The Ultimate Guide To Tokyo
Discount ticket shops have been around for about as long as there have been tickets. Typically you’ll find them under elevated railway tracks, or squeezed into small spaces between buildings. The deals seem impossibly good but the grimy appearance of […]
This was one of the installations at Roppongi Art Night which was held recently. The event itself is free and spread over three locations in Roppongi/Akasaka. This particular piece of art outside the National Art Center Tokyo caught my eye as […]
With the hard economic times of late there’s been a revolution in the pricing of this malt beverage in Tokyo. Although there are smaller and larger variants, the standard for serving beer in Japan is the ‘chuu jockey’ glass which […]
Tokyo is a city almost completely devoid of green, an in particular lush green grass. Where there is grass of any quality in Tokyo, it tends to be surrounded by a fence with 立ち入り禁止 (keep out) written on it, or […]
Tokyo is a major venue for food and drink related trade shows. The huge and affluent Japanese market is a big draw to foreign food exporters and also events aimed at the domestic hospitality industry are enormous in scale. The […]
Harajuku is famous for its street fashion. Pop stars Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani and Kimbra all state the influence of Japanese fashion and visit the area when they are in town. A recent trip to the famous Takeshita Dori by […]
This restaurant is permanently closed As I mentioned last time, being a cheapo in no way means settling for inferior quality. So today I’d like to share with you a real gem I found in Shibuya a few years back. […]
Westerners who have eaten at one of the many noodle eateries throughout Japan will no doubt be familiar with the local custom of noisy slurping. I personally love this little gem of cultural difference, it’s always fascinating to see a […]
Summer evenings in Japan are a great time of year to enjoy a few beers and otsumami (snacks consumed with drinks) with friends in the open air. Aside from expensive restaurants with terraces, there are two popular options – rooftop […]
As I’m not very interested in the brand stores that line Omotesando, I couldn’t help noticing the little coffee truck parked just off the main drag on a side street next to the Benetton shop. This is one of four […]
We’ve recently covered some of Tokyo’s cheapest supermarkets but we have some more gems to share with you still. Don Quijote or Donki (as it is known colloquially) is more than just a supermarket, rather a super cheapo version of […]
So we’ve all discovered Roppongi—the hub of Tokyo nightlife, brimming with bars, clubs, and 500 yen kebab shops. For a good night out, there’s nothing better; but at the same time, there’s nothing more threatening to our already dieting wallets. […]
Early Sunday evening and the park is a combination of world’s fair, open air auditorium-slash-casting couch, tourist nexus, campground, and cabinet of zoological curiosities. Past the vision of the myriad Elvises at the Harajuku Gate entrance, everything is on show—purple […]
We’ve all been there. You’re in a karaoke booth having a good time with your friends, mumbling incoherently to Korean pop bands while chugging your seventh can of Fanta Melon Pop. Suddenly you double-take at the clock and have to […]
Buried on the basement floor beneath three stories of used books, DVDs, CDs, and video games, this outgrowth of the Book-Off Group stores (the “Hard-Off” outlets always strike me as particularly ill-named) is a sartorial bunker. Bingo has a couple […]
Praise the powers that be—at least, when it comes to providing cost-friendly sports and exercise facilities. Whereas the handful of ubiquitous private gym chains (Gold’s, Tipness, Konami Club) charge membership fees of 12,000-plus yen per month, daily use of the […]
To each season its traditional stockpiling. Around New Years’, you get the grab bags filled with assorted items and sold at substantial discounts (called fukubukuro—”lucky bag”), the winter bargains, and, of course, the consumerist blowout of all blowouts: Japan’s summer […]
Planning a big trip to Tokyo? Do you live in Tokyo and want to spend the weekend hitting those tourist spots you never got a chance to see? If you’re anything like me, you spend more time planning the trip […]
The cost of seeing releases on the big screen can be daunting–or colloquially, a total rip-off. General admission-slash-extortion at any of the Toho Cinemas locations is 1,800yen, and the college student rates of 1,500yen aren’t much better. The additional 650yen […]
As a middle schooler I dreaded being dragged to another event at the Goethe-Institut in Zimbabwe, where we lived at the time. It was always something-or-another about promoting…culture. In truth, the film screenings were always interesting as well as free—classics […]
In a recent article, we investigated convenience stores with alfresco cafe seating as a way to comfortably enjoy food and drink under the stars on the cheap. Now it’s time to put that to the test. In the evening of Thursday, […]
The dress code at restaurants in Akasaka certainly isn’t strictly pearls and diamonds but something tells me that my disintegrating Cons would not be welcome to lunch. Deutsche Bank has its offices in the area, as does a handful of […]
Jimbocho is to books what Akihabara is to electronics, what Kabuki-cho is to sleazy hijinks, what Shibuya crossing is to first-time visitors with videocameras. Welcome to the city with a ward, a district, city block, floor, cell or capsule (you’re […]
This venue is now closed, check out the newer Commune Farmers Market which is just a few meters from this old site. Dining al fresco in Tokyo tends to strand you at one or the other end of the value […]