Afternoon gents,

Myself and the Mrs are off to Tokyo at the end of September and I am just looking to see if anyone has been before?

Any must see places that aren't always in the travel books ect?

Cheers

Rob

I worked in South Korea for a while , Tokyo 1 day start and end of trip , pure chaos and madness , about a zillion people crammed into one area , and I found it expensive ..
If you can try and branch out , visit some of the monesteries , something I failed to do , and regret ..
Plenty of EG & PO upto a size large or thereabouts ..
some dishes they serve are beyond belief ..
Okinawa worth a visit , South ..
Mount Fuji can see , good to go there ..
Also try the bullit train , take you anywhere - quick style !

Cheers Steve, looked and I can get a pass for the bullet train for 2 weeks for under £250 which is a steal!

Doing to try and go to Hiroshima.

As for money I've read it's the most expensive city in the world so want to go over with a wedge ad don't want to come back and regret not having enough money to do as much as I wanted.

Very envious fella, somewhere I'd love to visit. Might be wrong, but I'm sure a lad from Manchester who posted on here moved to Japan a little while back. Have a search and see if any of his posts are about, his blog was decent.

Yeah I've been, done a bit
of japan from Tokyo > South, I'll write a reply a bit later today

benjamin , something I think ..

Awesome, thanks lads for the replys so far.

Yeah it's somewhere I've wanted to go for years, just I hate flying so that's the only part I am not lookinf forward to.

Ha! I'm with you on the flying. I usually take valium but didn't have any for the flight to tokyo, i get phobic of standing up on flights so i just sat in my chair for 13 hours didnt even go to the toilet, i had some sort of thrombosis for about 11 months afterwards (basically just a numb patch of skin on my thigh) that I'm sure related to that. It turned out to be a proper shit-yourself descent too, with an aborted landing.

Just looking back over my photos, didn't do anything too out of the ordinary in tokyo, just got hammered and hung out, i remember the korean bbq places being good spots, you cook your own food on a hot plate. I'd recommend finding your local onsen, and going to shinjuku gyoen, huge public park, oh and the park hyatt hotel bar (bit of a tourist spot but it's pretty nice). check out a map of the temples as a lot of them are in really nice grounds, the one behiind harajuku station i remember was the best. I'll probably remember more about the trip now I'm trying, but the superfuture guide to tokyo will prob be more relevant/recent.

Since you're getting the bullet train pass, you may as well get to as many places as possible. I'd say Osaka is a must, it's way more grimy and closer to an 80s anime appropriation of a japanese metropolis than anywhere else, and you have to go to the aquarium (take anything you can before you go in there, it's super trippy). Hiroshima is great as well, again totally different from everywhere else. Have you checked the weather for that time of year? I thought it was supposed to be humid as fuck. Might be worth a look.

Christ mate, made me sweat thinking about it already!

The weather is meant to be nice at that time, said it's still warm but not hot and no longer humid, 22 degrees which is lovely for me as I hate the heat as well!

One of my favorite cities to visit. I'm going again in April. The shopping (clothing, vintage watches, anything really) is insane, but it very much helps to have a local show you around if possible. I recommend Kyoto if you're interested in sightseeing. The nightlife in Osaka is superb if that's more your thing.

I could use some tips as well, heading over with my father and my roomie who's from Japan originally but haven't been in two years time. Managed to get decent tickets (450 returns) so will have some extra cash to spend.. really looking forward to it

Quote: agvd wrote in post #10

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One of my favorite cities to visit. I'm going again in April. The shopping (clothing, vintage watches, anything really) is insane, but it very much helps to have a local show you around if possible. I recommend Kyoto if you're interested in sightseeing. The nightlife in Osaka is superb if that's more your thing.

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Osaka is wicked, it's super edgy compared to the rest of the major cities you're going to, but it's still a very safe place to hang.

Would love to visit japan myself will go at some point.

Bought and sold records with Japanese soul collectors and the level of knowledge they have is amazing.