japan :: tokyo :: general

[EG562]

Any good stores for incense? 

[boomtime8]

also citrus (an izakaya) is probably one of my favorite spots in tokyo. it's chill af. 

you'd never see obnoxious chainsmoking salarymen there. 

Herp is citrus in Setagaya? Gave it a quick google and that is what came up, but with Japanese stuff never know if googling english, katakana, or kanji is the way to go.

[EG562]

If im staying within the central tokyo area, whats the best train pass to get?Suica top up card?

Edited September 14, 2016 by EG562

[conqueror]

suica. you can find alot of this basic info on japan-guide and other similar places.

[herpsky]

Herp is citrus in Setagaya? Gave it a quick google and that is what came up, but with Japanese stuff never know if googling english, katakana, or kanji is the way to go.

 

Yeah, it's in middle of nowhere Setagaya. It's actually near Setagaya koen and Mishuku. That's like where Tokyo's real hipsters hang out. 

[herpsky]

If im staying within the central tokyo area, whats the best train pass to get?Suica top up card?

I think the JR counter in Narita has some sort of deal at Narita for tourists. You get a 500 yen preloaded suica wo deposit (I forgot what the deal was — bc im not eligible).

[EG562]

Japan Tokyo scene report:

 

Lodging: Dormy inn shibuya. Highly reccomend for a good price nice small hotel. Onsen in basement was the main selling factor. Onsen 3x daily. 10/10 would stay/soak again.

Camping in mud in Naeba : Got hit with a typhoon, 3 days of pouring rain and mud. Quite fun, glad i have a nice tent, though it wet through on day 2. Inside stayed reasonably dry.

Naeba Prince hotel : soviet era design meets crumbling mountain hideout for evil villan. The room controls were like a analog tube amp, fun to mix the levels on your crappy little room. It was dry, and they have a onsen so thats all that really matters. 6/10 would stay there for labyrinth next year instead of camping in mud.

Cerurellan tower: kinda cheeseball businessman hotel. king size bed was amazing, bathroom size of room at dormy inn. 7/10 whatever. No onsen, spa was dumb, made me wear a little boy swim cap. i have big head, u see problem.

 

Shopping:

Daiykanayma T site: Great place to start out trip. Got some good sketchbook and pens to document, which i did so for 3 days then never had time to sit still and draw/write. Reciept is signed with a mont blanc, wow!

 

B. Yoshida/head porter : great stuff but a little more costly than usual. not as much of the techy materials, more of a down to earth vibe.

 

Lift ecru - best store. amazing staff, most beautiful stock. The installations and art did it for me. speechless. must visit! Couldnt afford shit, but felt good to see a lot of the CCP/daniel craig stuff in the flesh. Great jewelry too. 

 

Dog harajuku - one of my favorite shops. A stylists dream. Highly custom one off concept and costume bits. Bought a crazy shirt, wish i kopped more but only just beginning.

 

Head porter : what you would expect, got my ma-1 tanker waist bag at last for 150$. Such a solid bag.

 

Bamboo Shoots: Love these coolkid outdoor stores. Wish it would fit big boy size, but at last I found my andwander backpack. So many straps not enough gear! 

 

Oshmans : more amazing outdoor gear than i could handle. Phenix brand stood out as a city friendly outdoor brand. I guess its a separate  line, but feels really nice and tech, while being tailored and smart for city boy. Got a nice goretex northface hat. 

 

CPCM: Another favorite retail west coast wizard emporium! This housed the RTH popup i was excited to visit. Got a nice sweater, magically in western XL size. Noticed the accessories were about 2 or 3x US retail, but the apparel was similar cost. Must visit! CPCM store as a whole is incredible, and i want to live there. Got a coffee, then spilled a whole tall can which i forgot was amongst my strappy new andwander cupholder, I think they pretended not to notice, or too polite to address my shameful behavior.

 

And Niko... : Like a grownup urban outfitters. Got lots of little house items, i wanted a plush mogwai but they were like 40$?! Got lots of that special smelling woodchip type incense for the closet. 

 

Loft: Great department store for gifting. Got a great chef knife, techwear bento boxes, lots of sake sets, drink stirrers, and more puebco goods.

 

Parking Ginza - Cool retail concept from Fragment i believe. Got tons of puebco home goodies, including a nice bell to ring when i want my wife to bring me items(JK she will kill me). Real nice retail enviroment, must visit. Got some weird baby fish toast upstairs afterwords, and a super spicy ginger beer. I tried to get a lot of these gingerbeers, they seem to be a big thing. 10/10

 

Dover street - Obviously worth the trip, but a bit overwhelming. Too many radically outlandish designs in one space, but well sorted and broken up. I could spend hours here. Didnt find anyting to bring home. 

 

Gyre - I enjoyed the MMM space and the CdG space. Had a great cafe break at visvim for some home made ginger brew, and ginger cake. I recommend their little cafe for a nice mid day break, ask them to raise prices! Got some visvim coffee beans to take home for a pure lifestyle coffee boy break. The AndLab video art installation is worth the visit alone. Cool projection mapping.

Oh and some magnolia bakery in basement for banana pudding. what a treat! today i only ate deserts. 10/10 goto gyre building.

 

N.Hoolywood : Nice and hard to find, tucked in the back alleys of otomesando. Worth the wander indeed. Housed in a old house, it was one of the most dialed retail environments. Nice guys, helpful, not having much in the way of big size. The FA16 line is out of this world good, tech style with subtle military vibe. Done well. Will try to find stateside. 10/10

 

Foods:

Ichiran Ramen : Great tonkatsu ramen. Worth a wait of 30 minutes or so. confusing a little, but fun. Went back later that night 2 ramens in 12 hrs. 6am no wait. Sure why not.

 

Kaikaya by the sea : Wonderful seafood omakase. Seems like the goto place for many well informed gaijin eaters, Shawn stussy and john mayer are regulars among others. Fresh, affordable, unexpected. Braised tuna cheeks were a warming highlight on a cold night, as was the house special cocktail, the gaybar ; hennessy and lemonade. The owner gave us the backstory on how it got its name, apparently he's a regular at a gaybar(though he made sure we understood he was not gay) and asked them for a cocktail to put on his menu - hence the gaybar. Wonderful amberjack sashimi, popcorn shrimps, toro, all fantastic at that price($40-50 a head). 

 

Santouka Hokkido Ramen : Right around corner from Opening ceremony. Went 2x, really nice ramen spot. Had tonkatsu and loved it. 9/10. Cash only.

 

Tatemichiya Izakaya - Daikanyama basement izakaya full of punk rock and sake. The food is incredible, best chicken skin yakitori of the trip. Went ham on the ordering until they cut me off, but I still ate everything. Really good agadashi type tofu dish, dont reccomend the fermented baby squid. Great staff, fun spot, really good food 10/10.

 

 

 

Events/Sights:

 

Tokyo art book fair : Great event, lots of interesting local JP publishers and makers. Ended up kopping mostly US peoples offerings surprisingly, but glad to support and see so many amazing publishers. 10/10

 

Nezu Museum / Garden : Wonderful exhibit on Chinese ceramics, though the main focus here is the garden. Incredibly relaxing to wander the grounds and take in the artifacts and landscape. In the rain, in was most peacful to hear the rain droplets bouncing off leaves and puddles, you could feel a true zen in the city here. I also enjoyed a nice matcha tea in the cafe, which is of architectural interest. Nice view into the gardens.  Must visit.

 

Labyrinth Festival: Unreal. 3 days of techno, mud, amazing food, great people, and rain. Ill return for this many times. Hard to sort out for a foreigner, which is fully intentional and appreciated after the fact. The ozzy/brit's were a bit of a drag, so i see the reasoning. The food was fresh, healthy, clean and local, all for a good price and fast. I ate 6 meals a night it was so tasty. I camped out in the rain and got one night in at naeba prince hotel which seemed like a haunted soviet snow resort. Homie had wallet stolen by said ozzies. police+lsd bad combo. Onsen in town was a delight, rare to get to camp in rain then soak your soggy bones in a natural hot spring .12/10 would do again.

 

Contact for Ben Klock : decent club space, weird no drinks or smokes on dancefloor, but whatever ill play along. Located in parking garage for bonus credit. Danced my ass off till 7am and had to retire for more ramen. 

 

 

Bars:

Bonobo bar harajuku : went for a music night, great unique small space with good vibes aplenty. nice upstairs lounge area for smoking. The owner shooshed the fuck out of everyone outside talking with such vigor, it was quite amusing. Would return.

 

JBS bar shibuya : Vinyl lover paradise. The bartenders collection runs deep as does his musical knowledge. Visited 3x, every time a different genre theme was playing for the night. Good japanese whiskey select - nikka black was my goto. Mixed crowd, some nights all locals others 90% tourists. All good vibes though. Another 10/10.

 

To be continued, gotta go home. Will update with some photos as well. 

Edited October 19, 2016 by EG562

[Yoshiii]

Heading back to Tokyo next February / March for two weeks.

Going to be spending a lot of time browsing this thread.

 

When I went earlier this year, I spent a lot of time going to shops I've always wanted to visit. Despite having an amazing time, I feel like I missed out on loads and didn't explore as much of Tokyo as I would have liked

[OlorinOfValinor]

In Tokyo for 5 days before heading to Kyoto and Osaka, any suggests for techwear/ninj sorts of shops to check out?

[Yoshiii]

Eliminator in Shibuya + Nanamica is next to it

Maidens Shop in Shibuya, down the road from A&S

[conqueror]

HAY i'm going to tokyo there's a 345 page thread right in front of me but WHERE CAN I BUY DENIM JEANS (BLUE NOT BLACK)!!!!!??????2222223#11##33332#@@@@@@#@#555555555

[herpsky]

there should be some sort of stickied note to answer common questions but i'm not a mod so i can't do anythin

[herpsky]

Chelmico — A new soundcloud sensation.

 

https://silly.amebahypes.com/posts/1404079

 

https://soundcloud.com/chelmico

 

It's like Pizzicato Five meets ripslyme + halcali — pop/electro neo-shibuyakei hip-hop. Lots of potential. 

 

Their profile is funny: "イケã¦ã‚‹ã‚¬ã‚¤ã‚ºã«å‡ºä¼šã†ãŸã‚ã«éƒ½å†…近郊ã§ãƒ©ãƒƒãƒ—中♡"

Edited October 18, 2016 by herpsky

[herpsky]

What's the consensus on SIM cards these days?

 

Last time, I rented a wifi router. It was fast but it was one extra thing that I had to carry. 

 

Before that, I had bmobile's 3gb unlimited (turned out it wasn't actually unlimited. even with casual browsing, you get throttled to like 1kb / sec as soon as you reach their ridiculously low cap, which I think was like 360 mb / 72 hours). 

 

 

 

I'm going back for 10 days this time. 

 

*edit* bmobile's cap is now 1gb / 72 hours. hard to say if that's enough. 

Edited October 24, 2016 by herpsky

[kicks79]

I always just use a pocket wifi 4g. 

I find it suits my data needs email, googlemaps ect

 

Last time i just rented out a phone that was cheaper than the pocket wifi and you could use as a hot spot. 

 

Also depends what areas you are going to be staying in I guess. Better signals in Tokyo ect.

 

My Japanese is prety basic so never really explored the whole Sim card aspect.

[herpsky]

pocket wifi is too annoying when you go to the clubs and etc. 

[1M]

i used sonet sim cards when i was there on my 3 month visit last time. i understand most sim cards run on docomo. it worked fast, not sure if they put a cap on it or not but didnt seem like it?

[insomnia]

pocket wifi is too annoying when you go to the clubs and etc. 

 

come on g your キモイ levels are high enough i KNOW you got pockets to hold the wifi in the club now

[Xal]

The last few visits to I've made I've been using Tmobile's international plan which comes with your basic simple choice plan.

 

I usually go for a month at a time and stay in Tokyo, I believe I'm limited to 2G speeds but data and text is "unlimited". It's good enough for browsing web, using google maps/navigation to get around, calling/messaging people via Line app. Forget loading Youtube videos though or anything that requires a lot of data to stream. Instagram loads pretty slow too. But for basic stuff it works just fine.

[herpsky]

Thanks. I was aware of Tmobile's international coverage. But, I'm not a Tmobile user. 

I might get IIJ's sim card because the line quality of bmobile is pretty horrible. 

 

The "Japan" SIM cards available on American Amazon...Any one with experience? 

Edited October 25, 2016 by herpsky

[phatbot]

I had an iijmio sim my last trip. I have a US unlocked iphone 5s, and it was a nightmare to set up. For some reason i couldnt input the carrier apn info manually and had to go to find the closest free wifi to download the iijmio package to set it up. But then that logs you out of all your icloud stuff so you gotta set it up again

Also as far as i could tell once you run out of the data limit it stops completely. But at least it's fast and the coverage was good in most parts of tokyo

[conqueror]

pocket wifi is too annoying when you go to the clubs and etc. 

 

annoying in terms of signal or what? mine always worked regardless of where i was and it's half the physical size of an iphone.

[EG562]

I bought 2 visitor sims at bic camera, worked real well. Set up was a bitch, i needed to download a couple little bits and in my jet lag brain i struggled. The second one went way smoother. Highly recommended for the peace of mind knowing you can get around and no extra equipment to rely on.

[herpsky]

I bought 2 visitor sims at bic camera, worked real well. Set up was a bitch, i needed to download a couple little bits and in my jet lag brain i struggled. The second one went way smoother. Highly recommended for the peace of mind knowing you can get around and no extra equipment to rely on.

 

was it the b-mobile one? 

[d-rew12]

I can't remember what brand it was but I got a 2gb 4g/lte whatever card from yodobashi camera in Shinjuku and it worked great and really easy to get ready, just have to enter some codes (that they give you) and you're good to go. It used docomo's network. Only problem was it didn't work on my friends iphone 6 since it wasn't unlocked (bought from ATT), but worked fine on my Nexus 5x. I went in looking for the b-mobile one but couldn't find it so just chose one that looked good (2gb and I think some time limit but can't remember). I tossed away all the packing and stuff so can't remember the brand. 

Edited October 27, 2016 by d-rew12

[jstavrin]

I asked this a few pages back, but I figure I'd ask again because my trip is coming up: 

 

can anyone recommend a neighborhood I've likely never been to? My girlfriend and I lived in Tokyo for 3 months last year, spending a lot of our time exploring. now, with two weeks on our hands, I want to find a few more worthwhile areas to check out. I'll take any recommendation, but we prefer weirder/older neighborhoods like Tateichi. 

 

and we're staying in Koenji this time, if that helps. 

[herpsky]

daita area. it's  where some of the more independent coolguy things spill over from shimokitazawa. 

Fog linen, fever, bossa nova ramen, barber sakota, and etc 

[EG562]

I think it was b-mobile, whatever the visitor 30day sim card was at bic... forgot. 

 

Shimokitazawa was fun zone, I randomly met dr. romanelli roaming about.

[Bigyen]

Anyone going to or in Japan heading to a FIL or Visvim spot shoot me a PM if you can describe or snap a picture of the back side of the Services Pack, If it's still available, curious what the straps look like as it's based on a bag that has a metal frame.

 

THanks

[Sammy You]