File :-(, x, )
Anonymous
Sup /trv/
Going to Tokyo this winter.
I need some things to do...
List so far:
Disneyland
Ghibli Museum
(Hopefully) Concerts

I'm not really into animu but I'd like to see Akihabara...
What are some good places to buy clothes / music / books / video games.
I like pop culture a lot... so where should I go??

I hate old shrines and shit so none of that. :(
How easy is it for a white girl to hook up with Asian guys? Just curious. ;)
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
>Disneyland
>> Anonymous
Disneyland in Tokyo is just like the Disneyland in Anaheim. If you want to try something different I would recommend Tokyo DisneySEA

Akihabara is nice to visit even if you don't like that sort of thing very much. It is its own spectacle. Go to a strange net cafe just once and get all weirded out by the ludicrous atmosphere. Akihabara is actually really small and can be walked around in for sightseeing in 2 hours AT MOST.

As for concerts?
http://www.tokyogigguide.com/livehouses
You're welcome
>> Anonymous
OP here:
Never been to Disneyland in CA, but I have been to the one in Paris.
Is it worth it to spend a whole day in DisneySea?

Any guided tours through Akihabara in English?

And I really want to go to Countdown Japan, but I'm not sure how'd I get the tickets... do you think my hotel would be willing to order them for me and let me pay through them?
>> Anonymous
>What are some good places to buy clothes / music / books / video games.
>clothes
IMHO Japanese clothing is expensive, ugly, and generally won't fit my or your huge (presumably) American ass. Omotesando and Ginza are incredibly upper class and expensive. Uniqlo is affordable but about on-par with something like the Gap in the US. I heard from some /fa/shionista that there's a second-hand designer fashion store called RAGTAG with several locations but the best one is in Shibuya. If you must shop for clothes, shop for Japanese labels which (understandably) I hear are about 40% cheaper in Tokyo as for western labels which are significantly more expensive.
When in Japan, shop Japanese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Japanese_fashion_designers

>music
Tsutaya is a chain of video rental shops. Music CDs are expensive so almost everybody rents them from Tsutaya or some place like it and rips and burns. This is socially acceptable and practically encouraged.
>books
Kinokuniya. Junkudo. There's a 7 or 8-story (I forgot) Kinokuniya in Shinjuku. That's more than it sounds because the building is very thin and vertical. You will spend a lot of time on the escalator.
>video games
New and used game shops are all over the place in Akiba. There are shit tons of Akiba guides all over the net, in English even.
>> Anonymous
>>75050
>Any guided tours through Akihabara in English?
Maybe, but I doubt you need one.

>And I really want to go to Countdown Japan, but I'm not sure how'd I get the tickets... do you think my hotel would be willing to order them for me and let me pay through them?
Probably not.
I don't know what this Countdown is but I'll try to help decipher the ticket order page or whatever it is.
Are you talking about "Johnny's Countdown"?
>> Anonymous
>>75050
Ok I found this Countdown Japan thing
It takes place at a shitty time for travel. The country pretty much shuts down on new years. There must be a reason for this because there's another major event (Comic Market winter) which does the same.

There's this old thread where somebody asked the same question but how to get to last year's Countdown Japan. I doubt the methods have changed much if at all since then.
http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+42497
>> Anonymous
>>75048
Agreed. DisneySEA is really cool and something a little different to the whole Disneyland thing. Been to Tokyo DL twice and LA DL once. Again, Akihabara is good even as he said if you're not into that kinda stuff. Got kinda freaked when I saw CP everywhere.. Still, some cool places to go there. Definitely Shibuya for shopping - clothes, etc. Got some real awesome stuff there. Just find good department stores, etc. Also, visit some shrines and temples, I know you said you hate them but it's actually really worth it.
>> Anonymous
Thank you for the help anon.
I'm having trouble decifering all the stuff about buying tickets for Countdown Japan. I think I will wait a little before I make a decision.
http://www.rock-net.jp/fes/countdownjapan/0809/index.html
I know a little Japanese but the site it a little confusing.
Can anybody tell me the TIMES for the shows?
>> Anonymous
>>75060
Can't find anything on that site anywhere about the times of the shows. Just dates.
There are day times there but those refer to other things (some sort of raffle, box office hours, etc)
>> Anonymous
>>75035
>How easy is it for a white girl to hook up with Asian guys? Just curious. ;)
The popular opinion is that a lot of Japanese men are very timid and aloof and they may be attracted to caucasian women (as a fetish object, blame porn and Hollywood) but they simply aren't used to courting and don't have the balls to actually make the first move and the language barrier makes them too afraid to do anything around a fresh-off-the-plane westernized white woman.
Expect to be more-or-less 'invisible'. Not that I would know any of this from personal experience.

The de facto GO TO place for Japanese, both male and female, to flirt and fool around with foreigners, both male and female, and vice versa is Roppongi, which is a seedy, wild (in a bad way, IMHO) shit hole. The most notorious place is this loud raunchy kingdom of shit called GAS PANIC which you can read all about in English if you just Google it. Language barriers and cultural hangups on both ends make actual relationships difficult, but casual no-strings-attached exploratory sex with both men, women, Japanese, non-Japanese of loose character is common enough.

There's this long ass 2ch mega thread I was slowly skimming through...
http://mamono.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/dj/1199674199/
??????????????????????
??? flirt, pick up
?? foreigner fetish(ist), like "yellow fever" in reverse
>> Anonymous
For concerts in general and for the ghibli museum, the IMHO easiest way to get the tickets is using the ticket machines at Lawson convenience stores. Concerts that work this way have the concert-specific "L-code" listed somewhere in the info. Find out about concerts by going to bands' and venues' homepages: the code should be listed on one or both. That tokyogigguide thing someone mentioned earlier looks pretty sweet too.

As for buying stuff, tsutaya and book off work fine for mainstream stuff. If you're looking for specific indie bands, visual kei or what ever, you're probably going to need to find a specialist store. In general, you'll probably want to hang around shinjuku, harajuku and shibya.
>> Anonymous
>>75074
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dbraaten/867981366/sizes/l/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/onmugen/374211540/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bensan94/526040057/
>> Anonymous
For shopping, Omotesando, Aoyama, Shinjuku, Shibuya, or Harajuku are all you need. In all of them you'll find high prices and low prices, but there's quite a lot of nice vintage and thrift stores in Shibuya uf you know where to look. Don't even go near Ginza, it's horrible. Roppongi is to be avoided at night, as is Ueno (even during the day you wouldn't go there though).

Be prepared to spend money. Tokyo is one of the most expensive cities in the world. You won't travel there on the cheap.
>> Anonymous
Fashion.
I recommends going to a Omote-sandou from Harajuku. The center of a fashion scene of Japan is in this area called Minami-Aoyama.
Books.
Jinbocho is a town of a bookstore and a secondhand bookseller. Many stores of a musical instrument or sporting goods also exist.
It recommends visiting bookstore "VILLAGE VANGUARD".
http://maps.google.co.jp/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=35.697465,139.760883&spn=0.003219,0.003594&
amp;t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=35.696771,139.760683&panoid=QuAuYP-Li5-jr1iK1RvKBQ&amp
;cbp=1,152.5661563867923,,0,13.713114838912865
>> Anonymous
>>75091
????????????
>> Anonymous
>>75091
?????????
>> Anonymous
>>75095
????
>> Anonymous
Thank you kind anons!
Also, lol.
Uhm, anyway, more about the concert, through some of those websites, or even the numbers you can call or w/e you anons were speaking of, is it possible to order the tickets w/ an American address?
I'm thinking if I wait until I get there, Dec. 25, they will probably be sold out. :(

Also I'm taking my mother with me and she's curious if Mt. Fuji is worth it? She really wants to go. (Although I don't... but, yeah.)
>> Anonymous
Shimo-Kitazawa (on Odakyu and Keio Inokashira line) is a nice place for a stroll. Many small shops, from used kimonos to WW2 stuff. And not that expensive.
>> Anonymous !WeEAbOO0TE
>>75211
>this winter
>Mt. Fuji
lol wut
what are you gonna do, stare at it from below?
>> Anonymous
God, OP is an idiot.
>> Anonymous
OP here;
we don't want to climb it or anything just go look at it from afar.
"idiot": i'm not denying it.
i've never been before so obviously i'll be a bit ignorant. they don't teach us anything about japan, so... yeah.
>> Anonymous
>>75383
be careful about the asian guys you meet there. Most japanese guys are really shy around foreign girls, and the ones who arent are usually just plain nasty.

Watch yourself in the subways too. You might like the attention at first but you'll feel dirty in about 2 hours. Trust.