American cultural geographer picks three favourite places to go in Greater Tokyo
A “GT” Travel Experience by Ron Davidson
Japan fascinates Westerners with its rich traditions, hypermodern cityscapes, exquisite cuisine, and globalised pop culture.
With all of this packed into a moderately-sized country where people are at once cosmopolitan and polite, streets are safe, and train and bus systems form an Eighth-Wonder-of-the-World model of transportation efficiency, the siren call to travel to Japan becomes even more powerful.
Tourist websites list no shortage of “things to see and do” in the country that are no doubt all worth seeing and doing. But after visiting Japan — most often Tokyo — annually over the last 20 years, I have made a personal list of recommendations — places to go in Greater Tokyo — that don’t always appear on these websites.
Ron Davidson is a cultural geographer at California State University, Northridge, USA. His research focuses on public space in North America and Japan. He is also an author at The “Good Tourism” Blog.
In this “GT” Travel Experience I will recommend three such places:
Three places to go in Greater Tokyo
- Ministry of Defense compound, Ichigaya
- Showa Kinen Koen (‘Showa Memorial Park’), Tachikawa
- ‘The Low City’, Kikuzaka
(And don’t miss my getting around tip at the end, which will save you a lot of hassle.)
