Japan is called the Land of the Rising Sun and of course that is just a name but the view of the sunrise from my hotel room on the 43rd floor in Shinjuku, Tokyo see the picture above, really was beautiful because you can see so much of the city as it comes alive. The trains below remind you of New York City and anyone from New York would feel right at home in Tokyo. We picked the Hotel Grove Shinjuku because it had just been renovated and it was right next to the main train/bus station (not the green rooftop you see on the bottom right, that is a local train station). If you want to enjoy Tokyo, here are a few things we learned:
- When you leave the USA don’t take any cash with you, the best exchange rate you can get is in the arrival airport (we landed in Haneda) and your ATM card will work there but you have to be very careful about one thing: after you enter the amount you want in Japanese Yen the ATM machine will tell you the exchange rate it is providing and it will give you a choice of whether you want to see the amount you are withdrawing in Yen or in Dollars. DO NOT press the Dollar button because then it will charge you a 3.7% surcharge for telling you the amount in US Dollars, which you can easily calculate from the exchange rate !
- Get yourself a prepaid sim card to put in your phone because Google translate does not work without an internet connection, so if you have a sim card then you can translate all the street signs and use Google Maps and most importantly you can translate the restaurant menus which are pretty much all in Japanese. So if you don’t have a sim card and you eat in a restaurant, then you have to decide what you will eat based on just the picture, otherwise you will wind up eating at Subway or McDonalds where the menu is in English (which kind of defeats the purpose of going to Japan).
- The absolute 100% first thing you need to do is buy a Suica card for each member of your family, so that you can ride the trains easily. You can buy the cards in any major station and not to worry if you have any money left of the cards because you can get a refund for most of it when you return the cards, however the line to return the cards is usually quite long and will take at least an hour.
- If you book ahead by a few months, you can get a free pass to enter the grounds of the Emperor’s palace but even from the garden the view of the palace through the fence is quite nice and makes you wonder how the Emperor’s family lived so simply!
- Tipping doesn’t seem to be expected and I did not have to give a tip anywhere, except for the cab ride back to the airport and even that was just accidental, I misread the display in the cab and gave more than I should have.
- The Bullet Train sells out weeks in advance but even without advance booking, you can take the bus to Kawaguchiko Station and if you go up the Mt. Fuji Ropeway and walk down the side of the hill, the view of Mt. Fuji is really quite nice. “The Spice Hut” near the Ropeway is a really nice place to eat lunch and is definitely the best Indian food you can get anywhere in Tokyo! The absolute worst Indian food in Tokyo is the Milan Nataraj buffet located at the Shibuya Crossing and we saw a lot of Japanese people there and I want to tell all Japanese people, if you want to taste real Indian food go to “The Spice Hut” near Kawaguchiko Station!
- Do not waste your money on the boat cruises in Tokyo, they are quite boring!
- We couldn’t get tickets to the SkyTree so we visited Tokyo Tower, that was a big mistake because the view was just slightly better than our hotel room, so be sure to buy your SkyTree tickets as soon as you get there.
- I don’t know if it is true about all the Tokyo Hotels, but the room we got at the Hotel Grove Shinjuku had a separate shower and a separate toilet which is quite convenient for families, I think if the Hotels in the USA do the same thing, it could get quite popular!