Odaiba is a man-made island in the outskirt of Tokyo. Its located near the Tokyo Bay, and its a nice place to watch sunset. From the waterfront, you could see the Rainbow Bridge. There are several landmarks you can go there.

1. In front of Diver City, there is a live-sized Gundam statue and during night time, they will play a short movie with the mall as the background, and the Gundam move accordingly. You can stare in awe or enjoy your time in Gundam cafe (I prefer standing with the crowd, taking video and just admiring the Gundam which just felt unreal for me).

Gundam Statue in Real scale (plaupla)

2. Liberty Statue
At the park near the waterfront, there is a mini statue of Liberty, which would feel interesting since it made you felt like in New York, but you're actually in Japan. Its unbelievably crowded there, especially near sunset since everyone wants to take a picture with the Liberty statue in their background.

Odaiba sunset (plaupla)

3.  Palette Town
If you're into amusement parks, then Palette Town might be just the place for you. The ferris wheel looks beautiful with at night.

Odaiba offers the theme park near Tokyo area, might be a good option for those who travels with family.

Ferris Wheel (plaupla)

Reference:
https://www.gotokyo.org/en/tourists/areas/areamap/odaiba.html

A port city, one of the old trading town in Tokyo. Minatomirai is the place that my friend suggested. It is a beautiful city, located quite far from the central Tokyo. It has Chinatown too. It reminds me of San Francisco. It's a harbor, so its near the sea. Expectedly, you could see a lot of pier and ships. The smell of salt water, not to my fancy but still I like it.

Minatomirai

There is the red brick building, which located near the port, which was interesting to look at. And there are a lot of restaurants inside, so if you come there at noon, you could use it to cool down and grab something to eat. It seems to have quite historical, though I don't know what is the history.  I will try to find out later.

The otaku town, I am actually kinda excited to there, given I am also an otaku (I appreciate anime and manga at normal level, I guess). Despite of my love towards anime and manga, when I arrived there I don't know what to do (beside fangirling at animate or when I saw Tsurumaru's cosplayer though. I felt like dying haha.)

Tsurumaru!

Maido cafe

AKB48 caffee and shop

Akiba crossing

Depok, September 16, 2015

Sensoji Gate

Main Hall

The kaminarimon, and the main building is beautiful. Tokyo Skytree is located near enough and you can see it from Sensoji. If you happen to go to Sensoji, I suggest you to take the old road Nakamise dori, not the tourist road. In the old road (right after the Asakusa station from Tokyo Metro Ginza line). They have old type of stores, which looks like any Japanese shopping district with old Japanese looks and also ryotei, Japanese dining. While the tourist road that I talk about is the alley where there are only souvenir shops, which is interesting on its own and its a great place to find yourself a souvenir from Japan.

Ryotei - Japanese dining

Tokyo Skytree

Harajuku is an interesting place. It brims with youth spirit, my Japanese friend told me that Harajuku is a place for teens. But I saw so many pictures from Harajuku, which are famous for being one of the fashion capital in Japan.

As for myself, beside wanting to see the Japanese street fashion (the weird and eccentric Japanese fashion), cosplayers, Takeshita doori and Omotesando, I also want to see Meiji Jingu which located next to Harajuku station.

Meiji Jingu

the field

Reference:
Meiji Jingu: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3002.html

    LOVE word in the park.

Love Art Installation - Shinjuku

5. Cocoon building
    One of Shinjuku landmark. Easily spotted from West Exit.

Cocoon Building - Shinjuku

6. Japan Museum of Art
    Since I am interested in Touken Ranbu, I am high on Japanese swords.


Resources:
a.  Official Tokyo Tourist guide
b. Japan Guide

To navigate in Japan, you definitely need internet. Wifi are available, in big stations and stores, or if you use portable wifi, or traveller simcard. 

Kiyomizu dera, kinkakuji, fushimi inari could be visited in one day, on the side note you will be rushed. 

To climb Fuji-san, the only time you can do it is in the summer because otherwise, it will be closed. 

Japan or rather, Tokyo and lines. Omg.

If you are going to use a lot of railways in Tokyo, I highly recommend you to buy the card, I am not sure the difference between Pasmo and Suica but they roughly similar. If you would like, you could read my previous post about the cards.

Noted if you are going to travel not only in Tokyo, but also Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Fukuoka and other further places in Japan, I suggest you to buy JR Pass. JR Pass will allow you to travel far distance with relatively cheaper price rather than when you buy it on the spot one ticket at a time. Its only worth it when you used it at least for a round trip from tokyo-osaka, for instance. Notice that it could only be ordered outside of Japan (order it from your country) and then claim it at Narita/stations (the stations are mentioned in the ticket). There are JR pass for 7 days or 14 days (and maybe more, I am not sure). There are two types, the green one and the usual one. Both can't be used for Nozomi and Hikari Shinkansen.

Nikko is not actully located in Tokyo, but in Tochigi. There is a famous temple for Tokugawa Ieyasu that was built by his grandson which also had temple exactly next to Toshōgu, the temple for Tokugawa Ieyasu.

In your trip in Tokyo, train will be your best buddy. Its cheap, fast, on time and dependable. If you are going to spend more than 1 week in Tokyo by train, you will need a card either Suica or Pasmo card. They could be used to go to any train, despite of different lines (Odakyu, Seibu, JR, etc)  or types (Tokyo metro subway or usual train). I shall describe the trains in Tokyo in other post. These cards even could be used like a debit card, to buy drinks/food in the station. In my trip in Tokyo, I used Suica. I dont think there is any big difference between Suica and Pasmo though.

the interface

During my travel, I usually need internet for navigation: for googlemap for example and also to contact my friend.

Shinjuku is one of the biggest station in Tokyo, roughly serving around 2 million passanger everyday, its is very busy. Added by the sheer number of exit in Shinjuku station, one could get lost easily (I did). In Japan, pay attention to which exit you should take. You could end up in completely different road/buidling you originally intend to. Also, the position of the train that you take will definitely take you to different exit.

For instance, I wanted to go to West Exit so I can go to my language school in Nishishinjuku, but since I came from Seibu-Ikebukuro Line, I tend to get the JR Yamanote Line on the middle to last car (train car 9/10) because that is the nearest car from Ikebukuro. But since I take the last car, when I arrived in Shinjuku the nearest exit is south exit. South Exit will take me to Odakyu hotel. Which is very far from where I wanted to go. So what I supposed to take is the front cars from Seibu-Ikebukuro, and take the middle car (6-8) so I can get out in the right platform which is closest with the exit I want (west exit). You might find this confusing but, wait until you are there, experience it yourself (lol).

The volume of people in the rush hour in the morning is just crazy, its really like the sea of people. So the people usually already know what car they should be in to get to the nearest exit to their destination. Otherwise, it will be difficult. There are guide in English, of course, but the rushy work people won't let you stay hesitate to figure out where you should go to. You better ready and prepared and know where you want to walk. If you are going to Shinjuku for a tourism trip, then I suggest you to come before or after the rush hour.

There are several exit station in Shinjuku.
Central, West, East, North, South exit. These are located under different massive department store: Odakyu, Keio, Lumine,etc.

Shinjuku Station Map (from Odakyu website). Pay attention where your arrival station and your transfer station/your exit destination

If you lost, don't worry, even Japanese native would not know how to navigate in the Shinjuku station unless they walked there every day. So you're not alone. But here, if you will live/stay around Shinjuku, here is some guide that I think quite helpful from Odakyu about Shinjuku underground.

Most of the big station in Tokyo located under department store. Moreover, sometime it serves as transfer station to other line. JR Line, Metro Line and other lines are served by different companies but they could be paid by same card (suica or pasmo in Tokyo. Other city has different card, Osaka for instance use Icoca).

Shinjuku station in the morning

Have a nice trip!

Plaupla
Shinjuku. July 13, 2015.

June 30, 2015

Best,
Upla