Rough Guides - The Rough Guide to Tokyo

This Rough Guide is one of a new generation of informative and easy-to-use travel-guide ebooks that guarantees you make the most of your trip. An essential tool for pre-trip planning, it also makes a great travel companion when youre on the road.

From the fills you in on history, architecture, design, film and literature and provides a handy Japanese section.

Detailed area maps feature in the guide chapters and are also listed in the , accessible from the table of contents. Depending on your hardware, you can double-tap on the maps to see larger-scale versions, or select different scales. There are also thumbnails below more detailed maps in these cases, you can opt to zoom left/top or zoom right/bottom or view the full map. The screen-lock function on your device is recommended when viewing enlarged maps. Make sure you have the latest software updates, too.

Throughout the guide, weve flagged up our favourite places a perfectly sited hotel, an atmospheric caf, a special restaurant with the author pick icon . You can select your own favourites and create a personalized itinerary by bookmarking the sights, venues and activities that are of interest, giving you the quickest possible access to everything youll need for your time away.

With its sushi and sumo, geisha and gardens, neon and noodles, it may seem that Tokyo is in danger of collapsing under the weight of its own stereotypes. Yet ticking off a bunch of travel clichs is rarely this much fun, and as you might expect of the planets largest metropolis, theres also enough nuance here to keep you entertained for a lifetime. Ordered yet bewildering, Japans pulsating capital will lead you a merry dance: this is Asia at its weirdest, straightest, prettiest, sleaziest and coolest, all at the same time.

Caught up in an untidy web of overhead cables, plagued by seemingly incessant noise, the concrete and steel conurbation may seem the stereotypical urban nightmare. Yet step back from the frenetic main roads and chances are youll find yourself in tranquil backstreets, where dinky wooden houses are fronted by neatly clipped bonsai trees; wander beyond the high-tech emporia, and youll discover charming fragments of the old city such as temples and shrines wreathed in wisps of smoking incense.

Centuries of organizing itself around the daily demands of millions of inhabitants have made Tokyo something of a model metropolitan environment . Trains run on time and to practically every corner of the city, crime is hardly worth worrying about, and convenience stores and vending machines provide everything you could need (and many things you never thought you did) 24 hours a day.

With so much going on, just walking the streets of this hyperactive city can be an energizing experience. It need not be an expensive one, either. Youll be pleasantly surprised by how affordable many things are. Cheap-and-cheerful izakaya bars that serve food and casual cafs serving noodles and rice dishes are plentiful, the metro is a bargain, and tickets for a sumo tournament or a kabuki play can be bought for the price of a few drinks.

Browsing the shops and marvelling at the passing parade is mesmerizing the next best thing to having a ringside seat at the hippest of catwalk shows. The citys great wealth and relative lack of planning restrictions have given architects almost unparalleled freedom to realize their wildest dreams. Likewise, in ber-chic bars, restaurants and clubs youll see today what the rest of the world will get tomorrow. You may not figure out exactly what makes Tokyo tick and youre sure to get a little confused while trying but the conclusion is inescapable: Japans powerhouse capital is a seductive and addictive experience.

SENS-JI, ASAKUSA