Restaurants and food in Tokyo - research

As the food geek I am, food will be a big part of the trip. Given the number of choices, it is extremely hard to prioritize. I found a really great food blog where a couple spent six months to research an 8-day gourmet trip to Tokyo. They had then planned sightseeing around the restaurants they picked out for lunch or dinner.

A good tip they have is to eat the expensive special dishes - eg Kobe Beef - for lunch (as it is often much cheaper) and eat cheaper types of dishes for dinner. They had Kobe beef at "Steakhouse Satou" and it will apparently still be really good and affordable. Hard to find Satou and apparently their web (only in Japanese) do not give much clarity. But, via TripAdvisor , I found a blogger who has been there and who enthused over the steak. Google Maps shows apparently wrong, but this description should be right: From Kichijoji station, i took the North Exit, and then crossed the street. Saw PSFA and Shiseido on my left and walked into the walkway between These shops. Walked to I saw Satou on my left.

Photo of http://paulstravelpics.blogspot.se

Next tip (that I've seen in lots of places) is Sushi Dai at Tsukiji Shij. Should be really good sushi but crazy long queue.

Sushidai, picture from TripAdvisor

 

Hotels in Tokyo and Kyoto - booked

Tokyo really have a lot to choose from when it comes to hotels, ranging from cheap capsule hotels to super exclusive five star hotels. Also, Japan is known for its old-fashioned Ryokans that one should try to stay at at least one night.

When I land at 18.00 on 10 Sept, I will surely be tired after the long flight and it might be nice to have a hotel that is is easy to get to. However, it seems unnecessary to stay at a super expensive hotel when it's just me traveling alone. I have decided to stay in Shibuya the first two nights and have found the hotel Shibuya Excel that is located in the same building as the subway that goes all the way from the Tokyo Narita airport and is as central in Shibuya as it gets. It also have ok reviews on Tripadvisor.

Picture of the view from the Shibuya Excel (retrieved from TripAdvisor)

After two nights, I am perhaps a bit more hungry for something different and then I stay one night at Andon Ryokan, a designed, modern ryokan a bit outside the city.

Rooms at Andon Ryokan suited for me as the Solo Traveller, borrowed from http://www.andon.co.jp

Then I go to Kyoto and stay there for one night at 9 hours , in a "sleeping pod" ...

Sleeping Pod 9hours, picture from 9hours.jp

Return to Tokyo and last night where I stay at Shibya Creston Hotel . 

Planning, planning ... links to information about sightseeing in Tokyo

I started putting out post-it-notes on the big paper map with the places I want to visit, to see if I could then make up my mind on which area on Tokyo to stay in.  But, I then did another try with Google maps instead and suddenly I understood what to do. 

It is really easy to create a custom map with Google maps where you can plot all the places you want to visit and when it's finished, just print the map or check the map with a link in your mobile.

There are lots of high scores online with things you "should" do in Tokyo and when I skimmed through them, it is clear that there are a lot of common points. Good lists are for example:
- Tripadvisor's " 3 days in Tokyo "
- Time Magazine " Top 10 for Tokyo "
- Lonely Planet " Things to do in Tokyo . "

One of the activities that tops almost every list is a visit to the Tsukiji Central Fish Market - where, if one is in place around 4:00 in the morning, you can get one of a few (60 per day) places reserved for tourists who gets tickets to enter the busy fish auction in a special section for tourists only.

Tokyo Tsukiji Fish Market

Whisky Bars and whiskey tasting in Japan - Tokyo and Kyoto

Whisky is one of my great interests and since over 10 years, I am with the whiskey association "The Barrel Boys", which in turn is a member of the Swedish Whisky Association. Our club owns whiskey casks located at storage in Scottland, at Bruichladdich and Glengoyne . Every other year we head over to Scottland to sample the drums but this year there will be whiskey tasting in Japan for me instead. I got in touch with a Whisky Club in Tokyo and asked for advice and got a whole list of good whiskey bars. The list seemed a bit out of date though, so after checking up the different bars online, this is the updated list:

In Tokyo:

• Cask Roppongi ( Website only in Japanese as I run through Google Translate, seems to have closed)
• Wodka Tonic (Unclear website , on Google maps, it looks like an apartment building!)
• Helmsdale (Scottish Gourmetpub, maybe not what I'm after when going to Japan!)
• Speyside Way (looks cozy! )
• Mashtun (looks good)
• Bar Highlander (Scottish bar, goes away for me for the same reason as Helmsdale)
• Bar Talisker (Ginza). Seems to have no website, but the address info available here .
• Shot Bar Zoetrope (Shinjuku Japanese whiskey specialist). Clearly the bar I am most eager to visit. Whiskymag , writes "The owner of Zoetrope, Atsushi Horigami, formernvideo games designer, set up this cool little bar as a shrine to his two great passions: Japanese whiskey and American movies". They might have one of the world's best selection of Japanese whiskey.

Shot Bar Zeotrope

And in Kyoto:

• Rocking Chair (difficult to understand the web in Japanese)
• Bar Y'ya (find no info at all on the web)
• Common One Club (find no info at all on the web)
• Yatta (restaurant and bar upstairs-near to Common wealth One Club)
• Tozan Bar (within the Hyatt Regency Hotel )
• Kanga'an (a restaurant & bar within atemple).

Here, Google Maps with Street View very useful, in several bars you can for example go in via Google and see how it looks inside the bar!

Bar Talisker in Tokyo in Google Maps - looks lovely!

Helmsdale Tokyo - do not look quite as cozy ...

So, I will "enter" all the bars via Google and prioritize those that look best!

I also got tips on that particular week I'm in Tokyo, it is also Tokyo Autumn Tasting Week in Bar High Society. A weekly event where they presents many new whiskeys. However, the image on the Bar High Society is not so appealing. For me - whisky bars should be small, dark and have walls full of whisky!

Bar High Society in the Park Hotel, Tokyo

In Kyoto (2.5 hours by train from Tokyo) is one of Japan's top 10 destelleries - Suntory - and it will be really fun to visit. They make the Yamazaki whiskey there and hold guided tours, tastings, etc.. Suntory will probably be one of the highlights in Japan!

At Suntory Museum

Plan for sightseeing in Tokyo - start at the Japanese Embassy!

I have started writing a list of everything I want to do in Tokyo and Kyoto, and Google Maps is fantastic in many ways to understand where things are located. But still, I find it really hard to understand what I am looking at as I have not the slightest idea of the city

Google maps - great but not easy when starting researching

To understand the big picture and see where things are in relation to each other, I think a normal map in paper is the best and came up with the idea that perhaps the Japanese Embassy could provide me with maps. Very true and it was just swinging by on Gärdesgatan 10 and pick up maps of both Tokyo and Kyoto, for free! Smoothly. The next step will be to put little notes on the large map of all the places I want to visit and plan the optimal way to take me around.

 

Tokyo and Kyoto in one week

What I want to do in Japan and how many places do I have time to visit? After some research, I came to the conclusion that Tokyo and Kyoto was just right for one week.

In Tokyo, I'll try to get a feel for the city, the atmosphere, watch people, eat lots of tasty food, see if I can find some good whiskey bars, maybe a cooking class, a little sightseeing, maybe a little shopping. And stay at some different hotels.
 

Image: Compact living at the capsule  hotel 9 hours in Kyoto.

In Kyoto, which is supposed to be very beautiful and quiet is also one of Japan's largest whisky distillers - Suntory -  and that the whiskey nerd I am, I must of course take me there for a guided tour and whiskey tasting . In Kyoto, there are also "9 Hours"a designed Capsulehotell which may not provide the best sleep but may be interesting to test ...

Flight to Tokyo booked!

After some negotiations with my wife about a week when she could take care of the kids herself, I found a week that worked. Depart around 8-9 September and home again around 14-15 September. I started searching for flights on a large Swedish site that aggregates flights from all different airlines (flygresor.se) and it turned out that many airlines flies to Tokyo. However, it was not so easy to see what day it was extra expensive to fly, so I went in to sas.se where who has a low fare calendar, which made ​​it easy to see which days that have extra pressure on travel to or from Tokyo, while on other days it is cheaper. 

 By choosing departure 9 September and go back on September 15, the ticket was about 1500 USD cheaper than if I traveled back home a day earlier.

 
With that realization, I went back to Flygresor.se and was looking for a flight that went late at night from Stockholm and had short wait beetween connecting flights (as there is no direct flight between Stockholm and Tokyo). Best time for an OK price was with Air France for about 1000 USD and then I went straight to airfrance.se and booked where it was even cheaper. We went on our honeymoon-trip with Air France so I have a special relationship to that particilar airline and look forward to flying with them again

So now I go Monday, September 9 at 19.30, arriving in Tokyo the day after 18.00. With seven hour time difference is it then 11:00 on the day in Sweden so the best is probably to start with a power nap and then to go out on the town at once!
 

Japan in one week - is that even possible?

For many people in most countries, Japan is a place that seems to far away for a one week trip. Most people thinks Japan is terribly expensive country, where it is impossible to find your way around and where no one speaks English.

At the same time, many people dream of visiting Japan, find the culture very interesting, loves the Japanese cuisine and the wonderful Japanese whiskey such as Santory. But very few people takes the effort to travel to Japan.

I went to Japan after dreaming of going there for 15 years. With careful planning, I went to Japan with only 6 days to spend - and I was able to experience both Tokyo and Kyoto, visit all the places I wanted and found ways to navigate with my iPhone.

If you only have 1 week  - I say you should go to Japan if you can. It is a wonderful, interesting country and things are easier then ever thanks to Internet. I will go in to detail later in this blog in how you can prepare yourself and use Google Maps to find your way around.  In this blog, I will tell you about my preparations, give advice on what to bring and share my day to day experiences.

I went to Japan i September 2013 and Swedish speaking people could follow me in real time in my Swedish blog http://enveckaijapan.blogspot.se. After only a few weeks, Google started picking up my blog and it is right now in the to three in many search areas in Sweden, so I decided to translate the Blog into English which is the version you are reading right now.

Me in Shibbuya, just after arriving in Tokyo