Tsukiji

Tsukiji is the largest fish market in the world. It's located right off of Tokyo bay, pretty close to the Ginza shopping district and the National Kabuki theater. There are hundreds of retail and wholesale sellers with a huge variety of offerings, the least of which is fish.

Needless to say, we had some of the best sushi I've ever tasted here. That's going to be our first stop the next time we visit Japan.

See Tsukiji on Google Maps

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A guide to squat toilets

Here's a typical squat toilet in Japan. It's not uncommon when a westerner is faced with one of these for the first time that they wonder "What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" Well good news for us, we actually found some instructions for using them. To unlock this mystery of Eastern culture, click on the jump.




The ever useful instructions:



The arrows in the left graphic represent the force of gravity on poop. When using one of these toilets, you can assured that gravity is in fact still in effect.

Kappa Tengoku

Hakone Ryokan

Hakone is a mountainous region near Mt. Fuji and not so far from Tokyo. There are plenty of onsen and other tourist attractions there. I'm collecting here a list of potential places to stay when we go.

Kappa Tengoku

Subway Map of Tokyo

Subway Map of Tokyo - JohoMaps

Japanese Traffic Guide By Jorudan Co.,Ltd.

This neat site will tell you the route to get from station to station all over Japan. It includes train, bus, and flights. Japanese Traffic Guide By Jorudan Co.,Ltd.

Japanese Guest Houses: Inteviews with Three Kyoto Ryokan Owners

Here are some interesting interviews with owners of Ryokan in Kyoto.

Japanese Guest Houses: Inteviews with Three Kyoto Ryokan Owners

Monkey Park

I can't wait to visit Jigokudani-Yaenkoen, otherwise known as Jigokudani Wild Monkey Park. The English page is entertaining and there's a link to a live Monkeycam. Could it get any better?

Now I just need to add it to the map.

Updated:
Here's a link to places to stay.

Maps

I'm map obsessed and the Japanese seem to share that obsession. I'm going to keep links to some good maps here.

Here's the wayfaring map for Japan I made.

Ueno

Here's a nice map from TokyoEssentials.com

Odaiba

I'm going to add some info about Odaiba, the man-made island in the Tokyo bay where I stayed when I went to Japan in 2001.

Map from TokyoEssentials.com

Maps & Addresses

I'm fascinated by the address system in Japan. I'm sure there's a technical term to describe it better, but it's a hierarchical numbering system. A typical address might be:

1-11-2 Ginza, Chuo-ku
Tokyo, Japan

From the top level down, the address is:

Country: Japan
Prefecture: Tokyo
Ward (ku): Chuo

The numbers narrow the location even more. The ward might have a few neighborhoods with several subsections, each subsection might be broken down into several city blocks, and finally the last number would represent the building number.

Places to go

Here's the list of places I'd like to visit. The ones with * are places I've been before.
Kyoto*
Tokyo*
Nara*
Nikko
Osaka
Himeji*
Takayama
Hakone*

Added:
Nagano
Jigokudani Yaen Koen - wild monkey park
Gifu

Nikko is a priority and I'd like to take some day trips as well.

The Ryokan Experience

Ryokan are a type of traditional Japanese lodging. They often include meals (dinner and breakfast) and charge by the person. There's a big range in price but in generally, it costs more than staying in a western style hotel. The bedding is typically futon, taken out in the evening and put away in the morning. The baths are often communal, seperated by sex.

Below are links to several sites that list Ryokan and allow reservations to be made.

Japan Ryokan Association - a database of 1500 ryokan throughout Japan. There are some pretty nice ones here.

Japanese Inn Group - This group caters to foreign visitors and they're relatively inexpensive and flexible when it comes to meals, check-in, etc. The inns I looked at in Kyoto looked run-down from the outside, but that doesn't really mean much in Japan.

Japanese Guest Houses - Ryokan are ranked by class and there are comments from guests.

Japan Tourist Hotel Association - a site for all of Japan with some pretty sweet maps. I haven't looked in detail yet.

PT Group - a limited grouping of lodgings in Tokyo

Kinki Ryokan - another good listing of ryokan.

The JTNO site has some good links for places to stay as well. That's where I found these.
JNTO Places to Stay

Travel Agents & General info

I'd like to find a good bilingual travel agent to help with reservations, etc. My Japanese is basic but I could probably handle the reservations myself, but I think a native speaker could help us out a lot, especially if we're going to stay in traditional ryokan during our visit. Many of those places have websites, but not many are in English. The ones that seem to cater to foreigners like the Japanese Inn Group aren't all that nice (although they are cheap). So, help from a native speaker would go a long way in making reservations.

I'd like to stay in Ryokan as much as possible. Many include meals, and I imagine that food is really good. I'll eat most anything as long as it's not alive. At least, I'll try it once. The prices range from $50-$200 a night... per person! But, that includes 2 meals in a lot of cases. So, we might be able to justify it. I'm not at the point yet where I start budgeting. Basically it's still the information gathering stage.

I've found some good links regarding ryokan, but I think I'll put them in a seperate entry.

So it begins...

I'm going to start using this blog as a place to record travel information about the trip to Japan that we're planning for the distant future. Hopefullly we'll be able to make the trip in the next few years.