Return to Tokyo
Mercedes Maguire gets expert advice on the Japanese capital
Neon lights, rainbow-coloured grilled cheese sandwiches and the cleanest public toilets in the world – Tokyo, we’ve missed you. With the final layers of restricted travel to Japan removed in October, the experts lift the veil on visiting the nation’s capital city, where the conservative meets the quirky.
Eating out
You’ll find everything from the freshest sashimi at the old fish markets of Tsukiji to a rainbow-coloured grilled cheese sandwich in the Harajuku district, if you know where to look. Lisa Anthony of Wendy Wu Tours says if you want to find guaranteed tasty eats, follow the locals.
“In places like Ginza where there are a lot of office blocks, high-rise buildings and hotels, the restaurants on street level are often the most westernised and most expensive because they have to afford the rent,” she says.
“But the smaller places down in the basement or on the upper floors is where the locals eat. And these smaller places are more likely to serve great handmade food rather than mass-produced.”
Getting around
Anthony says public transport is the cheapest and fastest way to get around. “The trains are affordable, clean, very safe, spacious and have free Wi-Fi. Even the public toilets at the stations are very clean.”
Alison Roberts-Brown, the Australian tourism representative for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, says public transport is also the cheapest way to get from the airport to the city. She calculates a taxi from Narita Airport to the city can cost around $230 to $400, depending on traffic; it’s $35 on the express train and $33 in a limousine bus.
From Haneda Airport, which is closer, a taxi is around $70, a limousine bus $15, monorail $7 and a regular train on the
Keikyu line $5.
Mind your manners
For all their quirkiness, the Japanese are quite conservative, so voices raised in anger, finger pointing, public displays of affection and touching in general are not common.
“It’s also considered quite offensive to eat and drink while walking,” Anthony says. “There’s not the takeaway coffee culture in Tokyo we are used to in Australia and food is generally eaten indoors, at the place you bought it or sitting down in a park.”
Accommodation
Anthony says the hotel rating system is different in Tokyo to other cities and you can expect hotel rooms to be up to half the size you’re used to. But they’re fastidiously clean, so what you get on the budget end could be nicer than you’re used to. Alison says with 80 new hotels added since the Olympics, you’ll find every budget catered for.
Sumo style
To catch a sumo bout, visit in January, May or September. You can keep costs down by taking your own lunch and beer or sake, or get the full experience by having chanko nabe at a restaurant there, a hearty traditional chicken hotpot dish the wrestlers eat.