Tokyo

Japan's official currency is the yen (¥). In 2026 the exchange rate hovers around ¥150 per dollar and ¥27 per real, which made the city noticeably cheaper for visitors from abroad than it was ten years ago. To give you a sense of prices: coffee at a convenience store ¥130–200 and at a street café ¥450–800; a bowl of ramen ¥900–1,400; a set lunch (teishoku) ¥900–1,600; izakaya dinner with drinks ¥3,000–5,000 per person; a 500 ml can of beer at a convenience store ¥250–350 and a draft at a bar ¥500–900; a subway trip ¥150–330; a short taxi ride ¥1,300–1,800; a dorm bed ¥3,500–6,500; a business hotel with a small, clean room ¥12,000–22,000 a night. There's no tipping anywhere: it's common to leave change on the table and have the waiter run after you on the sidewalk to give it back. Cards work in nearly every formal place, but small izakaya, festival stalls, temples, and some ramen shops still take cash only: carry ¥5,000–10,000 in cash. ATMs that accept foreign cards 24 hours a day exist in every 7-Eleven and at post office branches. Consumption tax is 10%, and there's a tax exemption for tourists on purchases over ¥5,000 with a passport, but watch the date: starting November 1, 2026, the exemption stops being applied at the store and becomes a refund at the airport, subject to receipt verification. Tokyo's lodging tax today is ¥100 per night for rooms of ¥10,000 to ¥14,999 and ¥200 above that, and becomes 3% of the nightly rate starting April 2027. The country's exit tax rose to ¥3,000 in July 2026 and already comes built into the airfare.

Narita sits 60–80 km from downtown

Narita sits 60 to 80 km east of the center, which already tells you something about the scale of the thing. JR's Narita Express reaches Tokyo Station in about 55 minutes for about ¥3,100, the Keisei Skyliner goes to Nippori and Ueno in 41 minutes for about ¥2,600, and express buses cost ¥1,300–1,500 and take 80 to 110 minutes. A taxi from Narita to the center runs over ¥20,000 and rarely pays off. Haneda is about 15 km to the south and is much more convenient: the monorail takes 13 to 18 minutes to Hamamatsuchō for about ¥520, and the Keikyū train reaches Shinagawa in 11 to 14 minutes for about ¥330; there are buses in the early hours, because neither the monorail nor the train run all night. Check the airport on your ticket before leaving home: flights sold as “Tokyo” land at either one, and the difference is an hour and a half of travel time.

Metro, Toei, JR and the loop line coexist

Within the city, the Tokyo Metro subway (9 lines), the municipal Toei subway (4 lines), JR East lines (the Yamanote loop, the Chūō, the Sōbu), and half a dozen private railways that carry on to the suburbs all run side by side, often running into the subway with no change of train. Single tickets cost ¥150–330 per ride, but the standard is the prepaid card: regular Suica and Pasmo cards went back on sale in March 2025, and for visitors there are the Welcome Suica (28 days, no deposit), Welcome Suica Mobile on the iPhone (since March 2025, 180 days, accepts foreign cards), and the Tourist Pasmo, launched in May 2026. The same card pays for buses, station lockers, and convenience stores, which simplifies the whole trip. The 24-, 48-, or 72-hour Tokyo Subway Ticket (¥1,000/¥1,500/¥2,000 for an adult since March 14, 2026) is valid only on Metro and Toei lines, not on JR, and the Japan Rail Pass makes no sense if you're staying in the city. Trains stop between midnight and one in the morning, there's no night subway, and taxis charge about ¥500 at flag fall with a 20% surcharge between 10pm and 5am; the GO and S.RIDE apps work better than Uber. The city is flat in the east and walkable within a radius of two or three kilometers; bicycles are common, but since April 2026 adult cyclists get traffic tickets for offenses such as using a phone while riding.

The bullet train to Kyoto and Osaka

The Shinkansen leaves from Tokyo Station and Shinagawa and reaches Kyoto in 2 hours 15 minutes and Osaka in 2 hours 30 minutes. It's the fastest and most expensive way to cross the country, and it's the train the Japan Rail Pass needs to ride to pay for itself. Buy tickets on the JR Central website or at the station machines. Kamakura, Nikkō, and Hakone are off that line and are reached by local and express trains leaving from Tokyo, Asakusa, and Shinjuku.

Hiroshima on the same corridor

Hiroshima is about four hours from Tokyo on the Tōkaidō and Sanyō lines. The Peace Memorial Museum and Miyajima call for an overnight stay rather than a same-day return.

Tokyo is one of the safest big cities in the world, and violent crime against foreigners is rare: a forgotten item is usually handed in at the station counter or the kōban, the corner police box, and often makes its way back to its owner. What calls for attention are earthquakes, summer heat, and a few nighttime scams. Buildings have followed a seismic code since 1981, revised in 2000, and in a quake the procedure is to stay where you are, move away from glass, and follow staff instructions; install an app with early warnings, such as the official Safety Tips, and know that September 1 is the national drill day. Between July and September, heatstroke sends thousands of people to the hospital every year, and the official advice is water, salt, and shade every hour; in the same season, typhoons cancel trains with a day's notice. On packed trains there is groping (chikan), the reason for women-only cars at rush hour, and anyone who experiences it should press the emergency button or call the platform staff. In Kabukichō and Roppongi, touts approach tourists on the sidewalk and take them to bars that present inflated bills of tens of thousands of yen, so don't follow anyone who calls out to you on the street. Drug laws are strict and zero-tolerance, including for tiny amounts and for medicines common in other countries that are banned here, so check your pill box before you fly.

Don't eat while walking

Street food is eaten standing still, next to the stall that sold it, and the trash goes back to that stall. The exception is inside a festival ground. The same goes for drinking: an open bottle in the middle of the sidewalk is frowned on, and Shibuya bans drinking in public during certain hours near the station.

Silence on the train

Phones on silent, and no calls inside the car; conversation, if any, stays quiet. A large backpack goes in front of your body or in the overhead rack. During peak hours there are women-only cars, marked in pink on the platform floor.

Queuing and boarding order

Marks on the platform floor show where the doors will stop; the line forms there, and people getting off go first, through the middle. On a Tokyo escalator, anyone standing still keeps to the left (it’s the opposite in Osaka), though operators have been asking since 2024 that no one walk on the escalator at all.

Shoes off at the genkan: the exact spot

Whenever there's a step at the entrance (genkan), shoes stay below it: in homes, temples, some restaurants, store fitting rooms, and ryokan. There are indoor slippers and, often, a separate pair just for the bathroom, which never leaves it.

Wash at the shower before entering the tub

At onsen and sentō, a full wash happens sitting at the shower before you get in; the tub is shared common water, no soap and no swimsuit go in it, and the small hand towel never touches the water. Tattoos still bar entry at many establishments, though the number that accept them is growing.

Money on the little tray

When paying, bills go on the plastic tray at the counter, not into the clerk's hand, and change comes back the same way. Business cards are given and received with both hands and read before being put away. Never straight into a back pocket.

Buying the Japan Rail Pass just for Tokyo

Buying the Japan Rail Pass for a trip that stays in Tokyo. It costs ¥50,000 for seven days since the 2023 price increase and isn't valid on the subway. It only pays off on the bullet train; in the city, a Suica or Pasmo card covers everything.

Planning the day by distance, not by line

Planning the day by distance on the map and not by train line. It's a common mistake on day one: two points three kilometers apart can take two transfers and thirty minutes, and going from JR to the subway means passing through different companies' ticket gates; in Shinjuku, picking the wrong exit out of more than two hundred costs fifteen minutes on foot.

The auction moved to Toyosu in 2018

Going to Tsukiji expecting the tuna auction. The wholesale market moved to Toyosu in October 2018: the auction is there, starts before 6am and the upper walkway has limited access. What's left in Tsukiji is the outer market, which is great, but it's street commerce, never an auction.

Counting on cards and running out of cash

Counting on cards everywhere and running out of cash. Festival stalls, temples, seven-seat izakaya and many ticket-machine ramen-ya only take bills; ordinary bank ATMs tend to reject foreign cards, and the ones that work are at 7-Eleven stores and post offices.

Having lunch at 3:30pm or dinner at 10pm

Showing up for lunch at 3:30pm or for dinner at 10pm. Many good places close between 2:30pm and 5:30pm and stop taking orders an hour before closing; and the time to head home is that of the last train, between midnight and one, after which a taxi to the suburbs costs ¥8,000–15,000.

すみません: sumimasen (sumimassên)

Excuse me / sorry / hey, waiter. The single most useful word in the country. It covers all three.

ありがとうございます: arigatō gozaimasu (arigatô gozaimáss)

Thank you very much. The short form, “arigatō,” is for people you already know.

英語のメニューはありますか: eigo no menyū wa arimasu ka (êigo no meniú ua arimáss ka)

Do you have an English menu?

お会計お願いします: okaikei onegai shimasu (okaikêi oneguai shimáss)

The check, please. In many places you carry your order slip to the register on your way out.

…はどこですか: … wa doko desu ka (… ua dokô déss ka)

Where is…? Say the name of the place first, and point at your phone's map.

大丈夫です: daijōbu desu (daidjôbu déss)

It's all right / no, thank you. Good for turning down a bag, a straw, or a street approach without sounding rude.

Tokyo occupies the southern edge of the Kantō plain, the largest in Japan, at the western end of Tokyo Bay. The metropolis administers 2,194 km², a figure that includes the Izu and Ogasawara islands, the latter more than 1,000 km to the south; the 23 special wards together total about 627 km². The relief divides the city in two: to the west, the Musashino terrace, 20 to 40 m above sea level, is the Yamanote, the “high city” of the old samurai lots and expensive residential districts; east of the Imperial Palace begins the alluvial plain, the shitamachi or “low city,” built on river sediment and landfill, with stretches below sea level protected by levees and pumps. Three rivers organize the east: the Sumida, the Arakawa (diverted by an artificial channel completed in 1930 precisely to spare the center from flooding), and the Tama, which forms the southern boundary. The climate is humid subtropical: summer of 30 to 36 °C with nights above 25 °C, a dry and sunny winter, a rainy season in June, and typhoons between August and October; the heat-island effect has raised the local average temperature by about 3 °C in a century, well above the global average. The grid has no single center: the Yamanote loop line, 34.5 km and 30 stations, stitches together the major terminals, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebukuro, Ueno, Tokyo, Shinagawa, and each of them works as a center of its own, with its department store and its bar district. Addresses don't follow street names but blocks numbered by order of registration (chōme-banchi-gō), which makes a phone map practically mandatory. Three tectonic plates meet beneath the region, and the metropolitan government works with a probability on the order of 70% of a magnitude-7 earthquake in the region within the next 30 years.

The neighborhoods of manga, anime and cinema

The country's big manga publishers sit between Jinbōchō and Iidabashi, a few blocks from the roughly 130 secondhand bookstores that make Jinbōchō the largest used-book district on the planet, and anime production is spread across dozens of small studios in Nerima and Suginami, residential wards with no storefront to announce what goes on inside. The city's cinema reads in three layers: the domestic interiors of Yasujirō Ozu, the devastated Tokyo of “Godzilla” (1954), which restages the 1945 bombing with a monster in place of the B-29s, and the city of routine and cleaning in “Perfect Days” (2023).

Kabuki, sumo, baseball, and live music, each at its own address

Cultural life works by address, which helps a lot if you arrived yesterday. The Kabuki-za in Ginza, rebuilt in 2013 on the 1889 theater, sells single-act tickets, with seats reserved online the day before or unreserved seats at the box office on the day, subject to availability. Sumo holds three of its six annual tournaments in the city, at the Ryōgoku Kokugikan, in January, May, and September, fifteen days each; baseball splits the city between the Yomiuri Giants, at the Tokyo Dome, and the Yakult Swallows, at Jingū Stadium. Live music happens in basement “live houses” in Kōenji and Shimokitazawa and in jazz kissa, listening cafés where conversation is discouraged and the record plays at high volume.

The calendar and the last train

Religion shows up as a calendar, not as doctrine: Shinto for birth, marriage and New Year; Buddhism for funerals and for Obon in August, when the city empties out. Tiny bars define the night: Golden Gai has about 200 of them in six alleys, many with six seats and a table charge, some with a sign saying they only take regulars, which is a consequence of the size of the room. The last train, between midnight and 1am, is the city's social clock: either you run for the station, or you stay until five. That is the whole explanation for the number of karaoke places and saunas open all night.

“Tokyo Story” (Yasujirō Ozu, 1953)

An elderly couple from the countryside visits their children in the city and discovers that no one has time for them. It shows the Tokyo of the early reconstruction years and explains, without ever saying so, why the Japanese family scattered across the railway suburbs.

“Norwegian Wood” (Haruki Murakami, 1987)

A novel set in the student Tokyo of 1969, its city walked block by block, on foot. It works as an emotional map of Shinjuku, Waseda, and the western suburbs before the property bubble.

“Perfect Days” (Wim Wenders, 2023)

Wim Wenders's film follows Hirayama, played by Kōji Yakusho, a man who cleans public restrooms in Shibuya and repeats the same routine every day, from canned coffee to the cassette tape in his van. It shows up close the restrooms of The Tokyo Toilet project, commissioned from architects between 2020 and 2023, and the care for service and order that visitors notice on the street.