Tokyo, Japan

Stunning, stimulating and seductive.

Tokyo is a stunning, stimulating and seductive city. Boasting a cacophony of contrasts, Japan’s megalopolis is by turns thrilling, intriguing and exhausting. Chaotic and noisy or patient zen-like calm. Soaring skyscrapers or tiny hidden backstreet shrines. In between the relentless hoots and whirs of the pachinko gaming parlors, the crazy clamor of traffic and the Shinto and Buddhist Shrines.

Tokyo offers an impossible amount to take in with its barrage of sights and sensations – the Imperial Palace, Hie Shrine, Meiji Shrine, Asakusa Shrine, Tsukiji Fish Market, Kabuki-cho Theater, Akihabara Electric Town, the bright lights, bars and karaoke boxes of Roppongi, the shopping streets of Omotesando and Aoyama, the hipster kids of Harajuku, the funky design stores of Shibuya and at least 100,000 restaurants.

Shinjuku

Entertainment Centre

In the west of Tokyo you can find one of the busiest stations in the world with over four million daily passengers, and here you can experience a real clash of cultures as anything you can imagine can be found here.

Office workers commute here to work in one of the office buildings while closer to the ground on the streets tourists and shoppers check out the amazing range of retailers and department stores, like the Odakyu Department Store Shinjuku.

As if to serve as a reminder of what nature looks like you can also find the very large Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, which offers a nice contrast to all the office buildings. By day and night people pack into one of the many restaurants, such as Itamae Sushi, a restaurant that has won the first-of-the-year tuna auction four years in a row, or party in one of the izakayas or karaoke joints until late at night.

Other late night drinkers will often find their way to the Golden Gai, with its 288 tiny bars parked into an area smaller than a soccer field.

Asakusa

Sensoji Temple

Asakusa – the streets are crowded at the Kaminarimon gate as is the walkway to Sensoji Temple is lined by small shops selling souvenirs, snack boxes, candy, ice-creams and T Shirts.

The diverse visitors include couples in rented kimonos, schoolchildren and tourists from all around the globe. The nearby streets are the very definition of shitamachi, or old town, you can see stalls which seem unchanged from hundreds of years ago, crafts at Edo-Shitamachi Traditional Crafts Hall and on a pretty much monthly basis there is some kind of festival going on.

Shibuya

Shibuya Crossing

Shibuya has the most famous crossing in the world and is Japan’s “youth capital,” though it also attracts so many young travelers of the world it might be the earth’s “youth capital!”

Every day the streets are packed with young people alongside office workers, while at night the same people flock to the local izakayas and restaurants in the back streets. Shibuya is also famous for its many shops and department stores like Parco and Marui.

If you ever meet friends here it is more than likely they will say to meet them at the statue of Hachiko at the front of the station. If you are in Tokyo during New Year’s Eve then check out the countdown at Shibuya Crossing.

Marunouchi

Tokyo Station

The red-brick facade of the beautifully restored Tokyo Station Marunouchi Station building is one of the city’s most striking pieces of architecture, especially distinctive against the glass and steel of neighboring skyscrapers. Behind it lies one of the city’s key transport hubs, connecting the country through bullet trains that run to Hakodate in the far north and to Fukuoka in the far south. Not only does the station contain a wealth of shopping and eating opportunities, but the surrounding areas also offer some of the city’s best sights, from the impressive Marunouchi financial district to Nihonbashi, the downtown center of Edo, the Tokyo of the past.

Hop off a train, and head for one of the Marunouchi exits to go west, where you’ll find yourself just a stone’s throw from the Imperial Palace. Or take Yaesu exit to go east, where you’re just a few minutes’ walk from the commercial districts of Ginza and Nihonbashi.

Ginza

In the eastern center of Tokyo you can find a shopping mecca, Ginza takes shopping to a whole new level, and then tops it.

This Tokyo neighborhood is dominated by department stores such as Ginza Mitsukoshi and Matsuya Ginza, and every conceivable brand that you can think of. One of the newest, and coolest department stores to visit is Tokyu Plaza Ginza.

It is literally store after store of high-class brands from around the world as well as old Japanese ones, and every gap in-between presents the delights of different cafes and restaurants. It is a delight just to window shop, while the shoppers themselves eye up the best of what the top brands have to offer.

Tokyo Park Hyatt Hotel

Whiskey Bar

“Lost In Translation’ starred Bill Murray as an out of work movie actor who has been offered the job of promoting a Japanese whiskey.

He meet a woman played by Scarlett Johansen in the Whiskey Bar at the Park Hyatt.

The movie elevated the Park Hyatt to the most famous luxury hotels in the Tokyo.

On this visit to Tokyo I finally got the chance to have a drink (or two) in the famous New York (Whiskey Bar) and managed to blow the budget on the second night in Tokyo.

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