Located on the Island of Honshu, Tokyo is the capital of Japan with about 32 million inhabitants in the greater Metropolitan Area. For me it’s not only a must visit destination but my childhood dream come true.

For many years I had always wanted to go to Japan, especially to Tokyo. I can’t tell you a special reason since I didn’t hear much about it before, but I knew I had to go there – what a coincidence I was here now.

When in Japan my friend asked “What do you want to see in Tokyo?” I had no clue, that’s why I bought my Travel Guide! I felt like a kid in a toy store. I picked carefully three wishes and her mother was so friendly to make a schedule for us: my friend, her father and me. I was quite surprised when I noticed that the small figures next to each place or sight were really a time schedule. That was a bit frightening, but it was very efficient!

Some of my experiences on that particular day (counting in Japanese)

一 We walked around in Tokyo to find a post office, as it is quite difficult to withdraw money with foreign bank cards. Visa and Mastercard are accepted to pay, but in order to get money from an ATM you really should look for the next post office. Tokyo being such a big city has a lot of districts, where did I get my money?

二 Ginza – only writing those five letters seems to cost some thousands of Yen. The real sightseeing was about to begin. Ginza in Tokyo is what the 5th Avennue is for NYC and the Champs Élysées are for Paris. Some of the brands I noticed here were Nissan, Bulgari, Cartier, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co. All these companies have buildings here – exactly, buildings on the most expensive place to rent in the world.

三 Fortunately we were rather hungry for food than for brands and made our way to our place for lunch. We went to Tsukiji, the biggest fish market in the world! We ate in a small restaurant with wonderful service – they even took off our jackets and served fresh tea whenever our cup was getting empty. We ate Sashimi (raw fish) on a rice bowl. What a taste! This is paradise! We got on the underground and arrived in…

四 Akihabara – Electronic City. You will find anything here: Television, mobiles, notebooks, camcorders. Future begins here. This is the place you can meet a lot of Otakus – freaks.

Born Generation Nintendo I felt like home in one of the shops selling old video game cartridges from Famicom (sold as NES overseas) to Gameboy and N64. This was more like a museum, they even had games for Sega Mega Drive, Dreamcast and more! I was about to buy a Super Famicom (SNES) for 3940¥, which is less than 35€!!

But honestly, not in my wildest dreams I thought I would see a shop selling a Nintendo Virtual Boy, a futuristic device of the mid-ninetess, displaying 3D videogames before any other! You need it, you get it, if you want to pay 149.000¥ – 1500€! Since it was not a success it was discontinued in less than two years so it’s quite a limited edition per se.

五 But there is more about Akihabara, there are more foreigners than in other parts of Tokyo I went to and it’smore likely to find staff at stores able to speak a bit of english. There are also メイドカフェ – Maid-cafés. A restaurant specialized in male customers where waitresses dress as maids and the visitors feel like a boss or master. I can’t tell you more because I didn’t feel like entering. But you will find a lot of girls dressed in that style in Akihabara trying to convince you (especially foreigners) to enter their venues.

By the way, it was still before 3 pm, and we made all places on time…My day isn’t over yet and there are more cultural surprises waiting for you next time when you will read about another similarity between Tokyo and Paris and what I did the rest of the day.

Even so far, I was overwhelmed with all the impressions I got in such a short time. I love making plans when I visit a city but normally I get lost in thought and discover things I didn’t think I could or I miss things because I didn’t have enough time. Tokyo is huge and my time was short, so I was really glad to have not only a great schedule but also the best tourist guides you can imagine. Some people would feel lucky to get trip like that and I know there are others who prefer to discover by theirselves.

Whichever happens to you, it doesn’t have to be better or worse, just different. Just enjoy your trip and you might not only be able to learn a lot, but to share your own culture with people of all different countries and places. Embrace the opportunity!

Best regards,

Andrés