Hey People!

I feel like a very luck bastard... My wife landed a Job in Japan (in Odate - about 4 hours by bullet train from Tokyo), and I get to go on a governments sponsored visa - for at least a whole year!!!!

I'm wondering if people would be willing to make suggestions about places I should go check out - in Tokyo or otherwise. I plan on spending about a week per month in Tokyo, so I should have great opportunities to wander about and check out toy/art highlights.

Just throwing this out there, so please feel free to suggest anything you'd like!

Sweet, congrats! I just came myself a month ago, but I am pretty jealous. I want to see more of the north (plus I would like to get away from this heat for a while). As to things to see, I don't think you will have any difficulty finding sweet things anywhere you go. And there are a few of us SBers around, especially in Tokyo, that can help you out. If you speak the language, it will be a huge help finding some of the smaller toy shops, but otherwise check out Andy's amazing guide for all the Tokyo area shops.

Thanks man! I'll have a look at the guide I'm learningn Japanese, and it's slow going, but it will happen!

here's a suggestion, take me with you!

Well Jeff... I think you're actually doing quite well already! How about you honorably induct me into the GREASER's club in exchange for the occaisional care package/mule-run from Tokyo

A year?

I think you'll have no problem seeing everything.
At least you don't have to cram everything we like into 2 weeks.:O

Please make sure to go to Kyoto! It's incredible.

I'd recommend getting off the beaten path. Kanazawa and Gero are a couple of places I've enjoyed (write ups on KK). Less-traveled cities like Kobe and Nagoya, and little towns like Ito, can also be fun. Hakone is a nice mountain resort, though it's really popular and can get crowded.

But really there's interesting stuff everywhere. It all depends on what you're into (hot springs, castles, temples, geek culture, ramen culture, whatever...) Follow your interests instead of a guide book.

Take your time, though, and try not to cram too much in. Japan is best experienced if you spend extended periods in a few places and get to know them well. You'll only just begin to scratch the surface in a year, so be patient, and be realistic about how far your Japanese will progress in such a short time. It's a language that requires at least 5 years of regular practice to achieve fluency (which could include time spent in intensive language classes). Anyway, I'm certainly not there yet.

Drop all expectations and preconceptions and go in carte blanche. I guess that's my best advice. That and go to Superfes.

Thanks Paul and Andy!

Paul - Actually, I went to Kyoto in 2009 (I was in Japan for 2 weeks in october of that year), and it was amazing! My wife and I rented bikes, and we went all over the place - it was one of the best parts of our whole trip! We also went to Niko - North of Tokyo. Niko is also amazing, and the onsen/ryokan we stayed at was unbelievable!

Andy - I really apreciate your advice to take it slow and keep my expectations low. I've been to places like Northern India and Thailand, and always tried to expect very little - which always made for a pleasant surprise when things really were awesome! Living in a more rural area will be nice too, I think. We will be forced to learn Japanese (to a certain lvel of proficiency I hope!), and we will get a better dose of true Japanese culture.

Thanks again for all the info so far!

I would recommend taking a few days in Kurokawa Onsen in Kyushu. IMHO one of the best onsen places in the country, simply mindblowing.
Here's a link that I used when I went a few years ago:

http://www.secret-japan.com/forum/kurok ... -t601.html

Besides this I agree with PK, Kyoto is incredibile. Beautiful Gion.

To be more precise I went here:

http://www.kiyashiki.com/

It was quite easy to book (no one spoke english but I had someone from a hotel in Hiroshima book for us) but they only had superior rooms available (which finished up being little houses inside the ryokan with your own private onsen in the backyard). Expensive but well worth the trip and the cost.

a year! Sweet!!!! Make the most of your time and i'm sure it will be incredible!

Hahaha...when I go, I'm only there for a week. If I tried to cram everything into that week, I feel like I'd have done nothing worth while. By purposely not going to places, it gives me more reason to go back just so I can check out the places I missed the last time. Little by little I'll have my own list of regular places to visit...but that probably won't be till after 5-6 trips.

Haha, I guess that all depends on how frequent you can make week-long trips bert. Maybe we should compile a general/country-wide toy-shopping guide like Andy has done for Tokyo? It doesn't have to be all encompassing or anything, but since a lot of us have been here, and naturally shopped around, we could just list some of the haunts we recommend (or don't).

I like this attitude! Since I'll be planning on trips into tokyo about a week out of each month, it sounds good to pace myself, and really spend time enjoying just a couple things each time (in between working of course...). But, Bert, where do you live that you get to go to Japan so often?!!! In any case, I plan on being at as many of the events/shows/cons in Tokyo as I can - even just as an attendee, if not at a table.



Sounds like a good idea! I would suggest maybe including cultural highlights as well. For example: "Go shopping "here," and while in that area MAKE SURE you eat "x-food" "there"." I don't have enough money to simply go toy shopping all the time, but the occaisional outing and/or window shopping could be combined with other cool stuff as well!

Also, where can I find Andy's Tokyo guide....? I looked around on the board, but no luck... help?

Thanks for all the responses and suggestions!

You can find Andy's map here: http://kaijukorner.blogspot.com/2010/11 ... stars.html

I have to disagree with Nagoya. I lived there for 6 months, and the only redeeming thing about it were a small collection of used record shops near Sakae. The Mandarake gets some stuff that sits around for a while, because there's hardly any traffic. You go to Nagoya on business or to see friends, but I couldn't imagine going there just for sightseeing.

I've lived in Nagoya, Saitama, Chiba, and now Tokyo proper, and the most important piece of advice I can give you is to ask locals for suggestions. There are some amazing restaurants that you would never notice unless someone told you about it. Almost everybody can talk about food, and even if your Japanese isn't up to par, you can communicate relatively effectively using only nouns and pictures.

What, no mention of all the soap bars in Nagoya?

Seriously though, the castle is nice. I can't speak for much else there with respect to toy shops, as I never had the opportunity. This is exactly why I think it would be great to pool everyone's knowledge. Sorry, I should have made the connection to KK directly, thanks for posting it Onwi

Onwi - there's plenty to do during a 1-2 day trip to Nagoya. The Mandarake area is nice to walk around. You've got shops in the area like Spanky, Erostika, and others tucked here and there. Plus if you want to get adventurous you can track down Gateway - one of Japan's legendary toy shops. Oh crap I just remembered another one - a Transformers mecca (maybe one of the biggest in Japan) that's run by a TF fiend way out in the middle of nowhere. (Man that was tough to get to!) I'll try to track down the names and locations and write them up on KK when I have a chance.

UltraK - I like the idea of a larger Japan wide toy shop map. It's one of the things I'd like to get to down the line. One thing about that is shops open and close pretty frequently, so big maps always need updating. Anyway, for now there are various write ups of shops in Osaka and Kobe up on KK.

JM - I like your perspective on exploring new places. I'd just add that Osaka back alleys and glitzy Tokyo streets are as authentic culturally as fishing villages and remote towns. All part of an ever fluxing continuum.

Yeah, don't go and diss Nagoya! I've lived in Tokyo and Osaka, but Nagoya is where I'd live if we ever moved back (well ok, my wife is from there too). Osu is totally worth a trip. BxH, Spanky, Mandarake and a few totally nice (and hidden) vintage stores along with some more mainstream one, it's a less crowded, much friendlier Akihabara. I mean, there's even a hiphop store that sells Western vinyl. Nagoya FTW!

I didn't realize there was so much love for Nagoya. I will say that the people there are some of the nicest out of all the big cities; that was the main reason why I moved there for 6 months. Nagoya definitely has some interesting food culture, and while I can't get behind miso katsu, hitsumaboshi and tebasaki are both pretty good. For a family, I'm sure it's a good place. I lived there a few years ago, when I was 21, and a single guy living in Nagoya meant trips to Osu and Sakae any time I wasn't working.

In the spirit of giving a more rounded opinion of Nagoya, here are some good points:
- There are some pretty amazing tattoo shops. Horizaru just moved down there to Genko Tattoo. Sabado's Eccentric Super Tattoo is there, if you can afford it. There's a ton of smaller shops around Osu, too.
- Banana Records, Record Shop Zoo, and a few other places have a pretty big used record collection.
- Bounty Hunter, Erostika, and Spanky are all in the area.
- Super cheap morning sets. This means a breakfast with coffee, for less than the price of just the coffee.

Bad points:
- If you like touring bands, or anything that's not Japanese hip hop or punk, you're out of luck. Other than megastadium shows, if a foreign band comes to Japan, they'll go to Tokyo first. Then Osaka. Then back home.
- I don't know if this still holds true, but in 2007 when I lived there, Nagoya had the most expensive subway system in Japan.

Conclusion:
I won't be living in Nagoya again if I can help it. I also probably won't live in Saitama or Chiba again, either. Nagoya may be worth a visit if you have friends there.

WOW! Thanks for all the info everyone! I appreciate the conversations that are happening as well - it's all giving me a good 'big picture' view of the topics at hand. It's nice to know peoples' opnions on both sides - kind of going along with idea of not expecting too much. If people just said "go here - it's awesome," you can get your hopes up and be dissapointed in the end. Sounds like I'll be taking a trip to Nagoya, and I'll have to report my findings



First of all - I LOVED TOKYO when I was there, and certainly never meant to diminish the true cultural experience one gets there. I guess I'm just kind of looking forward to the experience of living in the country side, and then still being able to take trips into the city (having a place to stay at a friend's place)

Second - I'll be on the look out for cool shops while living over there! I plan on keeping notes about things I find, and I'd be happy to contribute to any 'guide' that I could. I'm really excited to see what's out there - and I'm also really excited to eat bundles of Mochi!

Another thought on the Nago(od/bad)ya debate, though it's a huge city, it's much less crowded than Osaka or Tokyo. With its huge thoroughfares, sidewalks, and amazingly spacious subway stations, I'm sure city planners were hoping for a larger resident base. Or maybe the population has shrunk over the years. In any case, the city often feels more like a place to work than to live. That's my take, anyway.

The effect is a little unnerving at times, especially when you're in an underground passage that's deserted, and you start to think to yourself, "This would be a great place for a zombie flic!" But the upside is the overall vibe is more relaxed than even smaller cities like Kobe and Yokohama.

I'll work on getting that Gateway info up, since it's definitely worth the legwork. We met a professional wrestler when we were there. Guy spoke English too! Good times.

I'll be interested in hearing about your rural experiences. I have a buddy who had a similar experience years ago. During the five years he lived there (I can't remember the town's name), it forced him to up his Japanese, which is now fluent.

On the toy hunting side of things, I've expanded my Tokyo toy shop map again. The link posted above still works. It will take you to my mega blog post that has all the bits, bobs, and details you'll need to shop for toys in Tokyo. (Unless you're into more mainstream stuff. For that sort of thing, I haven't gotten around to posting anything besides Kiddyland. Well, and Radio Hall, I suppose, which is more nerdstream than mainstream, but not really my cuppa so' all the same.)

Thanks Andy!

Actually my wife and I managed to wander into the majority of the big 'mainstream' toy shops while meandering through Tokyo. They are fun to go into and all, but not my thing either. The only really great stuff we managed to hit was Nakano Broadway and the Mandarake in Shibuya (this big one in the basement level). At the time, though, I was searching for rare Devil Robots stuff, and didn't have the funds to buy much soft vinyl.... My tastes have changed a bit over the last couple of years (though DR is still one of my favorites), so I'm psyched to go hunting for all the shops on your map! That thing looks like a treasure map!

I first moved to Tokyo when I was 23, and I loved it then because I was into music and art and there was -always- something happening. You can live years and years in the city and you'll always find something new. I mean, there's 1.5 times the population of Canada in the extended Tokyo area. On the downside, it's expensive as hell, you'll most probably spend a huge portion of your time commuting, people aren't especially nice, more business-like than anything, and I found that the rhythm there was so fast it was hard to make time to meet friends. Every subsequent visit has made me like the city less and less. Good for shopping, but I'd avoid living there if I could. This said, if you've never done it, I -would- live there for some time. Nothing like it anywhere else.

Osaka was a lot quieter, people a lot friendlier, but I was living in the burbs by the sea and I can't say I went to the city much. I was 25 by then and starting to get out of the one-concert-a-night. I didn't live there, but people in Kyoto mostly lived by their reputation of being snobbish pricks.

I'm now 34, and I have to say Nagoya seems to have struck the perfect balance between stuff-to-do and slower-pace. I ended up spending hours talking to the shop owners everywhere I visited (much to my wife's delight ), people are mostly interesting, friendly, but not as intrusive as some Kansai people, and they get over the white-boy-speaking-Japanese novelty fast enough. It's cheap(er) too. Plus, if you're in Japan for music, you hopefully won't spend time going to foreign bands' gigs (except those organized by my friends at Sweet Dreams (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweet-Dre ... 497?ref=ts), of course!) and local bands do stop by Nagoya. And their aquarium -rocks-!

(I generalize, as always, but that was my Japan experience in a nutshell)

Just found about about the Giant Asian Hornet.
WATCH OUT!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7sJ5TZsJ-Q