Tokyo - cheat sheet

Don’t forget

• Offer your business card (meishi) using two hands, with the name clearly visible and the right way up from the reader’s perspective. Meishi should ideally be produced from the breast/hip pocket of your jacket, not from your trouser pockets.

• Remove your shoes when entering a Japanese home. Shoe incidents (where someone walks off in the wrong pair) are a constant hazard. But if you’ve got big Western feet, you should be safe.

• Dinner is served early—from 6pm—and traditional restaurants shut up shop by 9pm.

• Tipping is almost unheard of. Many restaurants and all hotels add a 10% service charge to the final bill and will not expect anything extra.
• Hello = konnichiwa
Thank you = arigatoo
Goodbye = sayonara
Do you speak English? = eigo o hanashi masu ka?


Beat the jet lag

Great Edo Hot Springs
Aomi 2-57
Koto-Ku
Tokyo 135-0064
Tel: + 81 (03) 5500-1126
Yurikamome Line from Shimbashi

Unwind at Tokyo's best hot-springs spa.


Hotels with a difference

Decadent:
Four Seasons
Pacific Century Place
1-11-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-Ku
Tel: + 81 (03) 5222-5305
Website

Expect an exclusive atmosphere, a central location—steps from Tokyo's main station—and prices to match.

Stylish:

Cerulean Tower
26-1, Sakuragaoka-cho
Shibuya-ku
Tel: +81 3 3476 3000
Website

Try to stay in a corner room for the best views at this smart hotel near Tokyo's business hub.

Only in Tokyo:

Yoshimizu City Inn
3-11-3 Ginza
Chuo-ku
Tel: + 81 (03) 3248 4432


This pristine new inn, modelled on the traditional Japanese ryokan, offers a complete break from the usal business hotels.

Best restaurants

For a splurge:
Beige
Ginza Chanel Building 10F
3-5-3 Ginza, Chuo-ku
Tel: + 81 (03) 5159 5500

Alain Ducasse's latest restaurant is everything you would expect from a chef with a fistful of Michelin stars to his name.
Takamura
3-4-27 Roppongi
Minato-ku
Tel: + 81 (03) 3585-6600

Japanese haute cuisine, served behind a bamboo grove in a private house in Roppongi.

Business lunch:
Sens & Saveurs
Marunouchi Building, 35th floor
Marunouchi 2-4-1, Chiyoda-Ku
Tel: + 81 (03) 5220-2701

This boldly designed French restaurant perches on the 35th and 36th floors of the Marunouchi building, just outside Tokyo Station.
so/ra/si/o
46F Caretta Shiodome
1-8-1 Higashi Shinbashi
Minato-ku
Tel: + 81 (03) 6215 8055

Views don't come much better than those from this sleek restaurant on the 46th floor of the Caretta tower in downtown Tokyo. Fortunately, the fusion cooking is good, too.


Gifts to bring home

Ukiyo-e (Japanese woodblock prints)

Yukata (cotton house robes) and silk kimonos

Good bottles of sake (try Tamano-hikari or Uragasumi)


Sights to behold

Mori Tower
Roppongi Hills
Website

The 54-storey Mori Tower, the centrepiece of the 26-acre site, is the most fashionable viewing platform for visitors to the city.

Tsukiji Fishmarket
5-2-1 Tsukiji
Chuo-ku
Tel: +81 (03) 3542-1111

A pre-dawn, watery Noah's Ark.


Useful numbers

American Embassy
+81 (03) 3224-5000

Australian Embassy
+81 (03) 5232-4111

British Embassy
+81 (03) 5211-1100

Canadian Embassy
+81 (03) 5412-6200

Telephone code for Tokyo
+3; Japan country code +81

Tokyo English Lifeline
+81 (03) 5774-0992 (daily, 9am-12.30 pm; l.30-4pm; 7-11pm).

Tokyo Medical Clinic
+81 (03) 3436-3028

Tokyo Tourist Information
+81 (3) 5221-9084 (10am-6pm; some staff speak English)

To phone abroad from Tokyo
001, 0041 or 0061 + country code + area code minus first 0