Traveling to japan this august...

I'm going to travel to japan and i wanted some suggestions about places to visit, shop games and weirdness, museums, cheap places to eat, pawn shops , places were to find a girl ecc ecc. i'm still planning the travel so i can still adjust the route, but we've tought to stay 5 days in kyoto and 7 in tokyo.

maybe we could even meet there....

feel free to suggest anything!

thanx, karsten

 

Oh man, this kind of topic turns up about once every 2 months... so from my limited experience:

- Get a JR pass because it's supposedly cheaper than a round-trip from Tokyo to Kyoto, and that way you can go to Osaka etc. too on the Shinkansen
- Don't bother trying to climb Mt. Fuji (go to Hakone, so I've been told)
- go to Ohara, it has a nice beach and a Hard-Off along the way
- go to Harajuku to sample the weirdness and potentially buy odd clothing
- in general, do a lot of pointless walking around
- for girls, visit Club 911 in Roppongi (sadly I don't know the address, but who understands Japanese addresses anyway? Especially at night, when drunk)
- buy food at Shop 99 (and buy their CD too!)
- visit Akihabara, dont mind people saying its "ripoff" because it's still 50 times cheaper than Europe

 

not bad as a start

where is it? and (i'm not english) what is a "Hard-Off"?

I tought to do so, but why are you suggesting it?

 

Hard-off is a pretty decent (or so im led to believe) Japanese games shop

 

uuuuuuhhhhh nice...

any of these on tokyo and kyoto?

and used items shops?

 

there is also akihabara, the electronics district

 

I've found out about the hard-off shops, and they look great... by the way i would have a problem there... how can i tell what defect have the machine there? i bet they don't display explanation in english.....

you know, you can't take back too much thing on the plane... and i would prefer not to get back with multiple copy of the same hardware only for being sure of having it in working order

by the way, are these shops hard to find?

 

good luck finding Hard Off in Tokyo... I failed miserably. If you go to Ohara, you can take the "Soboto local" train (not the other Soboto as that skips stations along the way) and get off at... errrr.... I'm not really sure, somewhere between Oami and Mobara. Best is to look out on the way to Ohara, there's this tiny station at about 20 minutes of walking from the Hard-Off (if you're as desperate as me to visit one). And walking around pointlessly is so much fun if you're fascinated by the "normal" Japanese life (like me), you get to see lots of interesting but hidden things and some interesting stores as well

 

Hi ^_^ (newbie) - I've been looking around, tons of posts I wanna post in, but I'll start with this as it applies to me to a certain extent, as I too will be going to Japan in august for 1 month.. I'll be in Okazaki though, so quite far from tokyo, 20mins by train from Nagoya though which aint too bad...

Last time I was over there I found a cool street in Nagoya, well more of an alley.. (by british standards anyway) and it was filled with 2nd hand computer shops and the likes, but that was over a year ago, I can barely remember where Japan is at this point, nevermind that place haha... Don't s'pose any of the Japan living people know Nagoya at all...

Also, "Hard-Off" I assume is a relation to "Book-Off" , they are all over the place from what I remember (book-off) I'm supprised Hard-Off is not easier to find.

 

Yes, Hard Off and Book Off which sounds like "Fuck Off" when Japanese say it :happyhap: are part of the same company. THere's also House Off as well. Sometimes the bigger Book Off shops sell games but for some reason they don't accept credit cards whilst Hard Off do. Hard Off will also accept US Dolars and give you change in Japanese yen

Yakumo

 

That's so very odd, doesnt suprise me in the least, but its still really odd.. haha.

On the subject of my mythical Nagoya Alley, i may have to do the unthinkable... ring up my ex and ask her where it was (she lives there) >.<!! When I find it, I shall share the knowledge, cos it was very cool

 

great really great and thanx for the help!

so none managed to find a hard-off in tokyo? this is really BAD! I'm with 3 friends and i can't take too much detours :/

 

You can go on Hard Off's site and find the addresses of their Tokyo stores but it won't be easy without a driving native! I never got to one :\

 

there's one in Tachikawa, I think. Where the hell that is, I have no clue. And DONT go to the one in Nishi-Funabashi (Chiba), the building plainly isn't there and none of the natives knew what I was talking about :smt1069

 

wow...

anyway, any suggestion for were to eat good and cheap food in tokyo and japan in general?

 

Just about anywhere will have a bunch of Japanese restaurants with a lunch special where you can eat a nice meal for about 800 yen or less. Very few of them will have an English menu though.

 

are you sure you didn't mistape? 800 yen?

 

800 yen sounds about right. Otherwise, if you have access to a microwave, you can buy dinner at Shop 99 (open 24 hours) for 150-200 yen. It's ok on the single occasion when you're strapped for cash, but I wouldn't rely on it for too long :smt043

 

They must have macdonalds there!

 

They do, the Teriyaki Burger owns! I think its about 250 yen, wash it down with a few 100 yen milkshakes (yeah, I was quite surprised at McDonalds being a lot cheaper than in my home country)