Asakusa

Asakusa is an oldest shopping area in Tokyo. The shopping area is called as ‘Nakamise Shopping Arcade’. There are a lot of colorful stalls selling Japanese traditional food and toys. There is also an old temple next to the shopping area. In front of the temple, there is a large incense burner. It is for the purification of people’s bodies before they enter the temple. It is said that if the smoke coming from the incense can cure the sickness of body. In addition, it is said that if the smoke touches your head, you would get smarter. There is a large wooden fortune telling stand. To use it, first select a stick from one of the metal cylinders. Next give the stick to the temple official who, in return, will issue you with a slip of paper. If the paper says you have bad luck, by then tying it to the branch of a tree or the special rack provided, it will apparently blow away.

Akihabara

Akihabara (Akiba)

Akihabara is a major shopping area for electronic, computer, anime including new and used items. Since Japan use 110V electronic devices, the place is especially famous for Americans who live in a country which uses 110V. In Akihabara, You can find any sort of old & new videogames, starting even from the 8-bit era to modern motion-sensing videogames. If you like game, you should visit Akihabara. There are thousands of games! Akihabara first gained some fame through being home to one of the first stores devoted to personal robots and robotics. In nowadays, Akihabara has emerged as the major place for buying animation products. There are some peculiar and funny places like cosplay ("costume play") cafes, where waiters and waitresses are dressed up like anime characters, and manga kissaten ("comics cafes"), where customers can read comics, watch DVDs and surf the internet.

Tokyo Tower

Tokyo tower

Tokyo Tower is in the middle of Tokyo and you can see it from every place in Tokyo. You can say that the tower is symbol for the Tokyo. The tower has two functions. One is for communication and the other is for tourists’ observation. The tower is 332.5 meters and it is the second tallest artificial structure in Japan. The structure was modeled after the Eiffel Tower but was painted in orange because of air safety regulations. There are also restaurants, museum, and shops below the tower. Guests can visit two observation decks. The 2-story Main Observatory is located at 150 meters, while the smaller Special Observatory reaches a height of 250 meters. On clear days, Mount Fuji can be seen to the south. When you step up into the Observatory deck, you will the view of Tokyo and its elaborate buildings. There is also "look down windows" that allow visitors to stand over a small clear window and look to the ground 145 m below. Tokyo Tower was originally intended for television broadcasting and radio signals. Antennas were installed in 1961 and the tower is now used to broadcast both signals for Japanese media outlets such as NHK, TBS and Fuji TV. Over 150 million people have visited the tower since its opening.

(Tokyo sky tree under construction 5/18)

(The Tokyo sky tree in 2012 Spring)

The 'Tokyo sky tree' is under construstion. It will be the Tokyo's new symbol. It already exceeds the height of 'Tokyo tower' in March 2010. It will open at 2012, spring. It will take the funcition as signal tower from 'Tokyo tower'.

Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation film studio. The company's logo features the character Totoro from the film ‘My Neighbor Totoro’. Totoro looks like a hairy fat mouse twice as huge as human. In fact, in Japan, the character is originally known as a large forest spirit.

We cut some famous part from the film, 'My Neighbor Totoro'.

Studio Ghibli made many famous animations that won many awards like ‘Castle in the Sky’ and ‘Spirited Away’.

(Castle in the Sky)

The Studio is now turned into a museum. When you visit there, you would see many sculptors and images. The one special characteristic of this museum is that we can touch the exhibitions. Thus, although you don’t know much about the animation, you can enjoy the museum.

(The giant robot in the 'Castle in the Sky')

However, you can only get the ticket from Internet and you have to reserve it before you go to the museum. The museum does not sell ticket in front of its entrance.

(The ticket of studio Ghibli)

Harajuku-The place where abundant energy flows

(One of the main street in Harajuku)

(The place where I visited in Monday. It was empty)

Harajuku is the place for young Japanese adults. Thus, when you visit the place, you can see the spectacular and fancy fashion trends in Japanese young adults. In addition, Harajuku is famous for unique fashion style. For example, some people wears anime clothes known as cosplay. Cosplay means to wear same clothes as cartoon characters. Many fashion magazines collect pictures from this place. You can especially see a lot of strange clothes in weekend. Harajuku is also well known for various shopping malls. If you want to see fresh a latest trends of people, you should visit Harajuku!

However, according to our trip, there is also a danger in Harajuku. We interviewed Daniel Suh in 8-B about his experience in Harajuku.

Japanese Travel Guide

Odaiba

Odaiba is a large artificial island in Tokyo Bay across the Rainbow Bridge from central Tokyo. It was first built for defensive purposes in the 1850s and was expanded during the late 20th century as a seaport district, and has developed since the 1990s as a major commercial, residential and leisure area. Since Odaiba is built on reclaimed land, it is flat and easy to walk around. In Odaiba, there are several shopping and entertainment centers, theme parks, museums and the futuristic architecture and city planning.

There are some ways that you can use to visit this artificial land.

By Yurikamome

The Yurikamome is an un-manned, elevated train with rubber tires

By Boat

You can ride Tokyo Water Cruise, also known as Suijo Bus,

By Rinkai Line

This is an underground railway line

On Foot

It is possible to cross the Rainbow Bridge on foot. The walk across takes about 30 minutes and offers nice views of the waterfront area.

Ikebukuro

Ikebukuro is the center of commercial and entertainment district of Tokyo, Japan. If you visit there, you would get surprise by the numbers of departments stores, restaurants, and buildings. Also, the city is famous for subways and trains since the place is center of Japanese transportation. Sunshine city is famous in Ikebukuro. It is complex of four buildings and one of them is the second highest in Tokyo. The building is 240meters high. There are shops, a planetarium, an aquarium, a small oriental museum, a theatre and the Namja Town theme park for children in Sunshine city.

Shinjuku

Shinjuku is a major commercial and administrative center. There are also busiest train station in the world (Shinjuku Station) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, the administration center for the government of Tokyo.

I will introduce some famous places that are wonderful place for the tourists.

Ōkubo: Tokyo's best-known Korean district

Shinjuku Gyoen: It is a large park, 58.3 hectares, 3.5 km in circumference. There is a Japanese traditional, English Landscape and French Formal style garden.

Yotsuya: An upscale residential and commercial district; the Arakichō area is well-known for its many small restaurants, bars, and izakaya. (Japanese bar that also sells snacks.)

Kagurazaka: One of Tokyo's last remaining ‘hanamachi’ or ‘geisha’ districts. Hanamachi originally means ‘Flower Street’ but nowadays; the term ‘hanamachi’ is commonly used in modern Japan to refer to the areas where modern-day geisha are still operating. Geshia is female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance.

Culture of Japan-Housing

Japanese these days tend to live in modern day houses, but some older people live in their own traditional Japanese houses. One interesting fact about Japanese traditional house is that they don’t actually have a special use of their room except for kitchen, bathroom and toilet. For example, your bedroom can be your living room if all your family gathers up. They could eat in whatever room and study in whatever room. This is possible because Japanese people always had portable furniture in their housings.

This furniture was stored in a storage room called oshiire. The doors of the Japanese house were made with paper covered over a net shaped wood. Like other portable furniture, this door was designed to make it easy to take it out and in when needed. Such were making the room larger when they don’t have enough space to fit in.

The floor of Japanese house is very unique. The Japanese flooring, called tatami, is a mat woven by rice straws. Most tatami have edging with plain cloth, but in some tatami they don’t have any edging at all. Tatami was a luxury item in past Japan around in Heian period. The lower classes then had mat-covered dirt floors, which is different from these days since almost all people around Japan uses tatami as their flooring.

Tatami is also divided into parts when a host invites guests into his/her house. They have entrance mat, guest mat, host mat and hearth mat. The guests are supposed to sit on the guest mat, and the host sits on the host mat. If there are too many guests and they cannot fit in, some guests sit on the entrance mat. They put their lower half of the body inside the hearth mat to keep themselves warm. The table that is put on the hearth mat contains a cover-like thing that works like an insulator for the heat from the hearth.

Tatami also has the knowledge of Japanese people inside it. Since tatami is made out of straw, it absorbs the humid air of Japan. Since Japan is an island country, they have a lot of humid air around the country. Also, tatami controls and insulates the temperature of the house very well. If it is very hot during summer, tatami keeps the floor cool enough so that people can feel comfortable. Also, when it is winter, tatami makes the room warm and keeps the temperature inside the house.

Culture of Japan-Clothes

The most known traditional clothe of Japan probably is kimono. Kimono literally means things to wear in Japanese. Kimonos are T shaped, straight lined type of robe. It is worn always with left side covering over the right side, except when a people died and they are going to the burial and such.

Kimonos are usually worn with traditional footwear, usually zori or geta, and split-toe socks called tabi. These days, kimonos are only worn by women in special occasions such as traditional festivals. Most kimonos are designed for women as well, so male don’t wear it frequently as the females. However, males do have kimonos, which tend to be having simple colors such as black or gray.

Womens’ kimono has beautiful colors such as red, yellow, blue and white. Another difference between the male and female kimono is that mens’ kimono has larger part that is unattached to the body of the kimono, and womens’ have smaller part that is unattached to the body of kimono.

With kimono, people wear variety of accessories. One of the famous accessories is geta. Geta is a wooden slipper that has two big blocks stuck below the shoe. Usually, Japanese people use it during rainy season to make sure that their clothes or feet don’t get wet by the rain.

Another accessory is the datejime. Datejime is a kind of a silk belt that holds the kimono tight so the kimono doesn’t slip off or flipped over. Usually datejime has stiffer middle and softer ends.

Zori, a shoe that was mentioned before, is are traditional sandals worn by both men and women, similar in design to flip-flops. They are made of many materials, including cloth, leather, vinyl and woven grass, and can be highly decorated or very simple.

Cultures of Japan-Foods

You are in the middle of Japan. You don’t know what to do because you have never been to Japan. You try to ask people around, but since you don’t know how to speak in Japanese, everybody avoids you. What will you do? You will regret that you did not see this manual full of Japanese culture, since there are a lot of Japanese cultures. Some might be difficult to follow, but it still would be a great experience.

Food Culture

The food of Japan usually consists of rice and raw fish. Most known Japanese food would be sushi, sashimi, ramen and udon.
Sushi is a bite sized food that has raw seafood covered over the rice. This is one of the most popular Japanese foods in the whole world. There are already a lot of restaurants which sell sushi in most of the world. Similar food that was made out of sushi is California rolls. These were made by Japanese people who immigrated to America, and they had made unique foods to develop their foods through America.

Other one, sashimi, is a raw fish cut in pieces. You usually dip a soy sauce mixed with wasabi and eat it.

Udon is a noodle made out of wheat. They are usually boiled and served as a broth. They are usually hot but they make it cold during summer seasons.

Soba is a buckwheat noodle, and it is served with a dipping sauce made of katsuobushi, a smoked, dried tuna. However, these foods are known to come from China.

One food that is surely known to have come from Japan is ramen. Ramen is a thin egg noodle, usually served in a miso or shoyu soup. Some put bean sprouts or roasted pork on top of it. Recently, instant ramens which you have to pour in hot water became famous.