Tokyo, Japan

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gauze

Molten Core Raider
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TJT TJT Chysamere Chysamere

When were you planning to go TJT? I was there over the summer from June-July and Mt Fuji was pretty much closed during my time in June? or I was informed that. Ended up doing my 'mountaining' while passing through Miyajima using the amazing railpass. It's like the golden ticket every Japanese citizen wishes they could obtain. If you got the time, extra dough, and the interests. dem onsens $$

Japan Rail Pass (JR Pass)

I found Akihabara kinda disappointing. It wasn't until I found this black cat cafe's side bar when they run business into the night. It was down a few alleyways and up in a small hole in the wall elevator. It was mostly made great because the first door we opened was pretty much a broom closet, fit to be someones room/house but no one in there. The super sentai porn shop was pretty lol, impressive at the amount of sentai porn in one location. It was like down an industrial flight of stairs and through a sketchy hallway.

Koenji was my low-key favorite. Big on thrift culture there, but honestly just feels like its a couple years behind the crashing neon/busy tokyo life and homely almost 90's esq.

I'll be heading down at this end of this month, be there from April 1st to August 8th. I don't know what kinda peers i'll be with, but i'm dying to at least say i've done Mt Fuji once.
 
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TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
<Gold Donor>
42,699
108,942
TJT TJT Chysamere Chysamere

When were you planning to go TJT? I was there over the summer from June-July and Mt Fuji was pretty much closed during my time in June? or I was informed that. Ended up doing my 'mountaining' while passing through Miyajima using the amazing railpass. It's like the golden ticket every Japanese citizen wishes they could obtain. If you got the time, extra dough, and the interests. dem onsens $$

Japan Rail Pass (JR Pass)

I found Akihabara kinda disappointing. It wasn't until I found this black cat cafe's side bar when they run business into the night. It was down a few alleyways and up in a small hole in the wall elevator. It was mostly made great because the first door we opened was pretty much a broom closet, fit to be someones room/house but no one in there. The super sentai porn shop was pretty lol, impressive at the amount of sentai porn in one location. It was like down an industrial flight of stairs and through a sketchy hallway.

Koenji was my low-key favorite. Big on thrift culture there, but honestly just feels like its a couple years behind the crashing neon/busy tokyo life and homely almost 90's esq.

I'll be heading down at this end of this month, be there from April 1st to August 8th. I don't know what kinda peers i'll be with, but i'm dying to at least say i've done Mt Fuji once.

I won't be setting dates or anything until next month. Have a trip this month and some other stuff to do then will put together my Japan Plan.
 

Chysamere

FF14 Free Company Master
<WoW Guild Officer>
3,487
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Railpass is an absolute must if you're going to take more than one shinkansen. If you're only going to take one, like a trip to Osaka and back again, it doesn't make sense economically. Especially in Tokyo you need to manually have the station attendant check it rather than just swipe your card and move on like normal people.
 

joz123

Potato del Grande
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9,460
When is the cheapest time of the year to get flights to Japan? Always wanted to go there but the flights are expensive.
 

Armadon

<Bronze Donator>
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I paid 800 in July on Korean Air. Bought the ticket about 2 months in advance of going. 2 stops with long layovers though. Took me about 24 hours to get there.
 

Xarpolis

Life's a Dream
14,643
16,328
I'm a pure English guy. My wife is Japanese, but the only things I can say in Japanese are "See ya!", "shut up", "delicious" and "cute". The rest is English.

That said, I did fine in Tokyo. The city is EXTREMELY English friendly. More so than the rest of Japan, that's for sure. I was able to walk up to Japanese 10's on the street or in the subway and chat with them. They were eager to speak with me. Chys told me it was so they could practice English in a conversational way, but who knows.
 

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
17,086
13,608
Railpass is an absolute must if you're going to take more than one shinkansen. If you're only going to take one, like a trip to Osaka and back again, it doesn't make sense economically. Especially in Tokyo you need to manually have the station attendant check it rather than just swipe your card and move on like normal people.

This x100. If you plan to do any traveling in the country, GET THE RAILPASS. You have virtually unlimited travel, including 1st/business class on the bullet trains, for the duration of the pass. When I went, just a trip between Kyoto and Tokyo pretty much paid for the thing. Only thing to keep in mind is I think they broke down the railpasses based on where you wanted to travel (northern vs. southern), but maybe it is different now.

Oh ya, if you plan to spend a lot of time in Tokyo, get the subway pass/card. It is rechargable and makes transfers super easy. You can also turn it in when you leave and get your deposit back (was like $5 or something along those lines), plus you don't have to wait in line at the automated ticket purchasing systems and count out all the change.

Also, rent a pocket wifi from one of the Japanese communication carriers before you go. I rented one for 2 weeks and the price was pretty reasonable. When I went, I rented one from one of the carriers and it was waiting for me at the hotel when I arrived. There isn't much in the way of public wifi, so being able to use data on your phone everywhere w/o getting molested by your cellphone carrier is a godsend.

That said, I did fine in Tokyo. The city is EXTREMELY English friendly. More so than the rest of Japan, that's for sure. I was able to walk up to Japanese 10's on the street or in the subway and chat with them. They were eager to speak with me. Chys told me it was so they could practice English in a conversational way, but who knows.

When in doubt, they love baseball there. General knowledge of American baseball isn't super amazing beyond some of the major teams (they all know the Yankees lol) and Japanese superstars like Tanaka or Ichiro. When I was in Hiroshima, a bunch of kids doing a school project for an English class came up to us at the memorial park and each had to ask us question in English, then write down the response. One of the kids asked all baseball questions lol
 

Alex

Still a Music Elitist
14,665
7,482
How much is one of those pocket WiFis? I've never heard of that. That's pretty rad. Verizon isn't terrible with the international data plans at $10/day but if you can rent one of those for $20/week or something that's a great deal.
 

Armadon

<Bronze Donator>
3,694
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Check and see if you get a pocket wifi with your hotel room. I know in some of the places I stayed the hotel provided one as long as you stayed there.
 

gauze

Molten Core Raider
1,092
373
I can't recall specifically, but I got 8gb internet sim card for my phone for only 50$ for 30 days at Yodobashi.

Prolonged period, and ease.. would it be better to get the sim card or pocket wifi?
 

Chysamere

FF14 Free Company Master
<WoW Guild Officer>
3,487
3,198
I can't recall specifically, but I got 8gb internet sim card for my phone for only 50$ for 30 days at Yodobashi.

Prolonged period, and ease.. would it be better to get the sim card or pocket wifi?

Depends on your needs. Pocket Wifi is better if you need it on multiple devices and you can still get emergency calls from home on your regular cell number if you have roaming activated.

The pre-paid Sim cards have no phone number so you can't be called at all and they can be a bit fiddly to activate, requiring that you follow instructions. They are definitely cheaper though, for example, ヨドバシ.com - 日本通信 JCI BM-VSC-5GB21DN [b-mobile VISITOR SIM 5GB/21Days prepaid(Nano SIM)] 通販【全品無料配達】
 

Korrupt

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,832
1,228
I won't be setting dates or anything until next month. Have a trip this month and some other stuff to do then will put together my Japan Plan.

Taking my little brother in August for 10 days without the wives. The only thing I know for sure is I want to hit up Akihabara for anime and I want to take him to eat high end sushi and wagyu.

Chysamere Chysamere will hit you up in Discord soon and see what you recommend. Would be cool to invite some of you nerds out to dinner / drink my treat who live there too :)
 

Chysamere

FF14 Free Company Master
<WoW Guild Officer>
3,487
3,198
Taking my little brother in August for 10 days without the wives. The only thing I know for sure is I want to hit up Akihabara for anime and I want to take him to eat high end sushi and wagyu.

Chysamere Chysamere will hit you up in Discord soon and see what you recommend. Would be cool to invite some of you nerds out to dinner / drink my treat who live there too :)

Sounds like a plan. I'm heading back to Australia for a bit but I'll be back June 2 and up for doing stuff.
 

Zaide

TLP Idealist
3,903
4,751
Taking my little brother in August for 10 days without the wives. The only thing I know for sure is I want to hit up Akihabara for anime and I want to take him to eat high end sushi and wagyu.

Chysamere Chysamere will hit you up in Discord soon and see what you recommend. Would be cool to invite some of you nerds out to dinner / drink my treat who live there too :)

Korrupt you and I should get a chu-hi while you're out here.
 

Korrupt

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,832
1,228
Damn canned grapefruit sounds good, the Mexicans do a bottled Jarrito's that is so good but its non alcoholic. I'm really excited to plan this out, I am a huge anime fan of the ones that usually involve fighting like Naruto, DBZ, HxH, Beserk, and even Fairy Tale. Hoping to get into some real weeb stuff over there and spend some money on toys for my computer room.

I read I can get into Jiro's Sushi place but you need to call the month before you come and having a contact makes the reservation easier. Going to see what I can do via contacts but I definitely want to see other places. Pretty much the entire trip is going to be video games, anime, and food.
 

Chysamere

FF14 Free Company Master
<WoW Guild Officer>
3,487
3,198
Damn canned grapefruit sounds good, the Mexicans do a bottled Jarrito's that is so good but its non alcoholic. I'm really excited to plan this out, I am a huge anime fan of the ones that usually involve fighting like Naruto, DBZ, HxH, Beserk, and even Fairy Tale. Hoping to get into some real weeb stuff over there and spend some money on toys for my computer room.

I read I can get into Jiro's Sushi place but you need to call the month before you come and having a contact makes the reservation easier. Going to see what I can do via contacts but I definitely want to see other places. Pretty much the entire trip is going to be video games, anime, and food.

Jiro's Sushi is famous but honestly not the best. Look into making a reservation at Kyuubey or Sushi Saitou instead.

I live about 5 minutes walk from Akihabara, which is weeb central, so I'll be happy to show you around that area. After a day walking around there, what you want is Yakiniku.
 
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Korrupt

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,832
1,228
Jiro's Sushi is famous but honestly not the best. Look into making a reservation at Kyuubey or Sushi Saitou instead.

I live about 5 minutes walk from Akihabara, which is weeb central, so I'll be happy to show you around that area. After a day walking around there, what you want is Yakiniku.

Both of those suggestions look perfect, one for lunch and Sushi Saitou for dinner one night. I for sure want to take my brother to as many crazy places as possible. Part of the reason I am taking him along is that he is opening a new Ramen restaurant in the Miami area next year and they just closed on the property. He's doing higher end food since its a hipster / rich area, but mainly its a Ramen restaurant and bar with Izakaya.
 

Chysamere

FF14 Free Company Master
<WoW Guild Officer>
3,487
3,198
Both of those suggestions look perfect, one for lunch and Sushi Saitou for dinner one night. I for sure want to take my brother to as many crazy places as possible. Part of the reason I am taking him along is that he is opening a new Ramen restaurant in the Miami area next year and they just closed on the property. He's doing higher end food since its a hipster / rich area, but mainly its a Ramen restaurant and bar with Izakaya.

I approve of that, Ramen is one of my hobbies. I've visited about 130 ramen restaurants so far, most of the famous ones. I hope he plans to hit up all the best ones while he's here.

He should look into Tori Kizoku as the type of Izakaya that western people really like.