Japan 8: Tokyo

We spent the last five days our our trip in Tokyo. I feel it would be a bit exhaustive to do an hour-by-hour rundown of the events here. Instead, I'll change things up a bit and here is my Top Seven list of things I did in Tokyo:

1. Karaoke in Akihabara

Mike never sings in front of other people. (He does however break out the tunes... elsewhere). He reluctantly agreed to join us for karaoke, and after a drink or two this was even his favourite part of our time in Tokyo. We had some couch surfers join us for this one, because the more the merrier. I chose Karaoke Adores because they advertised free cosplay when you do karaoke there, and it was really cheap.

The place is easy to find from Akihabara station, when leaving the station, the tallest building in the block is bright red, and has カラオケ (Karaoke) written along the side of the building. There is a choice of themed rooms available, and there was a rather limited choice of costumes available - most of which are designed for really small-framed people. Inside the room, there's TV screens behind the stage and behind the couch, so you can do the Japanese karaoke and perform the songs for your friends. We were kinda all over the place. There's an electronic tablet to request songs, so you need to have the name of an artist or song in mind to search for it, or you can look up the most recently played songs. There's no song book to search through for inspiration. The tablet takes a few minutes to figure out, but once you've got it set to English it's simple enough to navigate.

Cosplay Karaoke shenanigans :)

We spent 6 hours doing karaoke, must have had at least 4 drinks each, and the bill came to about CA$25 per person - much of the cost being the drinks. That's the cheapest karaoke I've ever seen!

2. Harujuku

This is a vibrant, popular attraction and shopping district in Tokyo. There seem to be fewer cosplay enthusiasts hanging around here compared to my last visit a few years ago, maybe they are getting sick of the gawking tourists. If you're in need for same flamboyant knee-high socks, this is the place for you.

3. Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden

This park makes the list purely because it is cherry blossom season. Mid-April was the perfect time to view these blossoms in Tokyo, they were at full bloom. This park has a pleasant trail through some quieter Japanese gardens, and all you need to do is follow the crowd to reach the part of the park that is saturated with cherry trees. Many people were having picnics under the blossoming foliage, I wish we had brought lunch to have here!

4. Shibuya

This shopping district is packed with entertainment day and night. We spent countless hours exploring the streets of Shibuya. When exploring, you have to remember that what you see on ground level is only about a 10th of what is available to do there. For each street side storefront, there are more stores on the floors above it. You can see signs of what is above it, usually near the entrance to the stairs. We found a really great okonomiyaki restaurant this way. It was really rewarding after seeing the promising wax food sculptures, then getting into an argument over whether we should chance the dodgy elevator, to find a cosy little restaurant to settle down in.

Okonomiyaki batter is usually brought to your table. You mix the batter and cook the okonomiyako yourself. 

Okonomiyaki a la Shannah :)

5. Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building

We took the elevator to the top of the tower, a free attraction for tourists to see Tokyo from above. On a very very clear day, it's possible to see Mount Fuji from the tower.

6. Games arcades

These are plentiful in Shibuya and Akihabara. We had a bit of trouble figuring out how to pay for most of the games, but it was mesmerising just seeing how good the gamers are at what they do. These places seem to be open at all hours, and you forget the time easily in this miniature version of what I imagine Las Vegas would be if it was made for underage kids. There's flashing lights and music coming from all of the machines. We had a shameful attempt at Dance Dance Revolution, it was on my bucket list.

We also found a place for purikura - the photo booths that allow you to stamp cute cartoons all over your pictures. Guys can only do purikura if accompanied by a girl. Amber and I had a fun time, dressing in cosplay yet again, getting our photos taken. Another item on my bucket list. It was much more popular in Japan during my earlier visits, and probably has been surpassed by instagram. We got some great photos out of it, and got really confused after the photo shoot because we didn't realise we had to go to the other side of the photo booth to edit the pictures.

7. Ebisu

I never read or saw anything about Ebisu when I was looking up what to do in Tokyo. Clearly not a touristy zone, this area appears to be a wealthier part of Tokyo, with a beautiful shopping strip, and more importantly, Ippudo ramen. Ippudo is a ramen franchise that has spread to New York and Sydney, and according to my friend who lived in Tokyo for a few years, the best ramen in Japan. I can believe it, because I first ate Ippudo in New York, and none of the ramen I had in Japan came close to it until I returned to their restaurant in Ebisu. Trust me, and go there. Probably best to go for a very early dinner or late lunch, because there can be a queue for this place.

Mmmm... Ippudo

There's also some experiences that I felt were disappointing. If you're limited for time, you might want to avoid these two somehow high-rated attractions:

Odaiba

Honestly I still don't know how my friends convinced me to go back here. I visited Odaiba before and remembered it as a giant concrete mall complex with nothing particularly interesting to do. Then Amber got excited about a hot spring theme park there and I decided to give it another shot.

Odaiba still is a giant concrete mall complex. It is composed of some shopping centres that have felt empty and mostly closed on both occasions that I've visited, and several private indoor "theme parks", each with their own admission fees, all of which seem designed to appeal to kids. The only redeeming quality of the man-made island is the waterfront park which takes about half an hour to walk along, and the monorail ride to get there.

Robot Restaurant

Yeah, it's got good reviews, one of the top-rated attractions in Tokyo on TripAdvisor. It's robots, dinosaurs and flashing lights. But my favourite part of the show was the pre-show - a funky lounge you enter once you've paid your tickets, with a small robot dinosaur at each table that you can play with. Beyond that, the show was fun for its randomness, but was pretty much a burlesque show. There were a few "robots" but they didn't do anything particularly interesting.

This just about sums it up. The Robot Restaurant.

The show is fun for a gag, has some burlesque if you're after it, but at $60 per ticket it's totally not worth it. I'd pay maybe $20.


Accommodations: 
Hotel Fukudaya
4-5-9 Aobadai, Meguro ku, Tokyo, 153-0042

This hotel was a 10 minute walk (15-20 with heavy luggage) from Shibuya Station. Great location to enjoy the nightlife of Shibuya. Compared to the price of other hotels, we found this to be great value for money. We reserved the traditional rooms, where our beds were futons set up on tatami mats. There were two tatami rooms, separated by a sliding door, which afforded us privacy as two couples sharing the same hotel room.

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