{"id":8105,"date":"2015-10-22T18:12:36","date_gmt":"2015-10-22T09:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/?p=8105"},"modified":"2017-11-20T15:23:32","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T06:23:32","slug":"where-not-to-go-and-what-not-to-do-in-tokyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2015\/10\/22\/where-not-to-go-and-what-not-to-do-in-tokyo\/","title":{"rendered":"What NOT to do in Tokyo\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ken-sama\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A perk of being a long-term resident in a country that is currently sitting atop most lists for “cool vacay destinations in the world”, is being asked on a weekly<\/s> daily basis:<\/p>\n

“So\u2026 What are your Tokyo\/Kyoto\/Japan tips and recommendations?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To which I\u00a0politely smile\u00a0and internally try to decide whether the person asking is mentally diminished or just hailing\u00a0from an Internet-free country. Because all I hear is “Could you google Lonely Planet’s Top 10 List of Things to Do in Tokyo for me?”\u2026<\/p>\n

Since there is clearly no useful or interesting answer to that\u00a0question, and since it is a lot easier to be negative than positive1<\/a><\/sup>Exhibit A: over ten years of writing on this very blog.<\/span>, I instead decided to compile a near-exhaustive list of places and things that you should stay away from<\/em>, when you visit Tokyo.<\/p>\n

You will notice an important overlap with aforementioned “Top 10 Tokyo\u00a0whatever” lists commonly found elsewhere, and there’s a good reason for that: these are mostly places that were interesting\/special at some point long ago or fit well-enough in the trite “Japan-be-crazy-yo” narrative, to make them ideal candidates for lazy tourist guides and other lists catering to the lowest-common denominator.<\/p>\n

Rule of thumb: if you are the sort of tourist who loved<\/em> their visit to London’s Piccadilly Circus, Paris’ Champs \u00c9lys\u00e9es, NYC’s Times Square or SF’s Fisherman’s Wharf, this list of don’ts is emphatically not<\/em> for you. In fact, you can even use it as a blueprint for your dream Tokyo visit. For everyone else, here you go:<\/p>\n

Maid Caf\u00e9s<\/h3>\n

aka Maido\u00a0Caf\u00e9s<\/p>\n

Last cool\/interesting:<\/strong> Never<\/p>\n

Who goes there:<\/strong>\u00a020% Japanese (otaku on the spectrum and\/or sex-offence-on-minors-under-the-age-of-consent waiting to happen), 80% tourists that heard these things were super popular and cool\u00a0in Japan.<\/p>\n

Selling points:<\/strong>\u00a0Bland overpriced biscuits\u00a0served by pimply high-school students to awkward shut-ins and clueless tourists in a hastily-refurbished Akihabara apartment. Basically like Applebees, with more pedophilia and shittier food.<\/p>\n

Harajuku’s Takeshita Dori<\/h3>\n

Last cool\/interesting:<\/strong>\u00a02004? 2001?\u2026\u00a0Whenever\u00a0the\u00a0dozen Japanese girls who used to buy their cosplay outfit there graduated from high-school.<\/p>\n

Who goes there:<\/strong>\u00a099% foreign tourists (about half Western tourists, convinced that the other\u00a0Chinese\/East-Asian half\u00a0are authentic locals). 1% Nigerian guys pretending to be from Chicago to sell you authentic American hip-hop streetwear.<\/p>\n

Selling points:<\/strong> Foreign otaku\u00a0cosplay-freaks. Foreign tourists busy photographing authentic Tokyo cosplay-freaks who were seated a row behind them on the flight in. Souvenir shops for tourists. McDonald’s. Starbuck’s. Shops that sell\u00a0wacky t-shirts that read “Stupid gaijin” or “Looking for Japanese girlfriend” in Japanese. Zero actual Japanese people cosplaying.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Cat\u00a0Caf\u00e9s<\/h3>\n

aka Neko Caf\u00e9s<\/p>\n

Last cool\/interesting:<\/strong>\u00a0when you last\u00a0lived in a country where owning a pet was a technical impossibility.<\/p>\n

Who goes there:<\/strong>\u00a0Sleep-deprived undersexed OLs, Otaku too awkward for Maid caf\u00e9s and tourists who hail from countries where cats do not exist.<\/p>\n

Selling points:<\/strong> Get a chance to pet some stressed-out cats before they meet their ineluctable end in a\u00a0metropolitan pound’s gas chamber<\/a> a few years later when they’ve exhausted their financial utility to the caf\u00e9. Perfect if you think pet shelters would be the ideal\u00a0hang-out place with the sole addition of overpriced instant coffee.<\/p>\n

Roppongi<\/h3>\n

Last cool\/interesting:<\/strong>\u00a01930s Roppongi seems to have been a pretty cool place to hang out, if Mishima is to be believed<\/a>. 1980s Bubble-era Roppongi was ridiculously overpriced and soul-crushingly materialistic, but at least would give one a glimpse into a truly unique slice of Japan’s history and an era of cheesy decadent excess, instead of being just overpriced and boring.<\/p>\n

Who goes there:<\/strong> wealthy expats who can’t speak a word of Japanese (and don’t care for local food), older\u00a0English teachers\u00a0who\u00a0can’t\u00a0find Shibuya on a map, tourists who like travelling “abroad”, provided “abroad” looks and sounds reasonably like home. Also (at night): Nigerian touts who are your best friend and will definitely give you the best tips for that\u00a0great\u00a0bar where the grass is green, the girls are pretty and the drinks absolutely-not-at-all\u00a0spiked.<\/p>\n

Selling points:<\/strong>\u00a0Japanese is hard, English is easy. High chances of bumping into your mates from LKF, Xintiandi or Nana Plaza. Most authentic kebab in town. Hard Rock Caf\u00e9 Tokyo!<\/p>\n

Robot Restaurant<\/h3>\n

Last cool\/interesting:<\/strong>\u00a0for about a week in early 2012, before anyone actually went there to figure out what the deal was with these creepy plastic doll “robots” they kept parading around town to advertise the place.<\/p>\n

Who goes there:<\/strong>\u00a099% foreign tourists looking for the “real crazy-Tokyo experience”, 1% local Japanese businessmen bringing their foreign clients after hearing that foreigners are\u00a0really into that crap.<\/p>\n

Selling points:<\/strong>\u00a0Possibly the largest density of LEDs and mirrors you can put\u00a0in a non-descript Tokyo basement the size of your parents’ garage back home. Vaguely-titillating, no-nudity, show for married 40-somethings who would rather not deal with an actual strip-club. For people who think off-Strip Las Vegas\u00a0naughty revues could do with less<\/em> production values and more papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 dinosaurs mounted on motorcycles\u2026<\/p>\n

Tsukiji Market Sushi Restaurants<\/h3>\n

Last cool\/interesting:<\/strong> some point in the mid-2000s, when it was still known as a way to get dirt-cheap, if not particularly exceptional, sushi made from unsold fish at the end of auctions (which were still open to the public).<\/p>\n

Who goes there:<\/strong>\u00a0Foreign foodies who want to eat\u00a0the “freshest” sushi in Tokyo but couldn’t get a last minute reservation at Jiro’s.<\/p>\n

Selling points:<\/strong> Something to do after you’ve wasted most of your night queuing to enter the tourist-dedicated tuna auction, realised it was just a bunch of guys yelling in an incomprehensible language in front of large dead fish (and that most of the actual action happened in the non-public auctions). Queuing and eating with other tourists. Lukewarm service. Tourist prices. Tuna that has travelled 500 metres less than the one sold for half the price at regular sushi places outside<\/em>\u00a0the market area.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong> the above is about those 4-5 restaurants located inside<\/em> the market (Sushi Dai, Daiwa Zushi etc), not the perfectly fine normal restaurants all over the Tsukiji neighbourhood (thanks, unknown stranger, for bringing the possible confusion to my attention).<\/p>\n

Honourable Mentions<\/h2>\n

And\u00a0then, a few places that aren’t (yet) as bad as the\u00a0above, but still considerably overrated:<\/em><\/p>\n

Omoide Yokoch\u014d<\/h3>\n

aka\u00a0“Memory Lane”, aka “Piss Alley”<\/p>\n

Last cool\/interesting:<\/strong>\u00a0about 5-10 year ago, when it was still known as a place where old\u00a0Japanese geezers went to\u00a0get their fill of\u00a0cheap mystery-meat yakitori and equally cheap beer\/whisky at the end of their dreary salaryman day.<\/p>\n

Who goes there:<\/strong>\u00a0(increasingly fewer and fewer of the) aforementioned salarymen.\u00a0Lots of\u00a0foreign tourists looking for the True Secret Tokyo Street Experience\u2122.<\/p>\n

Selling points:<\/strong>\u00a0Overpriced half-burnt yakitori, bad beer and hidden charges\u00a0(places that will overcharge unsuspecting tourists are easily recognisable as the ones that will not tell you “sorry, no foreigners here” when you try to sit down). Albatross bar, aka the coolest hidden gem in Omoide Yokocho that only\u00a0you and all other readers of Lonely Planet\u00a0have heard of.<\/p>\n

Tokyo Metropolitan Building Observatory<\/h3>\n

Last cool\/interesting:<\/strong>\u00a015 years ago, when none of the other buildings with better view existed yet.<\/p>\n

Who goes there:<\/strong>\u00a0Cheap tourists\u00a0who travelled 10,000 km to Tokyo, but would rather save \u00a51,500 on the price of admission to the Mori rooftop2<\/a><\/sup>I will happily concede that this one serves a purpose for penniless backpackers for whom every yen counts, hence\u00a0the ‘Honourable Mentions’ category. But if you are paying \u00a515,000\/night for a hotel room and staying 3 days in Tokyo, you have absolutely no excuse.<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Selling points:<\/strong>\u00a0Free panoramic view of the whole<\/s> northern, less interesting part of the City (wedged between crappy souvenir stalls and pushy Chinese tourists). FREE!<\/p>\n

New York Bar at Park Hyatt Tokyo<\/h3>\n

aka the Lost in Translation Bar<\/p>\n

Last cool\/interesting:\u00a0<\/strong>Mostly\u00a0in early 2003, for about a week, when Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson actually hung out there. Maybe a few more years after that, with exponentially diminishing returns.<\/p>\n

Who goes there:<\/strong>\u00a090% western millennials who like to\u00a0fancy themselves characters in a Sofia Coppola film, 10%\u00a0actual clients of the\u00a0hotel: staring at\u00a0their iPhones in Evisu jeans and gold lam\u00e9 sneakers.<\/p>\n

Selling points:<\/strong>\u00a0A chance\u00a0at some of the most overpriced drinks in Tokyo. All the\u00a0atmosphere and glitz of a US domestic airport lounge bar, with grottier-looking leather couches and fading carpets.<\/p>\n

In conclusion<\/h2>\n

Ask me where to find the cheapest beer, the best craft gin cocktails, an anything-goes fetish party, those plastic replica of food items you see outside Japanese restaurants, the best chashu ramen, the best rooftop biergarten with a view, the best park for an impromptu picnic\u2026 I’ll sort you out.<\/p>\n

But ask for generic recommendations and you will get generic (and often horrible) recommendations.<\/p>\n

In the case of Tokyo (\/Japan), this is made exponentially worse by the combined power of modern online “journalism”<\/a> (aka every last moron\u00a0with a website and an Adsense account) and\u00a0Western people’s boundless enthusiasm for anything that fits their\u00a0preconceived notions of\u00a0Japan as that wacky country exclusively filled with weird sex fetishes and neon-lit robots.<\/p>\n

Tokyo (like many places) is not a place where you go and tick a list of landmarks and must-see spots. By far the most interesting thing to do in Tokyo is to pick a random neighbourhood (or possibly less random, based on your sensibilities), walk around, explore and get drunk with the locals.<\/p>\n

PS: feel free to share your recommendations for awesome Tokyo tourist-traps, in the comments section\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A perk of being a long-term resident in a country that is currently sitting atop most lists for “cool vacay destinations in the world”, is being asked on a weekly daily basis: “So\u2026 What are your Tokyo\/Kyoto\/Japan tips and recommendations?” To which I\u00a0politely smile\u00a0and internally try to decide whether the person asking is mentally diminished […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[59,21,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging-for-google","category-japan","category-recommendations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8105"}],"version-history":[{"count":66,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8473,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8105\/revisions\/8473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}