Let’s get into Tokyo; it’s a pretty big place and there is so much to see, so we are going to divide the city up into some of its key districts that could be a city in themselves and could fill several days of travel on their own. In this blog we’ll cover Ginza and Shinjuku, the centres of all the lights and entertainment and shopping that Tokyo has to offer.

銀座 – Ginza

The heart of shopping in Tokyo and naturally one of the first places that Lyssa will gravitate to; home to all the big fashion names and even some places that Matt would want to visit – the Sony building to test out new tech, the Uniqlo flagship store

to get your staple fashion items at a great price and the KitKat Chocolatory to taste the wide range of flavours that are produced here – sake is an interesting one!

Ginza is a perfect place to first experience the culture shock that is Japan…definitely in a nice way where you can window shop your way down the whole thoroughfare and take in all the city sights. Here you will first experience the dichotomy of Tokyo with wide boulevards bordered with sky high buildings and then if you just go one street back you’ll find smaller alleyways with a more traditional Japanese feel and where you can find a great deal on a tasty lunch.

Continuing down Ginza will lead you to the must visit Tsukiji fish market – comprised of the outer market, where you will find food stalls and countertop restaurants that serve the freshest of seafood, both a feast for the eyes as well as the tummy, and the inner market where all the wholesale auctions take place to receive and send seafood all across the globe.

It’s the world’s biggest fish market, or at least will be until the inner market closes at the end of September 2018 and moves to Toyosu on the Tokyo riverfront. The auction action kicks off at early AM (opens at 3.30 am) so we skipped that, after that you can visit after 9am when things start to wrap up…just wear proper footwear and keep an eye out for the workers whizzing around the market on their silent electric trucks.

You will still see some incredible looking fish even at this time. Once you are done exploring the market you can then reward yourself with some amazing sushi, sashimi, donbori etc. Expect long queues but persevere to be rewarded with the freshest of tastes – our usual go to place just on the edge of the inner fish market is Nakaya (仲家)

where it is serious business to have your amazingly fresh sushi breakfast, squeezed in at the small counter whilst all the Hawaiian hula dolls are nodding their heads at you in front; also try the huge prawn tempura.

With tummies full you can continue a bit further on to the Hama-rikyu Gardens, that used to be a holiday residence for Shogun and the Imperial Family until it was gifted to the city of Tokyo for all to enjoy. You will find beautifully manicured pathways around the lakes and mesmerising flower gardens that will be blooming nearly all year round with the various seasonal colours…naturally the sakura cherry blossom is particularly impressive, even if early in the year for it.

To move on from here you can choose to take the river bus to the harbour area of Odaiba and / or all the way up to Asakusa where you can visit the Asahi beer tower, topped with its rather weird sculpture (your guess as to what it is) and also from here to the Sensoji temple (see later).

The boat trip itself is not so interesting, as unlike many European cities the riverfront is more for industry rather than tourist sites, so you could skip this trip unless you want an easy way to get to the destinations mentioned…the beer served on the boat however is very nice!

If you still have space for food, then a most excellent bbq restaurant can be found hidden on the fifth floor of a building just behind Uniqlo at Ginza Cobau here you will get a continuous stream of super tasty, bite-sized portions of different cuts of meat. Don’t ask how we managed to find this place, just visit for yourself and enjoy!

And if this is your first day in Japan and you are fighting jet lag then there is no better way to keep yourself awake by a bit of late night Karaoke; our great friends (and mentors of Japan) – Willem and Christian – introduced us to this on our first evening having got off the plane earlier in the day when it looked like we were starting to lag.

Karaoke is everywhere in Tokyo and Japan and where we ended up was just down from Tokyo station at Karaoke Kan Ginza Honten, a full tower dedicated to individual private Karaoke rooms with food, drinks, great views of the city and melodic music (as long as it was just Lyssa and Christian who were doing the singing).

You’ll find the corridors of these places littered with the sleeping bodies of the Tokyo salarymen who come here after work and have partied there way through the night, so if you do succumb to jetlag whilst here then you will be in good company.

Ginza is also a good, central location to hang your head, it’ll be a bit pricey for the size of room you can get but that is the same for pretty much all of Tokyo. For us we stayed at Mitsui Garden Hotel Ginza – quite spacious for a Tokyo hotel but at 200 euro per night keep this when you want a bed that two of you can fit on in comfort and you can open your suitcase without taking up half the room.

新宿区 – Shinjuku

The entertainment district of Tokyo, just on the other side of the Imperial Palace to Ginza and the place to visit once the sunsets and the lights of the city come on. Getting here by metro you will come into the world’s busiest train station – over 2 million people pass through this station…every day! So it is easy to get lost, but that is half the fun, just to wander around and see all the crazy sights that you will see nowhere else in the world.

Shinjuku is where you will find all the big department stores of Tokyo and a visit to their foodhalls is an experience in itself; our favourite is Isetan where you can spend a few hours wandering the different stalls, having little tastings of everything that we could try. Food in Japan is presented like little pieces of art and everything is focused on such quality that makes eating here such a wonderful experience.

Make sure you pick up some green tea, matcha and above all the amazing Royce matcha nama chocolate…it does not keep for too long, so you can also pick this up from the airport as you fly out. Other great parts of these department stores are to visit the electronics departments and take a load of your feet in one of the many massage chairs, as long as you can find space amongst all the salarymen who are also ‘trying out’ the chairs before heading back to work.

Matt can only spend a couple of hours shopping, so there is always an exit for him and other shopping widowers at the nearby Kirin City beer bar where you can get craft versions of this great beer to enjoy over some tasty snacks whilst Lyssa shops to her heart’s content.

To get a bird’s eye view of Tokyo (for free) head across to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building where you can get to the top of Tokyo’s 3rd tallest building to see the city laid out beneath you.

All this climbing up and down will probably make you peckish so head back near Shinjuku train station and discover the narrow alleyways of Omoide-yokocho (memory lane)

where the many Yakitori stalls will be roasting, spitting and smoking tasty snacks that are a great appetiser before full dinner; just squeeze yourself into one of the many hole in the wall restaurants point and eat!

Next a walk around Kabukicho the red light district of Tokyo, it’s not Amsterdam, but this Japanese version is made up of love hotels where amorous couples can get some privacy for a couple of hours; you’ll be able to recognise these hotels as they will look like the most salubrious and dazzling hotels in the city, and prices can be by the ‘rest’ rather than by the night!

Check out a pachenko palace – a Japanese amusement arcade where you’ll win thousands of ball bearings to exchange for gifts, that can then be ‘secretly’ exchanged for cash in a back alley as money can not be won directly.

Some evening entertainment can be had at the quirky Robot Restaurant, not really for the food but for a crazy show that has a feeling of a Japanese gameshow that we grew up watching on tv – corny robots, loud noises, bright lights and lots of cheesiness and fun although a little bit pricey at 7000 yen per person.

Amongst all this glammor and glitz you will find some great places to eat, often tucked away on a floor of one of the high rises, so sometimes quite difficult to track down, just keep in mind that restaurants can occupy just one floor of a multi-story building and you’ll need to look at the building directory to track down which floor you need to be on.

Also be prepared that you will enter into a super modern building and when you step out of the elevator on the floor of your restaurant you will be transported into a classic Japanese setting of tatami mats and shoji screens. One such place in Shinjuku is the wonderful Kisoji for some Shabu Shabu (Lyssa’s favourite) where the attentive staff will walk you through how to ‘wash wash’ your dinner (if its your first time like it was for us).

Another great dinner can be had at EN isakaya, a shoes-off, lively kind of place where you will get plenty of Japanese great tastes along with plenty of sake – isakaya is an informal Japanese equivalent of a pub…but with as much focus on the food as the drink.

Next up Shibuya, Nihonbashi, Sumida and Lidabashi….