Posted by Sarah on Tuesday, 9. February 1999 at 00:48 Bali Time:
In Reply to: Tokyo before Bali posted by Cindy on Sunday, 7. February 1999 at 08:21 Bali Time:
I've been living in Japan for about 4 years and my advice is that if you travel out of the airport area you are liable to get caught up in a lot of commuter traffic and not have the time to really see anything.
True, staying in the hotel for dinner will be expensive but if you go anywhere else you may or may not strike lucky in finding something that you can eat, recognise or afford.
I've spent quite a few nights in airport hotels, mainly in Osaka, but I think ANYWHERE you go , even in the airport vicinity will be a culture eye-opener. As someone else said, aim for the restaurants with the plastic food in the window but don't worry about taking the easy option - a lot of Japanese food is sold the same way even for the Japanese. The only difference is they don't have to point! Food suitable for the palate? - Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Japanese food especially tessa - raw blowfish which supposedly some people have died eating, but it took me 3 months to be able to swallow an innocent peace of raw tuna. It does take getting used to. Other things are more palatable for the western family, for example "ton-katsu" - pork in breadcrumbs, served with rice, miso soup and sauce for dipping which is similar to worcester sauce. "Yaki-niku" - actually korean in origin and is basically raw beef and other bits which you cook on a grill/mini-barbeque in at your table.
I'll finish now in case you are regulars of Japanese restaurants and think my advice is preschoolar - it's just in Britain, we don't have many Japanese restaurants and it took me a long time to figure out what there was.
Good luck - leave me a message here if you need any more advice.