The Japanese capital is a tourist-friendly city as compared to many other destinations around the world
WE had always been under the impression that Japan is an expensive country. That coupled with the language barrier had my better half worried over my choice for the next vacation. What if we got on the wrong train and were stranded in the middle of some Japanese street?
Still being a husband obeying wife, she yielded to my arguments that ‘once in a blue moon it is healthy for a married couple to splurge without watching the wallet’. So, earlier in the year, while on our way to Los Angeles, we stayed in Tokyo for a few nights. We had a good time, ate well and stayed well. We talked with actual Japanese people who spoke actual English (or something close enough). And when they didn’t speak English, we still managed to communicate. And we did all of this by following the advice of a fellow Japanese traveller. Eat where Japanese eat, take a hotel Japanese would and when they are dining or hoteling at an expense account.
Just to have a sense of how expensive it could be, we made a dry run of trendy joints — Kamon, a teppanyaki restaurant in Toyko’s luxury-level Imperial Hotel, where a dinner featuring a 500-gram (about a pound) portion of prized Matsuzaka beef was priced about $235 (including miso soup, rice, dessert and coffee). That’s per person.
At the same hotel, the special “best course” sushi dinner at Sushigen runs $215 per person. But ordinary Japanese people don’t go there and therefore we didn’t.
We went to Ginza Tenkuni. It’s a famous, century-old tempura restaurant with prices slightly expensive because of its Ginza location. Dinner for two: $37. Likewise, at Chin-ya, also in Tokyo, dinner for two cost $54.
These aren’t the cheap, storefront noodle joints favoured by the blue-collared crowd. But these are restaurants that are patronized by well-dressed Japanese on a night out with friends and couples enjoying a special evening.
For accommodation, we found Sunroute Asakusa most suited to our criteria, that of a good location near public transportation and restaurants and an own bathroom with a hairdryer.
Our room was reasonably large and like most things Japanese, immaculate. The TV was big enough and had enough channels; there was a minibar and same-day valet service; the phone had a modem connection. The cost, per night, including all taxes; $130.
There was no shortage of restaurants, a newsstand was around the corner, and the Asakusa metro stop was three blocks away — at a gate to one of Tokyo’s absolutely essential tourist stops, Sensoji Temple.
Unlike New York, Tokyo is a great city for strolling, thanks to the lack of street crime. We explored it mostly on two legs. It was astounding, titillating or lovely when, specially, one strolls Shinjuku, where visitors arrive via Shinjuku Station, perhaps the world’s busiest commuter station.
A thickly woven web of subway and Japan Railways (JR) lines deposit about three million Japanese here each day. Pass through the automated turnstiles, and you are confronted by an underground maze of shops and restaurants.
Climb the stairs to the busy Shinjuku-dori street. Look for a drive-in sized TV screen, Studio Alta; people often meet beneath the screen.
From here, we walk a few short blocks to Kinokuniya, one of Tokyo’s largest bookstores. Here, our level of interest was in its sixth-floor English-language department. To our left is Isetan, where young salary men and office ladies buy business apparel. Across Shinkuku-dori is Mitsukoshi, the Macy’s of Japan. At either side, ride the elevator to the basement and enter the marvellous world of the food court, Tokyo-style.
And what food! You can find Japanese specialties — bento boxes packed with fish or chicken, rice and pickled vegetables; tempura; udon and soba noodles; desserts in pastel yellows, purples and greens, often shaped like fruit — and wonderful French bakeries and perhaps the best Chinese food one can sample.
Assemble a picnic lunch, exit Mitsukoshi and turn right on Shinjuku-dori. Two blocks later, turn right on a side street with a wide, tree-dotted median strip. One short block brings you to the entrance of Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden.
This is one of Tokyo’s great attractions. For one thing, the admission is roughly $1.90. For another, gardens are a Japanese passion and we never saw one that outshone Shinjuku Gyoen. Completed in 1906, this 144-acre preserve is one of the city’s largest parks and a stroller’s paradise.
The 1500 cherry trees here represent dozens of varieties, some blooming in mid-February, others achieving their fluffy, transient glory in late April. Moon bridges arch across koi- stocked ponds. Tea houses offer sweeping views of flowering shrubs and Himalayan cedars, framed by western Shinjuku’s skyscrapers.
Walk east through hills thick with azaleas and maples. Climb to the French formal garden, where rows of plane trees stand like sentries. Turn west and, aiming for the gate where you had entered, pass through the gentle English landscape garden. We had our fill of serenity, retraced our steps to Shinjuku-dori, passed Kinokuniya, turned right at the next corner and walked to the busy Yasukuni-dori. Cross this thoroughfare and slip into any of the alleys on the far side. Welcome to the notorious Kabuki-cho.
Some visitors save the tour of this “pleasure quarter” for the night, when it is most raucous. Even in early afternoon, the neon is ablaze and the touts — some speaking English, most not — steer tourists to strip clubs. The pedestrian streets are lined with porn shops, “love hotels”, theatres featuring live acts of various degrees of innocence and “soaplands”.
Leave Kabuki-cho and follow Shinjuku-dori west. Pass beneath the railroad tracks and come around to Shinjuku station’s western entrance. With the Keio depato at your back, proceed west five blocks.
The giant complex to your left — twin 48-story towers rising over a plaza as wide as a football field and a low, semi-circular structure — is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office. Each of city hall’s towers has a 45th-floor observation deck that is free and open to the public. On clear days, especially in winter, you may be rewarded with a vision of Fuji-san glowing in the sunset.
The elevators here run until 5pm and the observation decks sell coffee, soda and souvenirs. When you are ready for something more substantial, drop from the sky and cross to the eastern side of the street. At the corner is the Shinjuku NS Building.
Bland and businesslike on the outside, the NS reveals its charms inside. An atrium soars 30 stories to the glass ceiling and a tall clock keeps time in the lobby. If it’s dinner time, board one of the glass elevators and ride to the 29th floor. Here, you’ll find an assortment of restaurants: Japanese (expensive shabu-shabu), Japanese (less expensive (yakitori and sashimi), Italian (moderate).
Next day it was onto Kyoto. Here, in the historic capital of Japan, we wanted to experience a traditional, Japanese-style inn, a ryokan, the kind where your bed is a mattress rolled out onto tatami mats. The ryokans that include elaborate in-room kaiseki dinners and pampering spa treatments can be Churchillian in price; we found Ryokan Heianbo. Cost, per night, including breakfast and all taxes: $137. Breakfast, included different kinds of fish, rice, soup, tofu, salad, pickles, fruit and tea, beautifully and cheerfully presented.
About three blocks from Kyoto Station (which is also the city’s central subway station and bus terminal), the inn was an easy walk to Higashi-Hongashi Temple and to other good things, including restaurants.
Nevertheless, there’s a barrier. Most Japanese either speak no English or decline to embarrass themselves by speaking it poorly to an English speaking visitor. Many restaurant signs are only in Japanese script.
On the other hand: most personnel in hotels that deal with tourists speak passable English. All major stores and many small shops seem to have someone on staff who speaks English.
Restaurants typically have at least one designated English — speaking server and at least one English menu — or a menu with colour photos of the offerings. At restaurants that don’t, servers routinely walk patrons outside to the plastic models, where they can simply point to their selections.
Signs, explanations and literature in museums and shrines in Tokyo and Kyoto are almost always bilingual.
Route maps and stop announcements (voice and written) in trains, subways and buses are almost always bilingual. And here’s something else. One night in Tokyo, we took a different stairway up to sidewalk level at Asakusa subway station and were disoriented. A few steps ahead, a woman was passing out leaflets advertising a bar; we asked, in our way, if she could tell us where we could find Sensoji Temple, where we could get our bearings.
That woman, who evidently spoke almost no English but understood “Sensoji,” walked us two blocks to within sight of the temple. We thanked her; she bowed and smiled. We had to ask her for a leaflet!
More than once, an open map on a street corner, or just a look of bafflement at a subway station, brought help from a local who did not speak English but wanted to help.
Some of the interesting places and items, we would recommend:
SENSOJI TEMPLE, TOKYO: Along with being strikingly beautiful, it’s bordered by some of the city’s most interesting streets.
TSUKIJI FISH MARKET, TOKYO: If you haven’t seen this, you’ve never seen anything like it. Then have a sushi breakfast.
KAISEKI: These multi-course dinners can be a bit of a splurge, but the better ones are everything fine about Japanese cuisine and sensibilities.
KAMAKURA: A day-trip out of Tokyo. A Great Buddha and other shrines, plus fine shopping and in mid-November, kids in kimonos.
NARA: A day-trip out in Kyoto. Temples, a Greater Buddha, millions of lanterns and tame deer everywhere.
GARDENS: Big and small, public and backyard. Blossoms in spring, brilliant red maples in late fall.
TEMPLE OF THE GOLDEN PAVILION, KYOTO: Catch it on a clear day when the late-afternoon Sun hits it just right. Warning: Wear shades.
THE BULLET TRAINS: Fast, comfortable and on time. What a concept!
THE PEOPLE: They are generous of spirit and helpful to strangers.
LANGUAGE BARRIER? Like a lot of barriers, like a lot of irrational fears, they can be overcome by the will of good people. So it is in Japan.
The Japanese capital is a tourist-friendly city as compared to many other destinations around the world
