But the image of Shinjuku city changes from the pictures in my mind every time I visit.

Shinjuku is a large area for a town of Tokyo.  It’s divided into 3 or 4 parts depending on how we enjoy the city of Shinjuku.

Firstly, the business area is in the West area.  It’s easy to access from Shinjuku train station, you will find a lot of tall buildings once you step out on the ground from the station.  It’s a clean place with modernized city look and people are walking in business suites.  You can visit some of the beautiful buildings in this area and it’s a nice look from the top of them to see vast city of Tokyo.

I think you can check which building accepts visitors for sightseeing if you look up any guide books or through internet inforamtion.

Shopping area of Shinjuku is mainly in the East area, where there are some traditional Japanese department stores such as Isentan department store.  Other than big stores, you can enjoy a number of small shops selling fashion items, books, music CDs, and also various types of foods.

Staying on the streets in this area, we feel that Tokyo is really an amazing city with large number of entertainments around us.

Night life spots are mainly located in Kabukicho area. You can walk to this area through East area of Shinjuku, but as a note, this area is rather a sexual night spots than drinking bars or fine foods.  It’s not dangerous walking here but you must be careful if you enjoy such sexual amusement.  Recently we don’t hear much about deceivers or some bad guys, but I think there still are some who try to get money from strangers.  It might be interesting, if you are the first visitor in Shinjuku, to check this area how Japanese night life is on.

There is one more area in Shinjuku, where is in the South part of Shinjku.  This is a newly developed area in the last 10 years or so, and the main thing in this area is the huge department store called Takashimaya.   It’s new and beautiful entertainment zone not only for shopping but for foods and some attractions.

Shinjuku, especially Kabukicho Area never sleeps.  It’s 24 hour OK amusement place.  But again, visitors should be careful more than the day time.

When I was a college student, I sometimes spent the night  in Shinkjuku coffee shops or bars waiting for the first morning train for my home.  It’s a little nostalgic thing.

Today’s topic is about Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka city, Tokyo. Some or many should know that this is the top animator of Japan, Hayao Miyazaki’s museum, and he also often work inside here.  When guests from the world come to see him, they are often invited into this museum for coffee tolk with Hayao Miyazaki ( what a lovely experience !).

In this studio, we can see many tear dropping animation characters like the robot ( see photo ) played in the Castle in the Sky, Cat bus and big Totoro doll in the movie, TOTORO.

Also probably it’s still playing short animation for visitors, even it’s short, many who saw it say it’s wonderful as always.

If you are a fan of Hayao Miyazaki films, it’s a good choice to visit while your trip in Japan.

Museum house is rather big as Japanese houses go,  yet it’s maybe small for visitors from the USA or such big countries.  Japan has small space only.

It’s often crowded on weekend. If possible it’s better for you going on weekdays.  It’s in Mitaka city in Tokyo, but actually it takes 1 hour or so to get there bu using train and walking from the train station if you come from center of Tokyo.

For ticket information or access, please see  http://www.ghibli-museum.jp/en

Enjoy your trip !

But if you are familiar to Tokyo streets already, driving in Tokyo would be a wonderful trip too.  In the rush hour like morning or evening time, I can’t recommend you use a car because of the heavy traffic.  If you can avoid that, morning time,daytime, and nighttime drive are fun.

Driving through the tall buildings and neon light of Tokyo in the night is a real excitement.

As it’s known, cars must drive on the left lane in Japan unlike the USA.  If you always run on the right lane in your country, it would be a great risk to experience driving in Tokyo for the first time.  Maybe you should make yourself feel OK on the left lane before the Tokyo drive.  It’s also good to experience in country side drive first.

Tokyo streets are actually complicated for the Japanese drivers too.  At the first or second time trials, navigator in your next seat is needed for safe drive as far as the navigator can really read the map of  Tokyo.

Tokyo express highway charge you when entering the highway network.   Entrances and exits are located many places in Tokyo but they are not always on visually clear roads. These must be confirmed before starting your drive.

If you are really worried,  maybe the best way is try in the early morning like 5 to 6am, then streets are not busy.

Please take a look at next videos. These shows how fun the Tokyo drive is, and maybe you can learn something from these ones about tips of driving in Tokyo.

This hotel was built when Japan was enjoying the boom of the growing economy in 1980′s. It’s a kind of symbolic hotel of Japanese good old time.  Its shining and solid looking exterior catch our eyes and staying there seems special occassion for travelers to Tokyo.

However, with some reasons ( I don’t know why ), Akasaka Price Hotel closed yesterday and put an ending on its history.

I feel a kind of streaming of time about it.

This hotel seems to be broken and probably new building will be coming up there.  Interestingly and luckily, the vacuating people from the earthquake & tsumani disaster of Japan can stay until the time of new building project starts. They lost houses and assets by tsunami.  That’s too sad.  But living here, even if it’s a short time, might take their stress away with a good-night sleep.

It’s located just near the Yurakucho station, and the building is a complex with some good cinema theaters.  This is a very famous place in Tokyo and also it’s loved by trendy girls of Tokyo too.

But today’s news says this Yurakucho branch store will have to close this year because of red running situation for a long time.

If this store ran in red for a long time, who could make a department store run in black in this serious economy situation ?

Anyway, it’s a little sad news for us users, and it would be very hard work even if a new store takes place of Seibu Department Store here.

I need to see how it would go from now.

It’s not fair to decide the NO.1 status only by Michelin because it’s often a judgement of Westerners taste.  However, this could be a good news for Tokyo because this city wants more foreign travelers from all over the world.

Most of the renowned restaurants in this book are Japanese traditional type restaurants but there are small restaurants too. Also this time, Japanese taverns or Yakitori place ( Izakaya ) are also selected.  Izakaya is a really standard Japanese restaurant style. They drink beer or Japanese wine, Sake, at Izakaya and chat with friends all for a long time.  There, the main food is often Yakitori( Grilled Chicken with kebab).  To be honest, as my personal opinion, we don’t think Yakitori bar’s food is always good. Yakitori restaurants are for drinkers or chatting people( sometimes for arguing guys).

Like that, I often thought I’ve had Sushi enough, No more Sushi please ! 

When I talked with Japanese food fans in California, they thought I was lying or joking.  I was serious.

BUT, now I live in foreign places. I do think Izakaya, Yakitori, Sushi, Unagi, Soba, Tempura, Teppanyaki, Udon, Ramen and even Takoyaki or Okonomiyaki are real gourmet food that Japan produced.

Japan has so many kinds of foods. Also, rude restaurants or simple restaurants often must withdraw from competition of food business. They are always battling  with each other targeting the best of the bests.

Even the casual restaurants or fast food stand places must compete to survive.  Competition is on the taste first, then,the quality of the restaurants, staff, or impression will be competition points next.  Probably it’s really hard for food business to win prefect satisfaction from users.

Like this, we are always very objective to restaurants in Japan. That’s why I often say I don’t need Sushi restaurants any more, or No more Yakitori,etc..  Being far away from Japan, I can say with confidence that Tokyo is the NO.1 gourmet city at least for me, and we can recommend this city for gourmet people in the world.

If we go to the restaurants with star(s) of Michelin, we will be able to taste the history, mind and spirit, education, and professionalism in taste by the experience at the places.  As an important note, there are far more fantastic restaurants than shown in the Michelin Guide book Tokyo.  Even if there is no star rank on the other restaurants, I can promise there are uncountable numbers of gourmet taste restaurants in Tokyo.  It’s really amazing.

I understand with no surprise that Tokyo is the world top gourmet city, putting aside Pris or NYC.  And if you feel enough of Tokyo ( maybe the day will not be coming forever if you are gourmet eater), you can explore Osaka, Fukuoka, Sapporo, Sendai, Yokohama, Kobe, and more small cities in Japan. They all have really nice restaurants only for local people, and you can expect real tear-dropping experience by the taste of food.

I’ve taken some of my friends from USA or Hawaii to Japanese Soba, Tonkatsu, Yakitori, Tempura, Unagi, or more restaurants in Tokyo or some other cities.  I can’t correctly remember how many times I’ve heard them say  ”This is the best taste I’ve ever had in my life!!!”   It’s not a joke, one of them really got teary when he had melting taste of Unaju ( grilled eel ). He said he was really moved by the taste.

Not all the people know the taste of Japanese food yet. If Michelin could be a help to this new ( or strange) taste world, we are very pleased because food is certainly our history and culture.  If they like it, it means our culture and history are not that bad at all.

SHIBUYA CROSSOVER is a very big junction of people, cars and streets.  SHIBUYA is also known to Japanese and Japan fans as a town of young energy and street fashion.  Shibuya ever produced many life style for young people of Japan.

Recently, SHIBUYA’s crossover became a hint of Oxfor Circus Crossover and new Oxford Circus was born in London.  I don’t know the atmosphere there because I’ve not yet checked it.  As far as wee see the photo, again the Japanese animation image people walked the crossover for PR.

It’s not clear why such a world famous city of London adopted the image of Japanese Shibuya crossing.  We think London should be keeping it’s traditional style as it’s a pride of England.  If the USA or other countries tried to copy some of Japanese flavor, it’s simply a pleasure for me. But why London ??  Anyway, it’s also interesting that someone in London knew Shibuya and they adopted some function Shibuya has.

For us, Shibuya Crossover’s image is like a crowdy, busy, and sometimes dirty & noisy place.  Of course it’s very exciting if we look for a new encounter of food, fashion., culture or lovers.

I need to check OX circus againwhen I next visit London.

RAMEN is becoming famous. It’s original is China. Japan arranged the Chinese taste and completed Japanese style noodle called Ramen. Now Ramen is one of the most popular foods in Japan.  The price is low and the taste is good, which means it’s for all the public in Japan.

Ramen already became the local food in each area of Japan. So if you travel, you can probably taste the local style Ramen with local taste. 

KOBOSHI is a Ramen from Kitakata City in Fukushima Prefecture. The characteristics of this Ramen is the light taste soup and resilient noodle.  Pork is meltingly sweet. Also the price is unbeliebably low.   You should simply order ” Ramen”. Then, the soup, Noodle, and Pork are fully ready in the bowl. If you like more pork, you can also order YAKIBUTA Ramen ( Photo is RAMEN, not Yakibuta Ramen )

This restaurat has some chain shops in Tokyo. If you find it in Tokyo, it’s not a bad trial to experience this taste.  For us Japanese, taste is really good. And the price is low.  This is the Ramen that should be.

As a note, there is one more restaurant name, BANNAI.  Koboshi and Bannai are run by the same company, so the taste and menue are all the same.  Whichever brand you find, it’s not bad choice to go in and have !

Do you know Eric Clapton’s best favourite restaurant in the world is in Tokyo ?

It’s true. He often says that he loves Fukuyoshi’s Tonkatsu best in the world. Exactly speaking, Eric Clapton seems to love Chicken Katsu rather than Tonkatsu ( Pork Katsu).  Anyway, Clapton never misses coming back to this restaurant whenever he comes to Japan.

Eric Clapton is known to Japanese fans that he loves Japan and he often comes to Japan not only for concerts but for private tour too.  Actually he’s been to Japan more than 20 times ( 18 times concerts included ).

Some people really witnessed Eric Clapton here. Also some say that Eric Clapton was having Tonkatsu in the other Tonkatsu restaurant in Shinjuku, so it’s sure that Clapton loves Tonkatsu of Japan.  Maybe he became the Tonkatsu repeater after checking Fukuyoshi out.

Fukuyoshi is a old Tonkatsu restaurant with a long history in Tokyo.  It also  has many fans in Japan and from the world. Some say they like Chicken Katsu better just like Clapton.

We Japanese like Tonkatsu dish.  As far as Clapton, a foreigner, choses this restaurant as the best in the world,  Tonkatsu could be a world taste.  Please try next time !

Probably the biggest interest of tourists to Japan is having Japanese food while they stay. In Tokyo, or in Japan anywhere,  there are numerous Sushi restaurants in various types. Most of them are good in taste, but if you search for ultimate Sushi of Japan, you should see the popurarity ranking of Sushi restaurants in Tokyo.

Many of the popular Sushi restaurants selected by Japanese are traditional type of Sushi restaurants. Now Sushi is arranged in many style like California style or Chinese style too. But for Japanese, the traditional Sushi made by professional Sushi Chef is the most favourite.

Please check the next Sushi restaurants. All of them are traditional but actually they are selected as top 10 popular restaurats in Tokyo by tour magazine readers of Japan.

1. Sushi Karaku  2. Ginza Kyubei  3.  Umegaoka Midori Souhonten  4.  Roppongi Bintokona  5.  Tsukiji Sushi Dai   6.  Kagurazaka Futaba  7. Akihabara Sushi Chaya GInyu   8. Koutouku Kitasuna Umisachi  9. Sushi dokoro Ginza Fukusuke Honten  10.  Tsukiji Edogin Honten

Above Sushi restaurants are all famous but maybe a little expensive. Ginza or Tsukiji area restaurants are rather close to center of Tokyo and easier to try.