’re easily identifiable because they live in their uniforms: boys usually in black suits with gold buttons, girls in sailor suits. They should have good enough English between them (strength in numbers!) to retreat into a huddle, giggle a lot, decipher your question, come up with an answer, and nominate someone to deliver it to you. Men: don’t be creepy.
  • More generally, men, because a lot of us do seem to need this spelling out: Japan is not a video game. Japanese people are real people. Don’t be an asshole, and don’t pretend “cultural differences” let you act in ways you shouldn’t elsewhere.
  • Keep tattoos covered as much as possible, especially if you’re male, and especially if it’s a sleeve. They have strong associations with organised crime, and at best will make some people very uncomfortable in your presence.
  • Taxi doors are automatic—don’t be alarmed. It can be fun to not warn others in your party about this.
  • Carry cash, and don’t count on ATMs being available 24/7—some close up overnight or at weekends, holidays etc. It’s not as cash-only as in the past, but it’s best to have some on you.
  • I’m not going to get into listing cultural sites, because you can get better and more specific information about those elsewhere, but my favourite thing to do in Tokyo is walk through the park under the huge torii arches from Shinjuku to Harajuku. This is a particularly good escape from the heat in summer. You can make a short detour from this route to the Meiji Shrine and check off your Culture box for the day.

Food and drink

  • Ramen!!!! My favourite is the sesame seed and green onion (negi goma) ramen at Danbo:

    Ippudo is good. Or just ask someone “where is your favourite ramen?”
  • Yoshinoya is a fast food chain selling gyuudon, or beef bowls: white rice, teriyaki beef, onions. Delicious, cheap, filling, excellent quick fuel.
  • Family Mart, Lawsons, and other konbini (convenience store) chains are worth a look. At least one of your meals should be a hotel-room picnic from the nearest konbini. Onigiri (rice balls with filling, wrapped in seaweed) are a great snack. I like the tuna mayo ones. The chocolate bars have hilarious names, printed in English. Don’t eat in the street, though, it’s rude.
  • The omnipresent drink vending machines are worth exploring. They do hot drinks in winter; in summer, Aquarius and Pocari Sweat are great if you’re feeling the heat. (It’s not real sweat, unless you buy the premium stuff in the gold bottles.) If you find Gokuri, arguably the finest grapefruit beverage in the world, count your blessings.
  • Some people will hate this, but it’s even worth a visit or two to Western places like McDonald’s, because the ways they localise the menus can be really interesting. Alternatively, Mosburger’s a solid local option.
            
  • Be careful with saké, it can sneak up on you. Don’t learn this the way I did.
  • I made up the bit about real sweat in gold bottles.

Shopping

Tokyu Hands assumes that the customer is very serious about something. If that happens to be shining a pair of shoes, and the customer is sufficiently serious about it, he or she may need the very best German edge-enamel available for the museum-grade weekly restoration of the sides of the soles.

My own delight at this place, an entire department store radiating obsessive-compulsive desire, was immediate and intense. I had stumbled, I felt, upon some core aspect of Japanese culture, and everything I’ve learned since has only confirmed this.

The flagship store in Shibuya is a labyrinth of 24 stories and substories (see picture) which I could easily spend a full day in. The big branch in Shinjuku may be easier to navigate.

  • Loft is a great homeware store.
  • Ito-ya is an amazing stationery store with three branches clustered together in Ginza, one of which specialises entirely in traditional Japanese paper. Look for the giant red paperclip.