Tokyo tip tips please!

[Girlgoneglobal]

We are off to Tokyo for five days next Monday (I'm very excited). Does anyone have any 'top tips', particularly food and drink?

If possible we would also like to do a day trip somewhere to see Mt Fuji. But we are going back for two weeks (will be back on here asking....) later in the year so can be flexible.

Thank you!

• top tips!!

My husbands a pilot and he says super Mario carting is awesome. Most places to eat are great and all the old shrines in Kyoto are amazing. They got the crew to leave the hotel do they must be good :)

@banannabreadforme I have just googled the carting - it looks ace! I am now going to dig out my international drivers licence....

I have visited Kyoto, But i had a Japanise English speaking guide (she worked with my hubby), I had my first shusumi, It is an expensive city and most restaurants have pictures of the dishes you can eat as a guide, We went to a market and an orange worked out to be about £10.00 it was huge and wrapped in packaging, we also experienced a tremor while there, the transport system is easy to use, like our colour code links, they think we smell of milk so you'll have room on trains! The shrines are lovely to visit. visiting a park on Sunday watching the Elvis's and Goths/Punks dancing was great fun. Drinking in the bars again is pricey, overall a great experience and I'm glad i went but was fortunate to have seen it with English friends based there, who even found buying tin cat food difficult.

Odaiba is nice for a day out in Tokyo.

Here are some top tips:

1. The Edo Museum is fantastic - we were given a free tour by an English speaking museum volunteer
   www.edo-tokyo-museum.or.jp/en/

2. get up really early and head to the tsukiji fish market and watch the tuna auction (limited spaces)

3. Enter a lottery to see if you can get a tour of The Imperial Palace
   sankan.kunaicho.go.jp/english/guide/koukyo.html

4. head to takashimaya department store and look at the beautiful kimonos.

5. if you’re a Disney fan then visit Disney Sea.

6. Tour to Mount Fuji very easily in a day

7. Japanese street food is yum & affordable, 7-11 stores are brilliant places to grab a snack.

Thank you everyone! My list is getting longer...

2) get up really early and head to the tsukiji fish market and watch the tuna auction (limited spaces)

Do this - but you will need to be there at about 4am.
There are only about 120 spaces each day.
Then have breakfast at one of the sushi places around the market.

The metro doesn't run all night so you'll need to figure out how to get there. Our hotel wasn't far so we walked.

Tokyo is a great city to visit. We (me, dh and our two teenagers) really enjoyed visiting a couple of years ago. There are I think two great museum districts (we visited the one near Edo and the one with the science museum), lots of shopping districts that are just fun to hang out in and some beautiful parks. We are Studio Ghibli fans so visiting their museum was a highlight for us. ds just enjoyed traveling on the subway and trains. We had lots of great food in different places, and also enjoyed the convenience stores and vending machines (hot coffee in a can!). dd was annoyed that we missed out on a cat cafe so that's on our 'next time' list. Have fun! The only caution I'd suggest is that as it's a long journey to get there and a big time difference and five days is very short, I'd stay in the city and not try to do too much. We flew in the opposite direction but had terrible jet lag for the first two or three days.

Thank you for all your help! Tokyo sounds like a great city to just explore, Tuna market,
carting and museum all on the list. And I had no idea about the lottery to visit the Imperial Palace. So I'm going to enter that today.

@nooka we live a relatively short flight away hence the hop. Jet lag destroys me so I couldn't contemplate such a short visit otherwise..... and we are saving up to go back and explore Japan more widely so I'll be back on this board.

I appreciate it.

Definitely go to one of those underground noodle bars - one of our most memorable experiences! Everyone sits in a little booth, you order your meal at a vending machine and it is served by a waiter to you through a hatch. The idea is that you can be completely invisible and not have to talk to anyone. Plus it was our cheapest meal! The one we went to was in Shibuya.

Check if the sumo is on. It was a really really great day out. We loved watching it, so engaging.