Key areas
Marunouchi In times past, this was the choicest area, judging by the offices and the location—close to the Ginza and facing the Imperial Palace and its spacious park.
Roppongi Hills These days the key area is here. It’s where the action is—shopping, restaurants, an art gallery, a multi-choice movie complex, a sense of get-up-and-go, a mixture of Times Square and Seventh Avenue. This is the place to have your office, if you’re able to get into the Mori Tower (probably too late).
Roppongi Crossing This is the very heart of Tokyo’s thriving nightlife district, the place where all the party people meet to decide which club to go to next.
The Ginza The main shopping centre, it has half a dozen department stores plus loads of boutiques, bars and cafés.
Akasaka This city-centre entertainment district is also the home of many museums and galleries.
Others Tokyo has a circular subway line, the Yamanote Line, which connects the city’s busy commuter stations. They are Tokyo Station, Shimbashi, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro and Shinagawa. These days the bullet trains stop at Shinagawa, which is new. One other key area, not to be overlooked, is the Imperial Palace.
Getting around
Tokyo is blessed with efficient, clean public transport, so get yourself a map of the subways and learn how the system works. Subway signs are in English and Japanese. It’s a lot easier than going in a car (if you park in the street, you risk being towed) and it’s fast and incomparably cheap. The subway system closes down round about midnight, and after that it’s a taxi or nothing. If you have luggage, though, especially Western-style, bulky stuff, you’ve got to go by taxi.
A useful rule to remember, when setting out for Tokyo, is to try not to burden yourself with big bags. There are no, or only very few, porters at Tokyo station, and nowhere else.
On the subway, nowhere in Tokyo is more than 40 minutes away. Some hotels are too far from the subways, it is true. In such cases, fall back on the taxis. The meter starts at €3.30 and that will get you to the nearest subway. Alternatively, you can walk, which is always the best way to get to know a city.
Shopping
Long, long ago the yen shot up and the dollar and the pound went down. Tokyo is not a place for bargains, unless it’s a particular print that you hanker after or you’re in search of books about Japan (the second-hand variety). For the latter,
Jimbocho is where you should be headed. It has the best selection of second-hand books on Japan anywhere. Mind you, they’re not cheap.
Most things can be picked up at any one of the big department stores. The focus of shoppers is along the axis of NihonbashiGinza, the location of all the big stores. You really can’t beat them. They all have information desks on the ground floors, with shy girls in hats and uniforms. Some speak a little English. Recommended is Mitsukoshi on Nihonbashi, the mother and father of all department stores, or Takashimaya just up the street. Over in the Ginza, Matsuya and Matsuzakaya are worth a visit.
Gifts to buy
Look around for ceramics or lacquer bowls, or an occasional Japanese edible. Need presents for the family? There never was a more practical, pleasant gift from Japan than the yukata, the cotton garment the Japanese wear at night.
For a big item, if you’re feeling strong, carry off a magnum of sake, specifying that it must be dry (karakuchi). It might come from Niigata, a good spot for Japanese rice wines. A yukata will cost you [00a3]15 plus, assuming it is a nemaki for sleeping. As for sake, that big fat bottle is going to set you back €10 or so. Chill the sake before serving.
Things to do
Take a walk round the circumference of the grounds of the Imperial Palace (it takes 40 minutes, or 20 minutes for a jogger), or stroll through Akihabara, the world’s largest concentration of consumer electronics (until China takes off in this field). Have a wander through the back streets in a residential district like Nippori. Japan has a unique culture, and you see it in the construction of the homes, old or new, and in the way people use their tiny gardens or hang out the laundry. This is the Japan that charms.
For a special walking treat, head into the grounds of the palace at Otemon, opposite the Palace Hotel. Entrance is free and you can get in at any time up to 4.30pm. Get a feel from the massive walls and the moats for what feudal Edo (the predecessor of Tokyo) was like. The walls and gates belong to an era when Edo is believed to have been the largest city in the world.
Those who are bent on self-improvement, and who want to see either ethnic Japan or contemporary Tokyo, have a tremendous range of choices. Classical Japanese theatre programmes are almost as long as Wagner’s Ring cycle, so do your homework. For the ethnic side, we suggest either the Noh (if you’re feeling austere) or the Kabuki (if you’re in a baroque mood). Get your hotel to call up the theatres to find out what’s on.
The Kabuki-Za, the main Kabuki theatre in Higashi Ginza, is probably the single most impressive cultural experience in Tokyo. The thing about the Kabuki is that you can walk in and out; and they have programmes in English to tell you what’s going on. They also have headphones, but don’t use these if you want to hear the music and the voices—and the raucous cries from the audience. As for the Noh, get your hotel to call the theatre as they don’t speak English. The Noh attracted Irish poet WB Yeats and the great Ezra Pound. It can be sleep-inducing, but the Japanese themselves just dose off when they feel like it.
As for contemporary Tokyo, there probably is no safer bet than the Mori Art Museum or MAM. This opened in 2003 under a British director, David Elliott, and has consistently put on the most exciting modern and classical art exhibitions.
The other great direction to take for exhibitions would be Ueno Park but, more and more, the great museums seem out of step or behind the times.
For example, many of the big national museums close at 4.30pm. By contrast, the MAM is open until 10pm, seven nights a week. It cares more and it shows in the quality of the exhibitions, which dwell more on newcomers and contemporary art and less on big names than the Ueno museums. That said, comb your copy of Metropolis for classical items at the Tokyo National Museum (Tel: 3822 1111). This is a huge, rambling institution, and at any given time there are a dozen choices of exhibitions, small and large, permanent and temporary. Tokyo has the finest bunch of art museums in Asia, as well as a range of classical and pop concerts unrivalled in these parts.
Excursions
There is always one big destination: Mount Fuji. Getting up to the sacred mountain, in the Hakone district, takes no more than an hour. For this you may hire a car and go up the Chuo Expressway. Once up at the top (if you’re lucky and it’s not one of those cloudy days), you find yourself on Lake Yamanaka. There’s an abundance of shops and cafés and restaurants up there. Don’t go to the local Denny’s or Colonel Sanders (they’re for the locals), but try a noodle shop.
Up on the mountain, again close to the lake, you can seek out the Yukio Mishima Literary Museum. This contains the writer’s manuscripts, his first editions, photos, his desk and his library.
Spare yourself the guided tours and the buses on other excursions. Get your hotel to book you on a train from Tokyo station to take you out to the Izu Peninsula. This is the most picturesque scenery outside the capital, Hakone apart. The crowds are less pressing than around Mount Fuji, and there is the sea. The white sand beaches of Shimoda, the last station on the line, rank as special. The water is clean, as are the beaches. Stay at the Shimoda Tokyu Hotel (Tel: 0558 22 2411), a venerable establishment with an open-air pool on a bluff above the sea, surrounded by pine forests.
To get a feel for provincial Japan—half the population still lives at a much slower pace, outside the big cities —take a train up to Mito, just an hour from Tokyo. Mito is the capital of Ibaraki prefecture, and it’s nothing special.
Still, you can see the old prefectural head office and call in on the Mito Art Museum, designed by Arata Isozaki, and stay a night at a local hotel. Japan isn’t just Tokyo, and going up there, sampling the local delicacies and strolling in the grounds of the former Kencho, the old seat of the prefectural government, may give you a feel for the daily lives of most Japanese. Try the Keisei Hotel (Tel: 029 226 3111).
Tourist traps
Probably the best advice is: when in doubt, ask. The hotels in Tokyo are staffed by courteous, alert, capable and mostly quite young people. They’re there to help you, so let them. Don’t try to do things by yourself. Unless you speak Japanese, and preferably read it as well, you simply won’t get things done. The other, more specific, piece of advice is this: refrain from walking into clubs in the Ginza or in any other nightclub area unless you’ve done a shade of preparation—again with the help of your hotel staff. It is still the case, as it has been for a long time, that a few private clubs charge the earth.
God knows for what as they’re usually as boring as can be.
Convention centres
There are basically three main convention areas, apart from the big hotels (they all do convention business if they’re of any size).
Makuhari is on the edge of town, halfway to Narita Airport. One big hotel there is the Makuhari Prince Hotel, Mihamaku-Hibino 2-3, Chiba City, Tel: 043 296 1111. Harumi is more conveniently located in central Tokyo.
The single biggest hotel in this part of the city is the Imperial.
Tokyo International Forum, Marunouchi 3-5-1, Chiyoda-Ku, Tel: 5221 9000. This late ’80s facility, built in the financially booming Bubble era with appropriately dramatic architecture, is right in the heart of Tokyo. Again, the Imperial is the nearest big hotel. Otherwise, for a smaller hotel, try the Four Seasons.