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Tokyo
Japan's capital city is a truly mesmerizing place. A myriad of stimuli competing for your attention and a constant buzz of jingles, neon, giant TV screens, and pop music help to make Tokyo one of the most thrilling and futuristic places on earth.
A vast and complicated sprawl when you look at the rail map, Tokyo is actually several distinct cities, each with its own character, atmosphere and function - the broad leafy avenues of Omotesando, the hi-tech stores of Akihabara, the skyscrapers of Shinjuku, the bright lights of Shibuya and the narrow market alleys and parks of Ueno.
Tokyo is Japan's city of lights: at dusk the neon flickers on and the daytime rules dissolve over glasses of sake and beer. The city has no single entertainment hub, and each district has its own atmosphere and draws its own crowd. Few cities can rival the possibilities of Tokyo after dark, and there really is something for everyone, from Roppongi for the club crowd to Odaiba for the modern-day romantic.
Though much of the city is hectic, exciting and crowded, it's easy to find respite in tranquil parks, palace gardens and historic temples not far from each busy hub.
Akihabara
Akihabara, also called Akiba after a former local shrine, is a district in central Tokyo, that is famous for its many electronics shops. In more recent years, Akihabara has gained recognition as the center of Japan's otaku (diehard fan) culture, and many shops and establishments devoted to anime and manga are now dispersed among the electronic stores in the district.
Akihabara has also been undergoing some major redevelopment recently with the addition of the Akihabara Crossfield complex aimed at promoting Akihabara as a center for global electronics technology and trade, and a major renovation of Akihabara Station and surroundings.
Asakusa
Asakusa is the center of Tokyo's shitamachi, lit. "low city", one of Tokyo's few districts, which have preserved a certain atmosphere of the old Tokyo.
Asakusa's main attraction is Sensoji, a very popular Buddhist temple, built in the 7th century. The temple is approached via the Nakamise, a shopping street that has been providing temple visitors with a variety of traditional, local snacks and tourist souvenirs for centuries.
For many centuries, Asakusa used to be Tokyo's leading entertainment district. During the Edo Period, when the district was still located outside the city limits, Asakusa was the site of kabuki theaters and a large red light district. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, modern types of entertainment, including movies, set foot in Asakusa.
Ginza
The Ginza is Tokyo's most famous upmarket shopping, dining and entertainment district, featuring numerous department stores, boutiques, art galleries, restaurants, night clubs and cafes.
One square meter of land in the district's center is worth over ten million yen, making it one of the most expensive real estate in Japan. It is where you can find the infamous SGD 12 cups of coffee and where virtually every leading brand name in fashion and cosmetics has a presence.
From 1612 to 1800, today's Ginza district was the site of a silver coin mint (Ginza means "silver mint" in Japanese), after which the district was eventually named. The Ginza evolved as an upmarket shopping district following the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake.
Most shops in the Ginza district are open everyday of the week. A visit is most pleasant on a weekend afternoon, when the central Chuo Dori street gets closed to traffic and become a large pedestrian zone. The closure takes place from 14:00 to 17:00 on Saturdays and from 12:00 to 17:00 on Sundays (until 18:00 from April through September).
Harajuku
Harajuku refers to the area around Tokyo's Harajuku Station, which is between Shinjuku and Shibuya on the Yamanote Line. It is the center of Japan's most extreme teenage cultures and fashion styles, but also offers shopping for adults and some historic sites.
The focal point of Harajuku's teenage culture is Takeshita Dori (Takeshita Street) and its side streets, which are lined by many trendy shops, fashion boutiques, used clothes stores, crepe stands and fast food outlets geared towards the fashion and trend conscious teens.
In order to experience the teenage culture at its most extreme, visit Harajuku on a Sunday, when many young people gather around Harajuku Station and engage in cosplay ("costume play"), dressed up in crazy costumes to resemble anime characters, punk musicians, etc.
Odaiba
Odaiba (or Daiba) is a popular shopping and entertainment district on a manmade island in Tokyo Bay. It originated as a set of small man made fort islands (daiba literally means "fort"), which were built towards the end of the Edo Period (1603-1868) to protect Tokyo against possible attacks from the sea and specifically in response to the gunboat diplomacy of Commodore Perry.
More than a century later, the small islands were joined into larger islands by massive landfills, and Tokyo began a spectacular development project aimed to turn the islands into a futuristic residential and business district during the extravagant 1980s. But development was critically slowed after the burst of the "bubble economy" in the early 1990s, leaving Odaiba nearly vacant.
It was not until the second half of the 1990s, when several hotels, shopping malls and the Yurikamome elevated train line were opened, that Odaiba developed into one of Tokyo's most popular tourist attractions and date spots with a wide selection of shopping, dining and leisure options.
Despite the initial setbacks, several lavish development projects did materialize, including some of Tokyo's boldest architectural creations, such as the Fuji TV Building, Telecom Center and Tokyo Big Sight. Modern city planning furthermore provides Odaiba with plenty of green space and a pleasant division of motorized and pedestrian traffic using elevated walkways and the like.
Roppongi
Roppongi, literally means "six trees", is a district in Tokyo that is well known as the city's most popular nightlife district among foreigners, offering a large number of foreigner friendly bars, restaurants and night clubs. Roppongi and the surrounding districts of Azabu, Hiroo and Akasaka are home to many embassies and a large expat community.
Two of Tokyo's largest recent redevelopment projects, Roppongi Hills and Tokyo Midtown changed the district's face over the past decade and expanded Roppongi's appeal to a wider range of visitors and residents with their elegant retail, leisure and residential space, offices and luxury hotels.
Thanks to the appearance of several art museums, Roppongi has also developed a reputation as a cultural center. The National Art Center is Japan's largest art museum, and together with Roppongi Hills' Mori Art Museum and Tokyo Midtown's Suntory Museum of Art forms the "Art Triangle Roppongi".
Shibuya
Shibuya is one of the twenty-three city wards of Tokyo, but often refers to just the popular shopping and entertainment area found around Shibuya Station. In this regard, Shibuya is one of Tokyo's most colorful and busy districts, packed with shopping, dining and nightclubs serving swarms of visitors that come to the district every day.
Shibuya is a center for youth fashion and culture, and its streets are the birthplace to many of Japan's fashion and entertainment trends. Over a dozen major department store branches can be found around the area catering to all types of shoppers. Most of the area's large department and fashion stores belong to either Tokyu or Seibu, two competing corporations. A prominent landmark of Shibuya is the large intersection in front of the station's Hachiko Exit. The intersection is heavily decorated by neon advertisements and giant video screens and gets flooded by pedestrians each time the crossing light turns green, making it a popular photo and movie filming spot.
Shinjuku
Shinjuku is one of the 23 city wards of Tokyo, but the name commonly refers to just the large entertainment, business and shopping area around Shinjuku Station.
Shinjuku Station is the world's busiest railway station, handling more than two million passengers every day. It is served by about a dozen railway and subway lines, including the JR Yamanote Line. Shinjuku is also one of Tokyo's major stops for long-distance highway buses and city buses.
West of the station is Shinjuku's skyscraper district, home to many of Tokyo's tallest buildings, including several premier hotels and the twin towers of the Metropolitan Government Office, whose observation decks are open to the public for free.
Northeast of the station lies Kabukicho, Japan's largest and wildest red light district, while department stores, subterranean malls and electronic shops surround Shinjuku Station on all four sides, including the recently redeveloped Southern Terrace.
Tsukiji
Tsukiji Central Wholesale Market is a large market for fish, fruits and vegetables in central Tokyo. It is the most famous of over ten wholesale markets that handle the distribution of fish, meat, produce and flowers in metropolitan Tokyo. Tsukiji Market is best known as one of the world's largest fish markets, handling over 2,000 tons of marine products per day.
The sight of the many kinds of fresh fish and other seafood and the busy atmosphere of scooters, trucks, sellers and buyers hurrying around, make Tsukiji Market a major tourist attractions. In fact, the numbers of visitors have increased so much over recent years, that they have become a problem to the course of business, as the aging market's infrastructure was not anticipated to serve as a tourist spot.
Tsukiji Market consists of an inner market where most of the wholesale business and the famous tuna auctions are taking place, and an outer market whose retail shops and restaurants carter to the public. A few restaurants are also found in the inner market. In order to avoid interference with business, different rules should be followed when visiting the different areas of the market.
Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion) is located at the foot of Kinugasa hill. It is a famous structure of Muromachi period (14 - 16 Century). It was originally designed as the villa of a court noble. The second owner, Yoshimitsu Ashikaga, the 3rd shogun, greatly improved it and spends the latter part of his life there in retirement from the cares of stare. He built the Golden Pavilion and laid out the garden in 1394. His will was followed by his son as successor to change the villa into a Buddhist temple under the name of Rokuonji. It was burned down in 1950 and reconstructed in 1955.
Kiyomizu Temple is noted for its main Hall on the cliff top with a broad wooden veranda and a panoramic view of Kyoto city. The veranda is supported on a scaffold of wood towering on a wooded hillside, so the veranda seems to hang in midair. The valley is so deep that there has been the expression "jumping from the veranda of Kiyomizu temple," which means doing something daring. The present temple building was built in 1633, and its main hall has been designated as a national treasure.
Ryoanji Temple is famous for its rock garden, the best dry Japanese garden and a masterpiece by Soami (1455-1525) who was greatly influence by Zen. The garden is covered with white sand and surrounded by earthen walls. 15 rocks stand in three groups. There is no flowering plant, but you may picture the deep blue sea when viewing the rocks, and meadows, bushes, shrubs or woods when seeing the patches of moss on them. Observing the garden from different angles, you may find delicate changes in the imaginary sea.
Kodaiji is one of the many outstanding temples in Kyoto's Higashiyama district. It was constructed in 1605 in memory of Toyotomi Hideyoshi by the great political leader's wife. Besides fine temple halls, Kodaiji features a small bamboo grove and a landscape garden with tea houses, designed by leading, contemporary masters. Beautiful, Zen style illumination shows are held in Kodaiji's garden during certain times of the year.
Best known of the Kyoto shrines, Fushimi Inari is visually stunning: thousands of torii gates form an unbroken tunnel of red leading to the crest of Mount Inari.
Heian Shrine is a famous structure dedicated to Emperor Kammu, the founder of Kyoto, and the Emperor Komei, the last emperor in Kyoto. It was built to commemorate the 1,100th anniversary of the founding Kyoto in 1895. Its building, with the exception of the ferroconcrete torii gate, and are miniature replicas of the first Imperial Palace built in Kyoto, in 794. The garden behind the shrine is well known for its water lilies, roses, azaleas, maples and weeping cherry trees.
