Tokyo General Tips by stonefree

Favorite Thing: In fact, there is no name of the place "Tokyo". This may make you being embarrassed. But I'm honest. The word just "Tokyo" as a name of a place can be used only for "Tokyo-to", or for "Tokyo Station" as far as possible, on a map or an atlas.

Tokyo-to is one of the 47 prefectures (ken) in Japan that possesses the metropolitan of Japan. It consists on the 23 wards (ku) and several other cities, town and villages.

When we call "Tokyo", we are generally referring to the area within the 23 ku. The aggregate of the 23 ku is the metropolitan and is considered as one city.

The names of the wards of the 23 ku are...
Chiyoda-ku
Chuo-ku
Minato-ku
Shinjuku-ku
Bunkyo-ku
Taito-ku
Sumida-ku
Koto-ku
Shinagawa-ku
Meguro-ku
Ota-ku
Setagaya-ku
Shibuya-ku
Suginami-ku
Toshima-ku
Kita-ku
Arakawa-ku
Itabashi-ku
Nerima-ku
Adachi-ku
Katsushika-ku
Edogawa-ku

Fondest Memory: ref: Tokyo Metropolitan Government's site
and Tokyo Tourism Info

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Favorite Thing: This is the URL link section that provides the useful URLs for you visitors to Tokyo to get prepared with current informations. Check'em out ; )

what's up in Tokyo?
Tokyo Tourism Info
YES! TOKYO
Tokyo Notice Board
tokyo journal
TokyoQ

how's the weather?
Weather Underground - Tokyo, Japan



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Favorite Thing: It is famous but the tower is a radio tower. Every ground telecast from Tokyo is transmitted through this tower. And the shape of it is modelled after The Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was built in 1958 and is 333meters high. It's a ruin of "modern architecture" today.

Fondest Memory: I just wonder, how many of those who live in Tokyo have ever looked out over the city from the upper observatory of this? I just did it after the age of 35. No, I never had gone up before. I've thought it was just another tourist attraction. And I knew now it was juat another tourist attraction. Yes, folks. It is definitely a tourist attraction.

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Fondest Memory: This region, which is too famouse for travellers as a well sofisticated shopping centre, is where I spend my life most for over 10years since my office is in here.

I really love Ginza.
Ginza has seen almost everything about me for that long (o, yeah, including the passed precious times with the most special one who is now my better half) and I know what to do about Ginza.

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Favorite Thing: KAMINARIMON (The Thunder Gate) is the main entrance of Senso-ji / Asakusa Kannon. With passing through this gate, you will walk along the approach with suvenir shops along it to the main temple.

Fondest Memory: The kanji on the red lamp is written KAMINARIMON (Thunder Gate) in Japanese.
Above the red lamp, on the board is written KONRYUSAN (Golden Dragon Mountain).
A mountain when in a temple means the head quater.

There is a silly story. As you can see on the pic, the lamp is a little bit folded on the bottom of it. The lamp on the pic is renewed some last year. The investor was the local merchants society. They planned and ordered the new lamp bigger than it used to be as making a wish for the more prosperity of the town. But... when they changed the lamp to the new one... hanged it... they found that the lamp was too big so people can reach and hit on their head with the bottom of it when they pass under the gate. Too poor...

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Favorite Thing: AMEYOKO is a shopping arcade that had been a black market in the post war decade that the atmospher of those days still remains.

Fondest Memory: I used to shop around here when I was in a high school when Yen was strong to purchase goods from US or some other foreign countries in a good deal. The shops never had been an ofiicial resellers.

The shops there these days seem that they have contracts with official dealers so I'm not too interested in shopping here today.

Be careful of the sham ; )

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Favorite Thing: What we call KOKYO is the palace of TENNO (Emperor) which had been the castle of Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868) until Tokugawa Yoshinobu declared that the Shogunate give back the government to the Emperor in 1867. The Emperor had been taken away the government after the WW2 under the national democratization. The Emperor remains living in the palace as the symbolic being of Japanese nation.

Ok, class dismissed!

You can pay a visit there and walk around some parts of the site as you do in a park.


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Fondest Memory: I pay a visit this shrine once a year with my wife since I got married.
It has a huge precinct with woods and the long approach to the main shrine. You will forget you are in the center of Tokyo in the walk through the approach.

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Favorite Thing: Ok, Zojo-ji is not too famous among travellers, but, see the pic, this may be what you visitors expect for Tokyo, right? Temple and the symbolic tower with the adorable cherry blossoms...

Come in the middle of April. You may view the SAKURA at its peak. Nowhere else in Japan has such a complete / complex view. It's perfect.


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Favorite Thing: What's the matter with this Blade Runner style building, huh? The Metropolitan Government's Office. This might be a "Must See" to you visitors, in the meantime, it is a "Trap" for us citizens of Tokyo. It's just a building of TAX for us.

Ok, you visitors, as you've been here with much trouble, at least go up to the observatory on the 45th floor, 202meters high ; )


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