26 ms·

Walking Tokyo for Seven Days

157 points by cmod 4y ago

glanzwulf 4y ago
Looking forward to reading this. Walking is truly the best way to discover a city, and even yourself. On a personal experience, when I arrived to Tokyo for a month long vacation in Japan, I had planned going to the Tsukiji Market tuna auctions that first day. It was about 2 in the morning, I had just gotten off a plane, not really tired but the jet lag would kill me for sure, so the plan to counter jet lag would be to not sleep that day and rest the day after and sort of get in sync that way. Now, I don't know how it is now with the new market, but to be able to see the tuna auction you had to be at the market extremely early so, it being 2am seemed a perfect excuse to just walk. I walked for about 2h and when I arrived to the market I found out that day was a holiday in Japan and there would be no auctions that day. Disappointed, tired, I saw on google maps there was an Onsen nearby (around 1h30 away) so I kept walking to Odaiba. The Onsen in question used to be open something like 23h a day which was great for me at 5am. Now that was one hell of a way to relax after that long walk. Never rested that hard in my life.
- asah 4y ago
  I recently discovered scooters (lime, bird, etc), and have to say that they now compete with walking for me. upsides versus walking: - 10x further distances - 10 blocks feels like 1, it's simply amazing. You can see parts of the city that are impractically far or bordered by boring/industrial zones. upsides versus biking: - slow enough to "take in" the sights, where biking definitely feels like you've "lost" something. - more stable / feels safer - much easier to stop & start, and easy to lock up for a few minutes. - about the same speed as manual bikes (in practice) but slower than e-bikes real downsides: - safety: if there's no bike lanes, then scooters can become hazardous. In particular, because they travel quickly, you can be safe one minute and then quickly have conditions degrade. The risks of medical attention vary by city - developing countries can have limited medical care; US medical care is $$$$. - disallowed & slow zones: it can be *VERY* annoying to have the scooter beeping at you, refuse to go, refuse to lock etc. And the GPS is imperfect, so you can be on the border of a legal zone and have it stop. I've had to walk scooters many times. - cargo: tough to carry significant cargo, e.g. groceries quickly become hazardous. perceived downsides: - return-anxiety: what if there's no scooters? ==> rarely happens, but if so, then take an uber! - range-anxiety: what if it runs out of juice? ==> I've ridden a lot and never come close... - one scooter available for two people? ==> if you're careful, you can put two people on a scooter, then scoot to the next scooter (apps all have maps of available scooters)
  - kzrdude 4y ago
    Another real downside to scooters is to miss out on a low-intensity physical activity that makes your body feel good. A day of activity, walking or bicycling, does wonders.
    - asah 4y ago
      Good point. But in my experience scooting was always paired with a lot of walking as well. Put another way, scooting is the "skip to the next track" of walking.
      - asah 4y ago
        Just now: 10,000 steps plus a scooter ride passed the boring parts of downtown which I'd already seen. Just ordered Persian food at a tiny place in a cute neighborhood there's no way I'd have walked to, and not on the subway line.
  - eternalban 4y ago
    I did this for a week in Paris (late 2019, there was a strike and the metro had like 2 functional lines). In the afternoon of Christmas Eve got a yen to go to Montmarte, grabbed a scooter near Etoile and in short order got to experience the C.E. mass at Sacré-Cœur. The enhanced mobility is amazing, and its a great way to explore various alleys and neighborhoods. Frankly I was pleasantly surprised at how the Paris drivers coexisted with us on scooters. I felt perfectly safe.
    - cinntaile 4y ago
      Don't you just ride on the bicycle lanes? Why wouldn't that be safe?
      - eternalban 4y ago
        iirc, there is a lane for buses and bikes, which is mainly what I used. But then there are the circles and intersections, and narrower streets naturally only have so much space.
- xatlasm 4y ago
  >Disappointed, tired, I saw on google maps there was an Onsen nearby (around 1h30 away) so I kept walking to Odaiba. The Onsen in question used to be open something like 23h a day which was great for me at 5am. >Now that was one hell of a way to relax after that long walk. Never rested that hard in my life. If the onsen you went to is the one I'm thinking of, I have some bad news: it closed in September of last year. https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/news/odaiba-hot-spring-theme-park-oedo-onsen-monogatari-is-closing-down-062421 https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/news/odaiba-hot-spring-theme-p...
  - thematrixturtle 4y ago
    Much of Odaiba is currently closed for renovation/rebuilding. LaQua is probably the closest equivalent now in Tokyo, although it lacks the {kitschy,fun} Ye Olde Tokyo theme of Oedo Onsen. But hey, you get a roller coaster instead. https://www.laqua.jp/en/ https://www.laqua.jp/en/
  - xdfgh1112 4y ago
    That sucks. It wasn't the best onsen but the fake Edo area was entertaining.
  - glanzwulf 4y ago
    Yeah, I heard something about that. Shame because once tourists are properly allowed back in japan I was thinking of going there again.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Crap, I’d been thinking of going there ever since I arrived in Japan 9 years ago but never made it :/
user_named 4y ago
I spent about a month walking around Tokyo in 2008. I cam before university started and I would just walk around an area and systematically go through all the little alleys and sidestreets. Other people who arrived just before the semester never had time to do the same and never built the same understanding of the city. I had a dumbphone so there wasn't anyway to turn off your brain and just find places to discover through a list.
thematrixturtle 4y ago
So there's no content yet, and this is just an ad at this point?
- dfcowell 4y ago
  Pretty much, however I can vouch for the quality of the poster’s other newsletters. He’s also very good about sending only what he says he’s going to send, when he says he’ll send it and deleting the list afterwards. Of course, you need to deal with the quirk of the material only being available by email, which isn’t the worst fate in the world.
wccrawford 4y ago
I've been learning Japanese for a couple decades now, and I've never heard a cafe called a "kissa". Always "kissaten". It feels like the author just make up their own slang for another language, and that doesn't feel good at all. In addition, they wrote a book about visiting a bunch of cafes, and then they're going to leave that book in random other cafes that didn't get put into the book? I can't imagine I'd be very happy about that as a cafe owner. Especially since the book was written by a foreigner (gaijin), and the Japanese still aren't very cool with foreigners, in general. "No gaijin allowed" is still a fairly common sign for some businesses, as I understand it. It seems rather tone deaf.
- impendia 4y ago
  > "No gaijin allowed" is still a fairly common sign for some businesses, as I understand it. I've lived in Japan for two years, been back several times since, and traveled extensively within the country -- and I've never seen any such sign, nor asked to leave any business because I was a foreigner.
  - tjpnz 4y ago
    I've been here seven years. Can't say I've seen it either. The server industry has been nothing but hospitable.
  - xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
    They're less and less common but they very much still exist, especially small bars. I haven't encountered any outside of Tokyo though.
  - woutr_be 4y ago
    I didn’t see a sign at the time, but I’ve been asked to leave after the server confirmed we couldn’t read Japanese. Honestly didn’t think much of it, just assumed it was because the menu was only in Japanese.
- hinoki 4y ago
  Probably because Google says “喫茶” translates to “coffee shop”? > "No gaijin allowed" is still a fairly common sign for some businesses, as I understand it. Really? In what language? I’ve never seen such a thing, but I don’t get out much. There are certainly places that don’t want to cater to foreigners, with reasons ranging from can’t provide proper service in other languages to, I assume, virulent racism. But all they have to do is not accommodate any foreign language, and they won’t get any foreigner business. Publicly stating it on a sign like that seems pretty unexpected.
lovemenot 4y ago
That one photo looks like it might have been taken near Sangubashi.
- coobird 4y ago
  It's definitely a section on the Toden Arakawa Line, the last surviving streetcar line in Tokyo. The catenaries look like them, especially the 3rd one in with the tower-like structures. Those are likely the ones built over 100 years ago when the line opened. My best guess is this crossing that's just a little bit south of the Shin-Koshinzuka station: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.740949,139.7302377,43m https://www.google.com/maps/@35.740949,139.7302377,43m
V__ 4y ago
This is the first time I came across a "pop-up" newsletter which automatically unsubscribes you after the project is done. What a neat idea. Love it.
bsaul 4y ago
As a european i got into the habbit of walking between popular city neighborhoods to find hidden gems. I did that in Tokyo, and that was a really big mistake. I ended up walking next to a huge higway, looking at bland buildings for like 20 minutes, feeling completely lost in the middle of nowhere. I thought about it a lot and came to the conclusion that tokyo wasn't one big city but in fact tenth of small cities linked together.
- tecleandor 4y ago
  It is, in fact, a cluster of municipalities. Tokyo isn't considered a city anymore but a megalopolis. Per Wikipedia: Since 2001, Tokyo consists of 62 municipalities: 23 special wards, 26 cities, 5 towns and 8 villages. Any municipality of Japan has a directly elected mayor and a directly elected assembly, each elected on independent four-year cycles. It's interesting to see when you cross from "neighborhood" to "neighborhood", how things change as if you were in the outskirts of a city and then back to a busy center again.
- valenceelectron 4y ago
  That is kind of what it is, yes: "Tokyo Metropolis [which] consists of 23 special wards and 39 other, ordinary municipalities (cities, towns, and villages). [...] Today, all wards refer to themselves as a city in English, but the Japanese designation of special ward (tokubetsu-ku) remains unchanged" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo) Some of these wards consist of high rise buildings only, some are residential areas with hidden alleys and family-friendly environment. As a fellow European who lived in Tokyo for one year, I cannot support your statement but your experience walking around highly depends on where in Tokyo you are. For some wards, you are probably entirely correct. However, other wards allow for the experience shared by others here.
- silverpepsi 4y ago
  Yeah it eas the wrong technique, the interesting stuff is public transit and commerce driven. So there are a million JR and subway stops. If you got off at every single stop in existence and walked concentric circles around it, you'd find out the relative importance of each station as a destination and or transit hub and you'd find everything interesting and know exactly when to stop making bigger circles around a station by the reduction in things to see. And that's still an incredible mind blowing amount of land area you'd have to walk
martin_henk 4y ago
Good plan. I think Shibuya changed the most from a bird's eye view. But there's new developments all over as usual.
rvba 4y ago
How safe is Tokyo really? I ask, because Japan is considered one of the safest countries in the world. However even the first picture (on the right side) shows that windows have bars - probably to secure the building against thieves? How much theft is there in Japan? edit: even more visible bars are on the window on the left side
- presentation 4y ago
  Barely any. I’ve forgotten my backpack on the train and my wallet at the supermarket and felt pretty secure they’d still be there when I returned hours/a day later, and they were. I leave my laptop unattended in cafes and nobody takes it. My friend only had his city bike stolen after 4+ years of not owning a bike lock. Women can generally wander the streets alone at 3am without worry. You still should have some amount of common sense and probably not do the above lightly, but knowing that your actual chances of getting in trouble is low is a great thing. Most of the crime I hear of is stuff like people getting ripped off in rip off bars; perverts taking up skirt photos in crowded trains; desperate people taking insanely bad loans from loan sharks and then being intimidated to pay them; and the occasional off the chain beheading once ever now and then. Hence the general bewilderment when Abe got shot.
  - mnahkies 4y ago
    I spent a few weeks in Japan and it was the safest I've probably ever felt. Interestingly though there was one night I went out and my friend living in that city was glad I didn't get harassed for being gaijin - apparently the area I went out in is notorious for people being rough on foreigners (somewhere in Fukuoka close to 10 years ago)
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    > My friend only had his city bike stolen after 4+ years of not owning a bike lock. My friend had something similar after claiming you didn’t need to lock your bike in Japan. Only they didn’t take his bike. They locked it, and took just the key. It still brings a smile to my face to think about it.
- dncornholio 4y ago
krm01 4y ago
I had never heard of a popup newsletter. What a wonderful idea and concept. Are there more popup newsletters launching anytime soonish?
samtimalsina 4y ago
As an immigrant who walked everywhere where I grew up, this is one of the things I miss the most about living in America. Walkable neighborhoods are rare in most parts of the US, let alone the cities. I wish we had more places to walk. Sigh.
- czstar 4y ago
  In the U.S. walking has even been criminalized to some extent for those in out groups. For instance, if 4 black teenage boys walk together in an affluent, white neighborhood they can expect police to stop them. Walking is so rare that a small group of people walking together is seen as something out of the ordinary. I think it’s bad for society to be set up this way. https://illinoislawreview.org/print/vol-2017-no-3/the-criminalization-of-walking/ https://illinoislawreview.org/print/vol-2017-no-3/the-crimin...
  - bigDinosaur 4y ago
    Well the issue can be even more profound than that: areas that actually physically cannot be walked at all (excluding technicalities like walking on busy roads). On the bright side, you can't be arrested for walking somewhere that doesn't even let you walk there.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      That is something I’ve never encountered anywhere except bridges. Just because there’s no road there doesn’t mean you can’t walk (unless the space next to the road is air/water).
      - ryukafalz 4y ago
        > unless the space next to the road is air/water Or rock.
      - bigDinosaur 4y ago
        To be clear, the technicality I was excluding was the 'technically you can always walk on the road' part. In places without footpaths your choices often require walking on the road because of fences etc. even if momentarily that's still a horrible walking experience that will effectively cut pedestrians to zero. Also, gigantic highways across which the crossings are separated by kilometres will effectively segregate areas from anyone who has no car.
rgrieselhuber 4y ago
Craig is the one writer and photographer I know who captures the beautiful aspects of quotidian life in Japan.
mywacaday 4y ago
I visited Tokyo in 2019 and went to the top of the Skytree. It was one of the few times in my life where my mind was completely blown. The scale of the city from the viewing point of 450m had me spaced out staring into the distance trying to comprehend the vast scale. If you ever get the opportunity to go I can't recommend it enough, Try going on a clear day about an hour before sunset and watch the city transform. Photos really can't do it justice.
- bane 4y ago
  I had a similar experience there as well. To me Tokyo is "The Infinite City". I've never experienced anything quite like it and I say this as somebody who lives in the virtually unbroken urban mega corridor and travel regularly to Seoul.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  I think the incredible part is that even from 450m high you cannot see the end. It’s just city as far as the eye can see.
  - mywacaday 4y ago
    That's what blew my mind, I remember having the thought of what if you lost someone, where would you even begin to look.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- zeeZ 4y ago
  Looking down at the nearby highrises feels absolutely surreal. There are more observatories deeper in the city, like the Tokyo metropolitan government building (which is also free), while only about half as tall, will I think give you a nicer view of just city around you on every side.
- kurthr 4y ago
  I'll also recommend, the Shinjuku Government Building (for free), but also Mori Tower, Shibuya Skyview, and Tokyo Tower for ~Y1000 each.
bane 4y ago
There's a lot to be said about Tokyo and how easy it is to get around on foot and live without a car. It's kind of a surreal dreamscape of unbroken high density urbanity that makes you rethink how large highly functional cities can be. One of the challenges for seeing it on foot though is how effective the public transit is, especially the underground rail systems. You end up seeing islands around transit stations but not the stretches in between. It's totally worth it sometimes to skip the train and just walk the entire way as there's lots of interesting stuff in the "out of the way" bits of the city.
- kurthr 4y ago
  I'd recommend taking Yamanote-sen and Chuo/Sobu-sen and walking the interior. It saves a lot of money with a JR Rail pass not taking the subway, if you have the time and the weather is nice.
- kadonoishi 4y ago
  Yeah, I was getting my Japanese visa and noticed the office wasn't that far from Shinagawa Station, so I decided to walk. Everyone thought it was super-weird I would walk that, where any Tokyo native would take the bus. It was 2km, so, there's a data point on what's considered an excessive walk in Tokyo. But I'm a person who would take a whole Saturday and spend 8hr walking through San Francisco or Seattle or NYC for fun, so, biased data point.
- coldtea 4y ago
  >makes you rethink how large highly functional cities can be. And how exteremely safe
- Barrin92 4y ago
  >It's kind of a surreal dreamscape of unbroken high density urbanity the funny thing is Tokyo's not even that dense, about a third as dense as Paris or Barcelona, and very sprawlish and suburban (IIRC 75% of the city is suburbs) but transit is indeed excellent and at least they don't inhibit construction to run a housing value racket.
  - 4y ago
Magi604 4y ago
I'm sure this isn't allowed anymore, but when I went to Tokyo over 10 years ago, me and my friend were just wandering around aimlessly. On a whim we decided to find the tallest building we could and go to the very top floor to see what the city looked like. So, we spotted the tallest tower near us (a totally random and generic office tower), got into the building, and took the elevator to the very top floor to peer out a window. I still remember what the view was like. It was an endless city as far as I could see.
myow 4y ago
People can also visit and go up the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building for free in Shinjyuku. A neat view of the city. Walking through Meiji Jinguu is also pretty nice. I like walking from Shinjyuku, through Meiji Jingu and getting to Shibuya (~1h) https://www.yokoso.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/tenbou/index.html https://www.yokoso.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/tenbou/index.html
kadonoishi 4y ago
Yeah, I was getting my Japanese visa and noticed the office wasn't that far from Shinagawa Station, so I decided to walk. Everyone thought it was super-weird I would walk that, where any Tokyo native would take the bus. It was 2km, so, there's a data point on what's considered an excessive walk in Tokyo. But I'm a person who would take a whole Saturday and spend 8hr walking through San Francisco or Seattle or NYC for fun.
- asciiresort 4y ago
  I averaged 16400 steps a day for the entire year in Japan. I don’t think walking is weird, but the route from Shinagawa station to the immigration office is weird. I’ve walked that route. It’s an industrial area and nothing to see.
billybuckwheat 4y ago
Just goes to show that there's always something new to discover, even in a place you've called home for over 20 years.

157 points by cmod 4y ago

Looking forward to reading this. Walking is truly the best way to discover a city, and even yourself. On a personal experience, when I arrived to Tokyo for a month long vacation in Japan, I had planned going to the Tsukiji Market tuna auctions that first day. It was about 2 in the morning, I had just gotten off a plane, not really tired but the jet lag would kill me for sure, so the plan to counter jet lag would be to not sleep that day and rest the day after and sort of get in sync that way. Now, I don't know how it is now with the new market, but to be able to see the tuna auction you had to be at the market extremely early so, it being 2am seemed a perfect excuse to just walk. I walked for about 2h and when I arrived to the market I found out that day was a holiday in Japan and there would be no auctions that day. Disappointed, tired, I saw on google maps there was an Onsen nearby (around 1h30 away) so I kept walking to Odaiba. The Onsen in question used to be open something like 23h a day which was great for me at 5am. Now that was one hell of a way to relax after that long walk. Never rested that hard in my life.

asah 4y ago
I recently discovered scooters (lime, bird, etc), and have to say that they now compete with walking for me. upsides versus walking: - 10x further distances - 10 blocks feels like 1, it's simply amazing. You can see parts of the city that are impractically far or bordered by boring/industrial zones. upsides versus biking: - slow enough to "take in" the sights, where biking definitely feels like you've "lost" something. - more stable / feels safer - much easier to stop & start, and easy to lock up for a few minutes. - about the same speed as manual bikes (in practice) but slower than e-bikes real downsides: - safety: if there's no bike lanes, then scooters can become hazardous. In particular, because they travel quickly, you can be safe one minute and then quickly have conditions degrade. The risks of medical attention vary by city - developing countries can have limited medical care; US medical care is $$$$. - disallowed & slow zones: it can be *VERY* annoying to have the scooter beeping at you, refuse to go, refuse to lock etc. And the GPS is imperfect, so you can be on the border of a legal zone and have it stop. I've had to walk scooters many times. - cargo: tough to carry significant cargo, e.g. groceries quickly become hazardous. perceived downsides: - return-anxiety: what if there's no scooters? ==> rarely happens, but if so, then take an uber! - range-anxiety: what if it runs out of juice? ==> I've ridden a lot and never come close... - one scooter available for two people? ==> if you're careful, you can put two people on a scooter, then scoot to the next scooter (apps all have maps of available scooters)
- kzrdude 4y ago
  Another real downside to scooters is to miss out on a low-intensity physical activity that makes your body feel good. A day of activity, walking or bicycling, does wonders.
  - asah 4y ago
    Good point. But in my experience scooting was always paired with a lot of walking as well. Put another way, scooting is the "skip to the next track" of walking.
    - asah 4y ago
      Just now: 10,000 steps plus a scooter ride passed the boring parts of downtown which I'd already seen. Just ordered Persian food at a tiny place in a cute neighborhood there's no way I'd have walked to, and not on the subway line.
- eternalban 4y ago
  I did this for a week in Paris (late 2019, there was a strike and the metro had like 2 functional lines). In the afternoon of Christmas Eve got a yen to go to Montmarte, grabbed a scooter near Etoile and in short order got to experience the C.E. mass at Sacré-Cœur. The enhanced mobility is amazing, and its a great way to explore various alleys and neighborhoods. Frankly I was pleasantly surprised at how the Paris drivers coexisted with us on scooters. I felt perfectly safe.
  - cinntaile 4y ago
    Don't you just ride on the bicycle lanes? Why wouldn't that be safe?
    - eternalban 4y ago
      iirc, there is a lane for buses and bikes, which is mainly what I used. But then there are the circles and intersections, and narrower streets naturally only have so much space.
xatlasm 4y ago
>Disappointed, tired, I saw on google maps there was an Onsen nearby (around 1h30 away) so I kept walking to Odaiba. The Onsen in question used to be open something like 23h a day which was great for me at 5am. >Now that was one hell of a way to relax after that long walk. Never rested that hard in my life. If the onsen you went to is the one I'm thinking of, I have some bad news: it closed in September of last year. https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/news/odaiba-hot-spring-theme-park-oedo-onsen-monogatari-is-closing-down-062421 https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/news/odaiba-hot-spring-theme-p...
- thematrixturtle 4y ago
  Much of Odaiba is currently closed for renovation/rebuilding. LaQua is probably the closest equivalent now in Tokyo, although it lacks the {kitschy,fun} Ye Olde Tokyo theme of Oedo Onsen. But hey, you get a roller coaster instead. https://www.laqua.jp/en/ https://www.laqua.jp/en/
- xdfgh1112 4y ago
  That sucks. It wasn't the best onsen but the fake Edo area was entertaining.
- glanzwulf 4y ago
  Yeah, I heard something about that. Shame because once tourists are properly allowed back in japan I was thinking of going there again.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Crap, I’d been thinking of going there ever since I arrived in Japan 9 years ago but never made it :/

user_named 4y ago

I spent about a month walking around Tokyo in 2008. I cam before university started and I would just walk around an area and systematically go through all the little alleys and sidestreets. Other people who arrived just before the semester never had time to do the same and never built the same understanding of the city. I had a dumbphone so there wasn't anyway to turn off your brain and just find places to discover through a list.

thematrixturtle 4y ago

So there's no content yet, and this is just an ad at this point?

dfcowell 4y ago
Pretty much, however I can vouch for the quality of the poster’s other newsletters. He’s also very good about sending only what he says he’s going to send, when he says he’ll send it and deleting the list afterwards. Of course, you need to deal with the quirk of the material only being available by email, which isn’t the worst fate in the world.

wccrawford 4y ago

I've been learning Japanese for a couple decades now, and I've never heard a cafe called a "kissa". Always "kissaten". It feels like the author just make up their own slang for another language, and that doesn't feel good at all. In addition, they wrote a book about visiting a bunch of cafes, and then they're going to leave that book in random other cafes that didn't get put into the book? I can't imagine I'd be very happy about that as a cafe owner. Especially since the book was written by a foreigner (gaijin), and the Japanese still aren't very cool with foreigners, in general. "No gaijin allowed" is still a fairly common sign for some businesses, as I understand it. It seems rather tone deaf.

impendia 4y ago
> "No gaijin allowed" is still a fairly common sign for some businesses, as I understand it. I've lived in Japan for two years, been back several times since, and traveled extensively within the country -- and I've never seen any such sign, nor asked to leave any business because I was a foreigner.
- tjpnz 4y ago
  I've been here seven years. Can't say I've seen it either. The server industry has been nothing but hospitable.
- xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
  They're less and less common but they very much still exist, especially small bars. I haven't encountered any outside of Tokyo though.
- woutr_be 4y ago
  I didn’t see a sign at the time, but I’ve been asked to leave after the server confirmed we couldn’t read Japanese. Honestly didn’t think much of it, just assumed it was because the menu was only in Japanese.
hinoki 4y ago
Probably because Google says “喫茶” translates to “coffee shop”? > "No gaijin allowed" is still a fairly common sign for some businesses, as I understand it. Really? In what language? I’ve never seen such a thing, but I don’t get out much. There are certainly places that don’t want to cater to foreigners, with reasons ranging from can’t provide proper service in other languages to, I assume, virulent racism. But all they have to do is not accommodate any foreign language, and they won’t get any foreigner business. Publicly stating it on a sign like that seems pretty unexpected.

lovemenot 4y ago

That one photo looks like it might have been taken near Sangubashi.

coobird 4y ago
It's definitely a section on the Toden Arakawa Line, the last surviving streetcar line in Tokyo. The catenaries look like them, especially the 3rd one in with the tower-like structures. Those are likely the ones built over 100 years ago when the line opened. My best guess is this crossing that's just a little bit south of the Shin-Koshinzuka station: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.740949,139.7302377,43m https://www.google.com/maps/@35.740949,139.7302377,43m

V__ 4y ago

This is the first time I came across a "pop-up" newsletter which automatically unsubscribes you after the project is done. What a neat idea. Love it.

bsaul 4y ago

As a european i got into the habbit of walking between popular city neighborhoods to find hidden gems. I did that in Tokyo, and that was a really big mistake. I ended up walking next to a huge higway, looking at bland buildings for like 20 minutes, feeling completely lost in the middle of nowhere. I thought about it a lot and came to the conclusion that tokyo wasn't one big city but in fact tenth of small cities linked together.

tecleandor 4y ago
It is, in fact, a cluster of municipalities. Tokyo isn't considered a city anymore but a megalopolis. Per Wikipedia: Since 2001, Tokyo consists of 62 municipalities: 23 special wards, 26 cities, 5 towns and 8 villages. Any municipality of Japan has a directly elected mayor and a directly elected assembly, each elected on independent four-year cycles. It's interesting to see when you cross from "neighborhood" to "neighborhood", how things change as if you were in the outskirts of a city and then back to a busy center again.
valenceelectron 4y ago
That is kind of what it is, yes: "Tokyo Metropolis [which] consists of 23 special wards and 39 other, ordinary municipalities (cities, towns, and villages). [...] Today, all wards refer to themselves as a city in English, but the Japanese designation of special ward (tokubetsu-ku) remains unchanged" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo) Some of these wards consist of high rise buildings only, some are residential areas with hidden alleys and family-friendly environment. As a fellow European who lived in Tokyo for one year, I cannot support your statement but your experience walking around highly depends on where in Tokyo you are. For some wards, you are probably entirely correct. However, other wards allow for the experience shared by others here.
silverpepsi 4y ago
Yeah it eas the wrong technique, the interesting stuff is public transit and commerce driven. So there are a million JR and subway stops. If you got off at every single stop in existence and walked concentric circles around it, you'd find out the relative importance of each station as a destination and or transit hub and you'd find everything interesting and know exactly when to stop making bigger circles around a station by the reduction in things to see. And that's still an incredible mind blowing amount of land area you'd have to walk

martin_henk 4y ago

Good plan. I think Shibuya changed the most from a bird's eye view. But there's new developments all over as usual.

rvba 4y ago

How safe is Tokyo really? I ask, because Japan is considered one of the safest countries in the world. However even the first picture (on the right side) shows that windows have bars - probably to secure the building against thieves? How much theft is there in Japan? edit: even more visible bars are on the window on the left side

presentation 4y ago
Barely any. I’ve forgotten my backpack on the train and my wallet at the supermarket and felt pretty secure they’d still be there when I returned hours/a day later, and they were. I leave my laptop unattended in cafes and nobody takes it. My friend only had his city bike stolen after 4+ years of not owning a bike lock. Women can generally wander the streets alone at 3am without worry. You still should have some amount of common sense and probably not do the above lightly, but knowing that your actual chances of getting in trouble is low is a great thing. Most of the crime I hear of is stuff like people getting ripped off in rip off bars; perverts taking up skirt photos in crowded trains; desperate people taking insanely bad loans from loan sharks and then being intimidated to pay them; and the occasional off the chain beheading once ever now and then. Hence the general bewilderment when Abe got shot.
- mnahkies 4y ago
  I spent a few weeks in Japan and it was the safest I've probably ever felt. Interestingly though there was one night I went out and my friend living in that city was glad I didn't get harassed for being gaijin - apparently the area I went out in is notorious for people being rough on foreigners (somewhere in Fukuoka close to 10 years ago)
- Aeolun 4y ago
  > My friend only had his city bike stolen after 4+ years of not owning a bike lock. My friend had something similar after claiming you didn’t need to lock your bike in Japan. Only they didn’t take his bike. They locked it, and took just the key. It still brings a smile to my face to think about it.
dncornholio 4y ago

krm01 4y ago

I had never heard of a popup newsletter. What a wonderful idea and concept. Are there more popup newsletters launching anytime soonish?

samtimalsina 4y ago

As an immigrant who walked everywhere where I grew up, this is one of the things I miss the most about living in America. Walkable neighborhoods are rare in most parts of the US, let alone the cities. I wish we had more places to walk. Sigh.

czstar 4y ago
In the U.S. walking has even been criminalized to some extent for those in out groups. For instance, if 4 black teenage boys walk together in an affluent, white neighborhood they can expect police to stop them. Walking is so rare that a small group of people walking together is seen as something out of the ordinary. I think it’s bad for society to be set up this way. https://illinoislawreview.org/print/vol-2017-no-3/the-criminalization-of-walking/ https://illinoislawreview.org/print/vol-2017-no-3/the-crimin...
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  Well the issue can be even more profound than that: areas that actually physically cannot be walked at all (excluding technicalities like walking on busy roads). On the bright side, you can't be arrested for walking somewhere that doesn't even let you walk there.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    That is something I’ve never encountered anywhere except bridges. Just because there’s no road there doesn’t mean you can’t walk (unless the space next to the road is air/water).
    - ryukafalz 4y ago
      > unless the space next to the road is air/water Or rock.
    - bigDinosaur 4y ago
      To be clear, the technicality I was excluding was the 'technically you can always walk on the road' part. In places without footpaths your choices often require walking on the road because of fences etc. even if momentarily that's still a horrible walking experience that will effectively cut pedestrians to zero. Also, gigantic highways across which the crossings are separated by kilometres will effectively segregate areas from anyone who has no car.

rgrieselhuber 4y ago

Craig is the one writer and photographer I know who captures the beautiful aspects of quotidian life in Japan.

mywacaday 4y ago

I visited Tokyo in 2019 and went to the top of the Skytree. It was one of the few times in my life where my mind was completely blown. The scale of the city from the viewing point of 450m had me spaced out staring into the distance trying to comprehend the vast scale. If you ever get the opportunity to go I can't recommend it enough, Try going on a clear day about an hour before sunset and watch the city transform. Photos really can't do it justice.

bane 4y ago
I had a similar experience there as well. To me Tokyo is "The Infinite City". I've never experienced anything quite like it and I say this as somebody who lives in the virtually unbroken urban mega corridor and travel regularly to Seoul.
Aeolun 4y ago
I think the incredible part is that even from 450m high you cannot see the end. It’s just city as far as the eye can see.
- mywacaday 4y ago
  That's what blew my mind, I remember having the thought of what if you lost someone, where would you even begin to look.
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zeeZ 4y ago
Looking down at the nearby highrises feels absolutely surreal. There are more observatories deeper in the city, like the Tokyo metropolitan government building (which is also free), while only about half as tall, will I think give you a nicer view of just city around you on every side.
kurthr 4y ago
I'll also recommend, the Shinjuku Government Building (for free), but also Mori Tower, Shibuya Skyview, and Tokyo Tower for ~Y1000 each.

bane 4y ago

There's a lot to be said about Tokyo and how easy it is to get around on foot and live without a car. It's kind of a surreal dreamscape of unbroken high density urbanity that makes you rethink how large highly functional cities can be. One of the challenges for seeing it on foot though is how effective the public transit is, especially the underground rail systems. You end up seeing islands around transit stations but not the stretches in between. It's totally worth it sometimes to skip the train and just walk the entire way as there's lots of interesting stuff in the "out of the way" bits of the city.

kurthr 4y ago
I'd recommend taking Yamanote-sen and Chuo/Sobu-sen and walking the interior. It saves a lot of money with a JR Rail pass not taking the subway, if you have the time and the weather is nice.
kadonoishi 4y ago
Yeah, I was getting my Japanese visa and noticed the office wasn't that far from Shinagawa Station, so I decided to walk. Everyone thought it was super-weird I would walk that, where any Tokyo native would take the bus. It was 2km, so, there's a data point on what's considered an excessive walk in Tokyo. But I'm a person who would take a whole Saturday and spend 8hr walking through San Francisco or Seattle or NYC for fun, so, biased data point.
coldtea 4y ago
>makes you rethink how large highly functional cities can be. And how exteremely safe
Barrin92 4y ago
>It's kind of a surreal dreamscape of unbroken high density urbanity the funny thing is Tokyo's not even that dense, about a third as dense as Paris or Barcelona, and very sprawlish and suburban (IIRC 75% of the city is suburbs) but transit is indeed excellent and at least they don't inhibit construction to run a housing value racket.
- 4y ago

Magi604 4y ago

I'm sure this isn't allowed anymore, but when I went to Tokyo over 10 years ago, me and my friend were just wandering around aimlessly. On a whim we decided to find the tallest building we could and go to the very top floor to see what the city looked like. So, we spotted the tallest tower near us (a totally random and generic office tower), got into the building, and took the elevator to the very top floor to peer out a window. I still remember what the view was like. It was an endless city as far as I could see.

myow 4y ago

People can also visit and go up the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building for free in Shinjyuku. A neat view of the city. Walking through Meiji Jinguu is also pretty nice. I like walking from Shinjyuku, through Meiji Jingu and getting to Shibuya (~1h) https://www.yokoso.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/tenbou/index.html https://www.yokoso.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/tenbou/index.html

kadonoishi 4y ago

Yeah, I was getting my Japanese visa and noticed the office wasn't that far from Shinagawa Station, so I decided to walk. Everyone thought it was super-weird I would walk that, where any Tokyo native would take the bus. It was 2km, so, there's a data point on what's considered an excessive walk in Tokyo. But I'm a person who would take a whole Saturday and spend 8hr walking through San Francisco or Seattle or NYC for fun.

asciiresort 4y ago
I averaged 16400 steps a day for the entire year in Japan. I don’t think walking is weird, but the route from Shinagawa station to the immigration office is weird. I’ve walked that route. It’s an industrial area and nothing to see.

billybuckwheat 4y ago

Just goes to show that there's always something new to discover, even in a place you've called home for over 20 years.