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Uh… Mount Fuji.
The Galway Pub in Hachioji was a regular hangout during my time in Japan. Excellent place, and the cheapest pints in town (though, by most standards, STILL ridiculously expensive.)
Frickin Japanese people! Everywhere! :eek:
Highlights for me back in January 2008 were (in no particular order).
Staying at an on-sen in Kyoto and visiting Nijo Castle while it was snowing.
Taking the Shinkansen to Hiroshima and Kyoto from Tokyo.
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, especially the museum.
I spent three weeks in Tokyo and barely scratched the surface main highlights were the Tokyo Imperial Palace (you can’t go into the actual living area but there’s plenty of grounds to wander around). A day at the sumo Ryogoku Kokugikan. A drunken 5am visit to Tsukiji fish market and lots of museums. Oh and Akihabara For the electronics…
Harujuku-Shibuya (Tokyo) districts (among so many others) are fun, w/ kids dressed up in anime costumes on weekends, right accross the street from the Meiji shrine, so you get the whole kind of Shogun-meets-Bladrunner aspect of Tokyo that can be so fascinating. The Asakusa area is very traditional & historic, worth a visit too.
The Tokyo subway itself just seems miraculous to me, so clean, efficient, extensive & perfect (and the stations are Air Conditioned, good God!), makes NYC’s look like something from the Flintstones ('course it doesn’t run all night).
The coolest thing for me though was seeing a Sumo tournment. Several generations of families will go & stay all day, picnicking, drinking beer (the adults!), & watching matches. I’m jealous if you’re going!
Kamakura has a lot of amazing temples and shrines I liked it a lot.
Also eat Fugu, because that’s the only place you will ever get it.
It’s just like American Highlights except Goofus and Gallant are Baka and Hiro.
Where to start? There is so much. I’m most familiar with Tokyo, and there have been some great suggestions already, all of which I’d recommend. Let me add:
The department stores. The top one or two floors will always be an assortment of restaurants, and the basement floors will always have a grocery and/or assortment of stands for take-away food. French cheese, German delis, Chinese dim sum, pastries, wagashi, and Japanese bento boxes of every possible description.
Kappa bashi, a few blocks west of Asakusa in Tokyo. The street of restaurant supply stores.
Nikko, a huge and magnificent mausoleum complex to the east of Tokyo.
And one tip: outside the train stations there are often people handing out packets of kleenex emblazoned with advertising. Always accept them even though (I presume) you are unable to read them. Why? Because not all public restrooms, even in Tokyo, have toilet paper.
So many highlights…so little time!
Bon Odori festivals, Hot Georgia coffee on a cold train platform, Cute little kids practicing English on you, getting lost on the trains, and trying to find your way back to base.
Little bars tucked away on the street, the Tower Records in Tachikawa. Chestnut sellers roasting their wares on the sidewalk, Skiing in Sapporo, great street food, outdoor shows at Shinjuku and Shabuya.
Hiking Mt. Fuji overnight and seein the sun come up that next morning from the summit. Crazy interpretations of Christmas advertising and holiday spirit. THE best gameshows ever, and Lupin III, just to name a few.
yanceylebeef reminded me of one of the most unexpected pleasures for me - Japanese television. Truly, truly bizarre, one gameshow I saw featured a guy wearing a demon mask, a leather g-string and what looked like an orange in his butt. The premise seemed to be that the demon would break into the apartment, pretend to murder the parents and terroise the primary-school age children. That’s entertainment!
Oh and the live coverage of go complete with expert commentary was very soothing when nursing a hangover, despite the fact that I’ve never played go and do not understand any Japanese.
Speaking of hangovers, the drinking culture in Japan is awesome. Lots of interesting little bars and an acceptance of getting completely trolleyed.
Like any nation every highlight can be a two-sided coin. The wonderful homogeniousness is rather xenophobic. The detail-oriented organization on the part of the Japanese can be rather anal also. But all that being said, I like Japan. It is a society that works to find beauty in every-day situations. From the wonderful zoo in Tokyo, to the ski area made from a railroad tunnel under a mountain. There are retreats on the edges of cities that most other societies don’t create. Shopping has been almost elevated to a religion in Tokyo - then again we have worked religion to the level of shopping so…
Little niche stuff too, I remember being completely surprised by Sado Island off the west coast.
Organized baseball games over the lunch hours at factories.
Like many modern countries Japan highlights musicians, actors, and athletes the most, with some politicians and writers thrown in the mix.
I made a brief trip in 2008 and found http://www.japan-guide.com to be a very useful resource. It covers any region you want and marks what they consider the “can’t miss” parts, while still providing details on the rest. Sadly it’s become less usable since that time, but most of the information is still good.