A little portfolio.

Often enough, I try to recommend great places to visit in Japan, but I can rarely pass along a really solid and coherent idea. This will be a work in progress, but I can at least tell you about some places that I’ve enjoyed. This is in no particular order, though roughly chronological in order of my holidays.

Places to go

  • Three Views of Japan spread across the country: Pine-clad islands of Matsushima, Sandbar of Amanohashidate, Torii at Itsukushima Shrine
  • Hinamizawa in the central alps, setting for the horror story Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, better known as Shirakawa IRL
  • Lake Kizaki, the setting for the anime Onegai Teacher, not far from Hakuba and Nagano (top skiing destinations)
  • Miasa Pokapoka Land, a little onsen hotel in the middle of nowhere, also close to Hakuba and Nagano (we stayed there while visiting Lake Kizaki)
  • Big Sight in Tokyo, which is where Comiket is held twice a year. It’s a big event venue so you can visit at any time of year. If you go for Comiket, steel yourself for the crowds. If you’re an idiot/masochist, go and line up from 3am so you can get those limited editions goods before theyre sold-out.
  • Jinbocho is the books district in Tokyo, and a featured setting in the Read Or Die anime. It’s walking distance from Akiba.
  • Roppongi Hills, a fancy-pants shopping centre that’s fun to wander around
  • Matsushiro is a little town deep in the mountains south of Nagano city, and it’s anonymously the setting for anime Occult Gakuin
  • Ueda, the setting for the anime movie Summer Wars, is also south of Nagano
  • A-Button gaming bar in Akiba, it’s a small place but great to visit if you’re a fan of classic console gaming
  • Komoro, also very close to Ueda in Nagano prefecture, used as the setting for the anime Ano Natsu de Matteru. Go during the summer, I’m sure it’ll be nicer. If you want to experiment with Single-8 motion picture film like I did, you’ll wanna look up Retro Enterprises to get your film developed.
  • Kagoshima, go west, allllll the way to the west of the mainland, then keep going until you’re on Kyuushu. Now go south, maybe visit Nagasaki on the way down, keep going all the way down to the bottom. Now you’re in Kagoshima. Sakurajima is just across the harbour, it’s an active volcano – awesome! There’s a bunch of island accessible from here. If you were going to Okinawa, you’d also come via here unless you fly directly.
  • Tanegashima is an island reachable by ferry from Kagoshima port. It’s the setting for Robotics;Notes, an instalment in the Sci-Fi Adventure series of games and animes. JAXA has a facility here which you can tour, I would LOVE to see a rocket launch from here one day. You wanna rent a car to get around.
  • Sakurajima is also worth a visit, you can hire a car and drive around here too. There’s lots of really old pine forests.
  • Kawaguchiko is a lake at the base of Mt Fuji. Yeah Fuji is cool and all, but Kawaguchiko is a beautiful place to stay on its own. Easily accessible from Tokyo, there’s lots of nature to explore, and you’re close to Fuji Q amusement park. We stayed there while visiting the Ice and Wind caves near the town, and hiked through a bit of Aokigahara (the so-called suicide forest).
  • Tachikawa is the backup seat of government for Tokyo in the event of a major emergency, on the western outskirts of Tokyo. It’s also a nice place to visit on its own. Showa Memorial Park is impressively large and nice to wander around. I think some locations from early Key/VisualArts games were taken from Tachikawa.
  • Himeji: The castle here is the big drawcard for the city. I’m not really drawn by castles usually, but this one is pretty damn impressive.
  • Sendai: if you head north from Tokyo, Sendai is about halfway to the top of the mainland, on the east coast. There’s a good gyoza place here. I used Sendai as my staging area for driving to Fukushima.
  • Shichigahama is on the coast a little way out of Sendai, and Hanabushi shrine was featured in the Kannagi anime. Not exactly convenient to get to but nice to visit. While you’re on the way to your shrine pilgrimage from Sendai you can visit Jin’s house in Fukumuro 3-chome, it… really run down in reality.
  • Sapporo of course has the Sapporo beer museum, they run tours though they were closed when we went during New Years. If you’re there around New Year time the city has nice lighting displays around the CBD (and there’s lots of snow).
  • Hitsujigaoka is a few km away from the Sapporo CBD and is a nice lookout hill. Apparently sheep graze on the hillside during summer but we only went during winter when it was thick with snow. There’s a statue of Dr William Clarke on the hill, the guy who coined the motto “Boys, be ambitious!”
  • Maruyama shrine is in Sapporo city, near a zoo that looks pretty good. This area featured in a couple of eyecatch frames in the Kanon 2006 anime.
  • Cape Soya is the northern tip of Hokkaido, and thus the northernmost point of Japan. We took the train up to Wakkanai, then a bus for the final leg to Soya, it’s quite a distance away from Sapporo. Sakhalin in Russia is only 43km away, and they say you can see it from the cape when the weather is very clear. Once you’re up there the major street signage is trilingual, with Japanese, English, and Russian.
  • Otaru is a small coastal city west of Sapporo, it’s the setting for the manga+anime Saikano. If you make it up Hell’s Hill, the view over the harbour and city is quite stunning.
  • Hokkaido is just nice all-round, it’s the setting for Kita he, a Dreamcast-era game later given an anime adaptation.
  • Fukushima: Starting in Sendai, I rented a car and road-tripped around the area, with no real plan but a handful of places I could try to visit. A lot of the areas were locked down at the time but they’re probably opened up again now. This is less of a destination and more of a simple pleasure, just drive.
  • Aomori is the north end of the mainland, it’s known for its apples, and beautiful forests. I took the train to Shin-Aomori and then rented a car so I could drive around the peninsula. Find yourself some local apples and produce, it’s all delicious.
  • Mutsu is further north from Aomori city, around the Shimokita peninsula. It’s only practically reachable by driving, and now you’re getting into less populated areas and more forest. Stay at Muu B&B if you can, it’s a handmade log cabin. This area is the place to go for onsens off the beaten track, and Osorezan, which is a gateway to the underworld in Japanese mythology. Osorezan is a sulphurous spring, and the smell hangs thickly in the air. The Buddhist temple here is the main attraction.
  • Numazu and Uchiura is the setting for Love Live Sunshine, and relatively easy to access from Tokyo. You’ll need to take the bus from Numazu station to get to Uchiura, it’s a nice little town. The marine park on the island across the harbour there is pretty cool, and it’s worth the climb.
  • Odaiba is really a bit of a tourist trap in Tokyo Bay, but it’s fun to visit nonetheless. Take the Yurikamome line, it’s a driverless train that goes out across the rainbow bridge and does a big panoramic loop, it’s a great view.
  • Tsukuba Science City is northeast of Tokyo in Ibaraki prefecture, the Tsukuba Express will get you there in about 45min. Honestly I went there because “Science City” sounds damn cool and reminds me of that light novel and anime series Toaru Kagaku no Railgun (however the Academy City in the story is actually based on Tama and Tachikawa). It has Science in the name, how can I not? I didn’t actually get to see a lot while I was there, but it did sate my curiosity as to where that dedicated train station in Akiba goes to.
  • Matsue is out in the sticks in Shimane prefecture, fairly far west on the mainland, north of Hiroshima on the north coast. I drove around here and just enjoyed it even though I didn’t get to catch up with a friend who’s there with the JET exchange program. There’s a picturesque little onsen town/resort on the south bank of Lake Shinji, it would’ve been wonderful to stay there overnight.
  • Awajishima is an island in the Inland Sea, not far from Kobe. The island has beautiful narcissus (daffodil) fields, and was the characters’ destination in the visual novel Narcissu.
  • There are numerous cat islands around Japan, some easier to reach than others. Loooots of cats.
  • Cats not your thing? Maybe a fox village is your thing instead

Places to stay

My go-to for accommodation is Toyoko Inn, a chain of business hotels that you will find everywhere around the country. Another good option is MyStays, a similar chain. These places are great because they’re utterly ubiquitous, pretty affordable, and have consistently good amenities. The website is a little bit confusing for booking, but you can get around if you know a little bit of Japanese. Rooms are dearer in big cities, but you can expect to pay 6000-9000 yen per night for a single room. It’s great value if you travel with a friend and book a Twin room with two single beds, this brings the per-person cost down to about 4000 yen. Signing up for the loyalty card thing is worth it, you can sometimes get cheaper rates for being a member and you get a free night every now and then.

If you’re in Akihabara you should consider staying at Via Inn, just across the river on the southern outskirts of the area. Prices are pretty good, the rooms are good, and each floor of the building is named after a different typeface. Luckily there is no floor for Comic Sans. You’d stay at Via Inn because there’s no Toyoko Inn in Akiba, and the closest MyStays at Ochanomizu is equidistant. The MyStays is on top of a konbini, while Via is next to a maid cafe – your call.

Places to eat

  • Shini’s gyoza joint in Sendai (but they should have other branches too)
  • Ichiran ramen (Shibuya and other locations)
  • Matsuya and Tsujida (somewhere along the road between Jinbocho and Akiba)
  • DevilCraft does Chicago-style deep dish pizza and beer, they have a few branches in Tokyo. I think we went to the one in Hamamatsucho, it was great.
  • Ice Cream City in Namja Town in Sunshine 60, Ikebukuro. There have lots of icecream flavours, including weird ones
  • Tsujita ramen (つじ田), on the road between Jinbocho and Akiba, highly recommended
  • Matsuya is right down the road from Tsujita, also between Jinbocho and Akiba. It’s a legit old-school noodle joint, also highly recommended

Simple pleasures

  • Go see some local idols at Dear Stage in Akiba
  • Visit Don Quijote at 2am, because you can
  • Hire a Fairlady Z and go hoon around the C1 expressway at 2am, because you can
  • The JR pass doesn’t cover the fastest and newest Nozomi and Mizuho shinkansen services, but it does cover the Hayabusa, which goes from Tokyo to Hokkaido very quickly (top speed of 300+ km/h). It’s decked out in Miku colours of teal and magenta, which is reason enough to make a trip northwards.
  • The Sunrise Seto and Sunrise Izumo are overnight sleeper trains that run west from Tokyo along the Tokaido Line. It’s a bit difficult to sort out tickets but it’s an enjoyably quaint experience to take an overnight train that you sleep on.
  • Window-shop at Nakano Broadway, a few stops west of the Yamanote loop in Tokyo
  • Shop for secondhand camera gear at Fujiya while you’re in Nakano, the Japanese market is excellent and prices are so much better
  • Go clubbing somewhere like ageHa in Shin-Kiba, or O-East or Womb in Shibuya
  • Visit Tokyo Disney Land and Disney Sea, apparently Disney Sea is the better of the two
  • Buy a new pair of glasses from Candy Fruit Optical in Akiba. Japan in general has a lot more interesting styles than what we get back home.
  • Visit M’s, the infamous seven-storey sex toy shop in Akiba, right next to the station
  • You can find a lot of cosplay supplies and related goods at Cospa and Animate stores (mostly Akiba and Ikebukuro)
  • Go there for a concert event, Love Live or any of your favourite idol groups are a good choice. Vocaloid events are also a big thing. Tickets for these are quite difficult to get though, you can’t just do it casually. You’ll need to either enter ticket lotteries, or hope to pick some up from Yahoo Auctions Japan at higher prices.
  • We never tried, but maybe you can catch a Takarazuka Revue stage show, that’d be pretty cool
  • Ghibli Museum, west of Tokyo around Mitaka. Tickets can be a pain in the arse to get, but very worthwhile if you can do it.
  • Ride the Toden Arakawa streetcar line in Tokyo
  • Visit Shinjuku Gyoen, the park used for the setting of Shinkai’s animated film Garden of Words
  • Visit an Anna Millers family restaurant, I know you’re there for the uniforms
  • Buy 3000 yen of alcohol from the konbini and sit in your hotel getting drunk while watching really stupid TV, you know you want to
  • You’re obliged to drink Strong Zero while you’re in Japan
  • Visit during spring for hanami
  • There might still be a shop on the west side of Akiba called ニーハイ専門店 「絶対領域」 that’s dedicated to knee-high and thigh-high socks 👌
  • Visit a maid (or butler) cafe. If this seems too overwhelming, you can pick one of the numerous more foreigner-friendly ones. Cure Maid Cafe is the oldest in Akiba and is a bit more sophisticated if that’s bothering. Swallowtail is the butler equivalent, but apparently difficult to get into because it gets booked out?
  • On Sundays they close the main road of Akiba and turn it into a pedestrian zone
  • Spend a day just losing yourself inside Yodobashi Camera in Akiba, it’s a huge building all to itself and they sell everything, not just cameras
  • Try out airsoft, because you just can’t have that sort of fun in Australia