Tokyo Packing List Tips by sjvessey

Packing List *General Advices Review

Clothing/Shoes/Weather Gear: Tokyo is cold in the winter, and hot in the summer. When I arrived in February the daytime high was in the region of 10 C (that's 50 F). I would describe that as 'cool' to 'chilly'. The wind can be really biting, even if the air temperature isn't that low, so consider bringing a coat that keeps out the wind.

You will definitely need an <b>umbrella</b> unless you're coming in the summer.

Toiletries and Medical Supplies: You can buy anything you need from the convenience stores which are dotted all over the place. It's unlikely you'll ever be more than 5 minutes walk from one. However, Western brands are not much in evidence for certain things such as toothpaste, so it's best to bring your own until you find your feet. Otherwise you might end up trying to clean your teeth with the Japanese equivalent of preparation H (because mostly the packaging is in Japanese, naturally).

Photo Equipment: If you have a digital camera just buy the right adapter plug before you travel and you'll have no problems. Anything else, you can buy here. There are photographic / electronics shops all everywhere.

Miscellaneous: If you're in Tokyo for any length of time, you'll begin to run out of certain types of consumables. Here's where you need to go to replace them.

<font color=#0000A0><b>Books</b></font> - if you can't speak Japanese you'll soon get bored of watching unintelligible games shows and CNN, which are probably going to be your only entertainment choices provided by your hotel. And chances are, the novel you bought to read on the flight isn't going to keep you occupied for too long (unless you're a really slow reader). Fortunately there is an excellent bookstore chain called <b>Kinokuniya</b> which has outlets in a number of places. A couple of minutes walk from the Shinjuku-sanchome metro stop, along Shinjuku-dori, brings you to one of these. Foreign books (i.e. English ones) are on the 7th (top) floor. However, there's a bigger and better Kinekuniya next to the Times Square monster department store, by Shinjuku (Japan Rail) station. Here, there's a much, much wider selection of foreign titles, including some French and Spanish ones. However, be warned that, like most things in Japan, foreign books are pricy. You're looking at about US$12-16 per title, probably.

<font color=#0000A0><b>Bread and other basic Western foodstuffs</b></font> - I'm talking crusty, fresh-baked French loaves, that kind of thing. Bread is a rarity in Japanese restaurants, at least it seems that way to me. The only restaurants you'll get decent bread in are Italian. However, most supermarkets seem to stock fairly decent bread - but you do have to find a real supermarket, not simply a convenience store. There's a convenience store practically every 50 metres (AMPM, 7-Eleven, and Family Mart are the main outlets), but they tend to concentrate more on chocolates, potato chips, ice cream, beverages and the ubiquitous DoCoMo mobile phones than staple foodstuffs. Don't expect to find bread, milk, cheese, or anything you can really eat and call a meal in these stores.